Here tis

Oh, it makes the music so much better when yuo plug it into the wall with a diamond-plated power cable.



NORDOST/VALHALLA AC POWER CORD

The Absolute Sound Golden Ear Award Winner!

See Harry Pearson’s rave review in the Dec/Jan 2005 issue of tas!

Power delivery is the foundation for your entire audio system, and as for a power delivery cable with Nordost’s Valhalla namesake, you knew it wasn’t going to be cheap, right? Well, how does an audiophile justify a $2500 power cable purchase? Within seconds of hearing the Valhalla, you’ll know! Not just another step-up from the Shiva and Vishnu, the Valhalla transports your system performance into the stratosphere. You can read all the hype and reviews, but we recommend hearing Valhalla in your system. Music Direct keeps a couple around for audition purposes, you may have to wait to get your chance to hear them, but when you finally hear what they do…these are dangerous!

“the Valhalla signal leads [interconnects and speaker cables] were a towering achievement, but one that has now been eclipsed by the power leads. The arguments for using the Valhalla power cords are even more compelling. Listen and you will buy!” – Roy Gregory, HiFi+, Issue 28

I really need to start a business seperating audiophiles from their obvious excesses of money. Most seem more than happy to just throw money away on the stupidest crap!! Not only is the cable a con, so is the amp.

That's called having "stupid money."

There's a sucker born every minute. Go capitalism!

geesh F.C. board much?

P. T. Barnum, "Why didn't I think of that?!?!?!!!"

Look up stuff by Kimber Kable ... equally pricey ... like everybody has said - sucker born every minute...

These are as essential for pure sound quality as the little itsy-bitsy Harley-Davidson logo allen head screw covers are to a true H-D individualist.

In other words, if you have to ask why, you'll just never get it.

Easier to make a million with fishermen than audiophiles.....there's a lot more of them...

I'll stick with 16 gauge zip cord--it's great for all audio applications: power, speakers, etc.  Good in the car and the hizzouse!

You just know someone out there will INSIST that his amp sounds better because of it.

Those 6 feet of $2750 cable more than make up for the pennies-per-foot 14ga. Romex that this thing is plugged into in the first place.

That'll go good with the $485 volume knob!!!
www.referenceaudiomods.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=NOB_C37_C&Category_Code=VOLUME&Product_Count=2

I have a pretty good "mid-fi" home heater.  The five speakers cost me about $2500, the preamp and the amplifier cost me about $1400.  I don't use the el-cheapo wires that come with VCRs when you buy them, but one or two notches up, and it's penty good enough.  I think I spent MAYBE $100 total for all my interconnects and speaker wire.  And my system sounds pretty damned good.

Although my main towers can handle down to 30 or so Hz, I do want a good subwoofer.  

But I've never felt the need to upgrade my power cables for anything.  What's the point in upgrading that two meters from the amp to the wall jack if what's behind the wall jack is standard contractor-grade 14-gauge copper wire?

We see them spending excessive amount of money on stupid gadgets, they say the same thing to us with respect to firearms.  Many of us here on this board have multiple firearms, some are collectors, some need to expand their operation environment, and some just want more.  We all can justify another firearm, so are the audiophiles can justify spending thousands on a single channel vacuum tube amp.

Flame on.

I don't get any noize out of my $40 Monster cables. My $700 Yamaha amp doesn't know the difference and my $900 Klipsch speakers certainly don't care.

And you know what?

If I wanted to go real crazy, I'd just run everything through my Crest power amp for the PA and the rebuilt Turbosound cabinets. Paid a whopping $1800 for those.

I used to think it was a bunch of crap too.  Until I went back to a shop to listen to some speakers that I had really like during my previous visit.  They just sounded differnt, with none of the special stuff I heard the first time.  The guy that worked there thought the same thing.  We listened to a few different tracks that I had listened to the other time and couldn't figure it out.  Finally we look for a loose wire or something and found that the interconnects had been swapped out with some crappy ones.  We pulled those and put back the other ones and there it was, the difference.  

