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Interconnects, speaker wire, power cords. Ask the Cable Guys.

I agree mostly, but it gets tricky from here

I mostly agree on the power cord preference….sort of. If you have “decent mid level ICs already, then the power cords seem to have a bigger effect…sort of. The crazy thing about power cords are that they tend to be more system/component dependent than ICs so you have to have more patience and experiment around a bit more w/ placement, in my experience anyway. This of course assumes you have spent the relatively small amount to run your dedicated line and install a premium AC outlet (Acme silver cryo for me after comparing a few outlets) IF possible. The exception being if you mostly listen to, or only have a digital source, then the DIGITAL cable is where the money should go! Once having settled on my Omega Mikro Ebony digital I found a few power cord tweaks were in order so getting what you want to live w/ there worked for me.

Hate to get too far off track but once you accept the importance of power cords/AC effect then one has to think about the power line conditioner effect too! Having heard good stuff from Monster, Chang, Shunyata (original Hydra) and Audio Magic (original Stealth w/ Acme cryo outlet and a digital stealth to separate things) I think the Stealth is the way to go, but the choice isn’t really the point here. The point being that once you have a great PLC THEN you can build your PC and ICs around it. The Stealth had such an impact that my choice in PCs and ICs were greatly affected. Had I stayed w/ a Hydra for instance then I would have need different power cords to speed things up a bit and give me some more top end extension. FWIW, my “magic bullet” is the Stealths w/ one Viper feeding the digital stealth and one Viper on the AES Super amp DJH version, and one Cobra on the Theta DB II transport. This gives me the best of both worlds sort of like taking them both and building one big PLC. I get the Shunyata house sound in the bottom regions and wrap around soundstage w/ the incredibly FAST and transparent sound that only the Stealth has provided here.

Back to the ?. IMS the DAC to pre is the most critical. I tried it the other way but I got the biggest bang out of running the OM Ebony from DAC to pre. I have heard many friends tell me differently though in that the pre to amp is where it’s supposed to go. However, IMS it didn’t work that way and my thoughts are once it’s lost you can never get it back thus the importance of the digital cable and PLC choices (if you ever want to go the PLC route?) and then best ICs from source to amp



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  • I agree mostly, but it gets tricky from here - blazter 08/24/0321:22:34 08/24/03 (0)


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