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RE: Power cord for Vandersteen 5A's

Posted by stehno (M) on May 9, 2015 at 22:34:19

In Reply to: RE: Power cord for Vandersteen 5A's posted by SgreenP@MSN.com on May 9, 2015 at 21:13:29:

Absolutely. And I apologize for being a bit more forthcoming than you asked. But as you can see there often times is more than meets the naked eye.

Moving on to your original question about upgraded cables.

It's good to know that you are skeptical of Vandersteen's take on power cables. Too often we believe that because a mfg'er is an expert at making a certain product, he must be an expert at everything he says or makes. There's plenty of examples but just one example is the mtg'er/designer of my fabulous line conditioners. The power cords are fixed and I'd been told by somebody who knows the designer well that he does not believe in the burn-in process. That's nearly impossible for me to believe that somebody so talented in one area, actually several because also supposedly made fabulous preamps and amps but I've never hear them.

Moving on. do you know for a fact that other IEC connectors won't fit or are you just speculating? To the best of my knowledge nearly every IEC connector on the market should fit the standard-sized IEC inlet at the amp.

I've owned power cables upwards of $2500 and in one recent audio show a distributor asked that I try his $6000 PC. I did, but I didn't have the heart to tell him his $6k PC was no better than my custom $100 DIY power cable that included cryo-treated wiring, and Furutech plug and IEC connector. BTW, supposedly everything Furutech makes is cryo-treated.

In fact, I sold my $2500 PC and kept my $100 DIY PC.

As you know, there are many aftermarket PC's available but in my limited experience, they generally don't make near as much of an improvement as many lead us to believe. But my experience is limited.

There's several ways to go about getting the most out of power cables.

1. Spend $300 - $10,000 per cable.

2. Buy the parts yourself and built your own for $100 - maybe $500.

3. Take whatever cables you currently own and send them to Jena Labs where they will cryo-treat them via the superior full-immersion method at a cost of say $150 - $300 total. But you could be without cables for 2 weeks or more.

In my limited experience, cryo-treating cables is the great equalizer and last year when I hosted an event that included Jena Labs being present, during the Q&A time, I asked Mike Crock a question about this subject matter and he agreed that the normally inferior uncryo-ed cable should sound better than far more expensive cable that was cryo'ed.

That said, there is a 4th option.

4. Purchase some inexpensive but reasonable quality-oriented power cables that are marked as Hospital grade or audio grade for about $40 each. I'd buy one for every component and active speaker. Then send those in to Jena Labs.

Ok, one more.

5. Cryo-parts.com sells some hospital grade power cables that are already cryo-treated for about $35 each. I'm not sure if they use the inferior vapor cryo'ing method or the superior full-immersion cryo'ing method that Jena Labs uses. The difference between the two methods is quite audible.

But I say yes about an aftermarket power cable's potential for improved performance. If for example when upgrading some component and I say it seems to be about a 5% improvement in overall musicality, that subjective 5% implies to me that the improvement is barely audible. For my best power cable upgrade, I'd venture about 6 or 7% at most. Whereas, with superior line conditioning I'd use a number around 30 or 35% or more.

In my experience, $30 - $500 is about as much as I'd be willing to invest in upgrading a single power cable from standard one. Especially when cryo-treating is rather inexpensive.

Edits: 05/09/15

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