I think the money is better spent elsewhere, but the general rule of thumb is that 10% of your system cost should be alloted for cables.  I think that is reasonable.  

There is a lot of insanely idiotic spending in the high-end audio hobby, but good cables make a difference and different cables sound different.  I have heard it, without even knowing I was listening to a different cable.

Even with my modest system, I can hear the difference between various interconnects and speaker wires. YMMV.

Quoted: I used to think it was a bunch of crap too.  Until I went back to a shop to listen to some speakers that I had really like during my previous visit.  They just sounded differnt, with none of the special stuff I heard the first time.  The guy that worked there thought the same thing.  We listened to a few different tracks that I had listened to the other time and couldn't figure it out.  Finally we look for a loose wire or something and found that the interconnects had been swapped out with some crappy ones.  We pulled those and put back the other ones and there it was, the difference.   I think the money is better spent elsewhere, but the general rule of thumb is that 10% of your system cost should be alloted for cables.  I think that is reasonable.   There is a lot of insanely idiotic spending in the high-end audio hobby, but good cables make a difference and different cables sound different.  I have heard it, without even knowing I was listening to a different cable.

Umm, this is a POWER cable: Used to plug the amp into the power outlet. It's not a speaker cable.

Quoted: Quoted: I used to think it was a bunch of crap too.  Until I went back to a shop to listen to some speakers that I had really like during my previous visit.  They just sounded differnt, with none of the special stuff I heard the first time.  The guy that worked there thought the same thing.  We listened to a few different tracks that I had listened to the other time and couldn't figure it out.  Finally we look for a loose wire or something and found that the interconnects had been swapped out with some crappy ones.  We pulled those and put back the other ones and there it was, the difference.   I think the money is better spent elsewhere, but the general rule of thumb is that 10% of your system cost should be alloted for cables.  I think that is reasonable.   There is a lot of insanely idiotic spending in the high-end audio hobby, but good cables make a difference and different cables sound different.  I have heard it, without even knowing I was listening to a different cable. Umm, this is a POWER cable: Used to plug the amp into the power outlet. It's not a speaker cable.

True.  I think you might have a point, although power supply is supposed to make a difference, depending.  That is assuming you have good cabling in the wall and a good connection to the outside world.  It does reach a point where it's just silly, but to each their own...

amps already have capacitors and such in them to regulate power flow. While hyper-expensive speaker cables could concievably offer some miniscule advantage, a power cable will do exactly zilch.

Quoted: I used to think it was a bunch of crap too.  Until I went back to a shop to listen to some speakers that I had really like during my previous visit.  They just sounded differnt, with none of the special stuff I heard the first time.  The guy that worked there thought the same thing.  We listened to a few different tracks that I had listened to the other time and couldn't figure it out.  Finally we look for a loose wire or something and found that the interconnects had been swapped out with some crappy ones.  We pulled those and put back the other ones and there it was, the difference.   I think the money is better spent elsewhere, but the general rule of thumb is that 10% of your system cost should be alloted for cables.  I think that is reasonable.   There is a lot of insanely idiotic spending in the high-end audio hobby, but good cables make a difference and different cables sound different.  I have heard it, without even knowing I was listening to a different cable.

Interference sucks doesnt it

For the price of one AC power cord and one wooden knob - I could easily get most of the bands I like to actually play in my living room the next time they're on tour.

If you've got the dough to spend on just the power cable, go for it. I've got Monster cables and whatnot for my admittedly "mid-fi" (thanks for the term) system. I've spent silly amounts of money on things I wanted... Some stuff is just pricey.

BTW the biggest difference I got in reducing speaker hiss and noise was when I got a decent (Monster) power line conditioner. I could see how a cable might become part of the equation.

A power line conditioner can be useful, especially if your home's wiring or your power company is a little flaky.  But most of my expensive gear comes with a pretty heavy-duty power cable already.  That should be all I need in that area, I would think.

All I can think of is Steve Martin's old "Googlephonic Stereo" routine.

I don't mind if someone wants to spend a few extra $$$ on some decent cables for ANALOG interconnects. RCA patch cords, that sort of thing. Higher-priced cables usually have better shielding, and you might be able to tell a difference between $30 cables and $5 cables.

What kills me though are the insanely priced DIGITAL optical and coaxial cables. Sheesh. They're DIGITAL, for crying out loud. The PCM data either makes it from your DVD player to your receiver, or it doesn't. There's no in-between. The PCM data is either completely intact at the destination or it's not.

The idea that a $2750 power cable "sounds" better than a standard power cable (assuming the standard cable is of sufficiently large guage to handle the load) is not only amusing, it points to the shear ignorance of electronics on the part of these hobbiests. First of all, unless every inch of wire from the power plant (including the generator windings), all the high voltage cross country lines, through every transformer, through the walls of your house, and including the house (and line) circuit breakers and the transformer in your amplifier, that little 6 foot piece of shit cannot physically have any effect on the overall conductance of the circuit. Furthermore, even if you did pay to have all that infrastructure replaced with $500 per foot Snake-Oil brand wire, it would still be impossible for it to affect the sound since power isn't in the signal chain. If you're getting noise and hiss in your speakers, and a power conditioner helped it, that tells me that the power supply in the amp, pre-amp, or signal source is crap. I don't care if it did cost $2500, if it hisses it's crap.

As to interconnects, so long as the ones you're using have sufficient shielding and the connections are good (gold plating helps), there shouldn't be any appreciable difference. Most times when a system displays dramatic differences in cables of at least good quality, it's because the devices connected to either end of that cable are poorly designed and succeptible to small differences in load and impedence. Since impedence varies with frequency, it is understandable that an unstable amplifier circuit (be it input or output, pre-amp or power-amp) design might be likely to display noticeable differences with different cables.

Honestly, the only thing that really cracks me up about the interconnect/speaker/power cable con artists is the idea that they can convince people that the cables COST so damn much!!  One glance at a Kimber Cable catalog price sheet will demonstrate what I'm talking about. There's no way any of those cables costs more than about $50 each to make, yet people willingly cough up a thousand dollars or more for a piece of friggin wire!

Really, I need to look into opening a business in that field. I can spout bullshit about the advantages of my own super esoteric cables over theirs, and that seems to be the extent of the skills needed to succeed. That and the gall to claim they are worth thousands of dollars.

Quoted: I don't mind if someone wants to spend a few extra $$$ on some decent cables for ANALOG interconnects. RCA patch cords, that sort of thing. Higher-priced cables usually have better shielding, and you might be able to tell a difference between $30 cables and $5 cables. What kills me though are the insanely priced DIGITAL optical and coaxial cables. Sheesh. They're DIGITAL, for crying out loud. The PCM data either makes it from your DVD player to your receiver, or it doesn't. There's no in-between. The PCM data is either completely intact at the destination or it's not.

Oh man don't get me started!!!

Quoted: Quoted: I don't mind if someone wants to spend a few extra $$$ on some decent cables for ANALOG interconnects. RCA patch cords, that sort of thing. Higher-priced cables usually have better shielding, and you might be able to tell a difference between $30 cables and $5 cables. What kills me though are the insanely priced DIGITAL optical and coaxial cables. Sheesh. They're DIGITAL, for crying out loud. The PCM data either makes it from your DVD player to your receiver, or it doesn't. There's no in-between. The PCM data is either completely intact at the destination or it's not. Oh man don't get me started!!!

But...but...but...but...What about digital jitter?!  You don't want the jitter monster to get you, do you!  Buy my $300 digital cable, and say goodbye to the jitter monster forever!!

Gus,

...If you're getting noise and hiss in your speakers, and a power conditioner helped it, that tells me that the power supply in the amp, pre-amp, or signal source is crap. I don't care if it did cost $2500, if it hisses it's crap...

Honest question... Why do they sell power conditioners if the problem is in what you listed above? I admit the wiring in my house is probably a bit wacky and could cause noise (serviceable but wacky) but I'm not following you when you say that. If it's the power in my house that's causing problems... how is it the power supply in the amp, pre-amp or signal source?

Edumakate me please...  

Hell I dunno, my old Hitachi sr2004 drives my Klipsch ChorusIIs pretty well with the factory supplied 14/2 power cord...   Until I can shell out for a good used MC7200, my setup will be just fine.  

Interconnects, I am using a higher grade Monster cable set of interconnects going from my CD player (1992 era Yamaha can't remember model)  to the power amp section of the reciever (Not using a pre-amp unless I disconnect the CD player and connect the pre amp to listen to another source, cd player has volume control)

Quoted: Gus, ...If you're getting noise and hiss in your speakers, and a power conditioner helped it, that tells me that the power supply in the amp, pre-amp, or signal source is crap. I don't care if it did cost $2500, if it hisses it's crap... Honest question... Why do they sell power conditioners if the problem is in what you listed above?

because there are people ignorant enough about eletronics to believe their marketing crap. Selling fancy-looking gold-colored cables using scientific mumbo-jumbo and charging 10,000% markups (literally) is a good way to make early retirement. :)

Quoted: Quoted: Gus, ...If you're getting noise and hiss in your speakers, and a power conditioner helped it, that tells me that the power supply in the amp, pre-amp, or signal source is crap. I don't care if it did cost $2500, if it hisses it's crap... Honest question... Why do they sell power conditioners if the problem is in what you listed above? because there are people ignorant enough about eletronics to believe their marketing crap. Selling fancy-looking gold-colored cables using scientific mumbo-jumbo and charging 10,000% markups (literally) is a good way to make early retirement. :)

That was addressed already- a guy here heard non-Monster cables vs. Monster and could tell a difference. Good enough for me. If they mark them way up... well, they do that with lots of stuff. It's how companies make money.

I'm talking about the power conditioners. I plug directly into my wall - my system hisses. I plug into a power conditioner - my system is so quiet I can't hear any noise, even turned way up and sitting with my ear against the speaker cover.

Just going thru my Stereophile magazine July 2005

The Nottingham Deco turntable and Ace-Anna tonearm $38,499 (page 34)

Ayre C-5xe universal digital disc player $5,995 (page 79)

Burmester 011 preamplifier $15,999 (page 103)

Aesthetix Saturen Calypso preamplifier $4,500 (page 113)

and the advertisement on the backpage, the Focal.JMLab GRANDE UTOPIA BERYLLIUM, $85,000!!!!!

So, money spent on interconnects is just relative to what it's connected to...

pardon me while I play with my Korth revolver!

click here

Quoted: Gus, ...If you're getting noise and hiss in your speakers, and a power conditioner helped it, that tells me that the power supply in the amp, pre-amp, or signal source is crap. I don't care if it did cost $2500, if it hisses it's crap... Honest question... Why do they sell power conditioners if the problem is in what you listed above? I admit the wiring in my house is probably a bit wacky and could cause noise (serviceable but wacky) but I'm not following you when you say that. If it's the power in my house that's causing problems... how is it the power supply in the amp, pre-amp or signal source? Edumakate me please...

A power supply that is properly designed will not be succeptible to small variations in line voltage. It's really that simple. A power conditioner might make sense for protecting your equipment from line spikes and surges which might conceiveably damage your gear (in extreme circumstances). If your electrical supply is THAT bad, you need to spend the money fixing the real problem. Of course that may not be possible if the problem lies outside your house, hence the line conditioners. As to hiss, I cannot for the life of me understand how the supply power could cause that unless you have grounding issues. Even then, the problem would more likely be hum and not hiss.

The reason why they sell the conditioners is because people buy them. If it corrected your problem, understand that it's a band-aid fix. The real problem lies elsewhere. Power issues normally involve insufficient current to supply the amp, and the fix is a larger supply of line current. Most power problems come from plugging the entire system into one or two outlets, which are fed by an insufficient (in terms of current) rated circuit. The line power is "cleaned up" as a result of going through the power transformer in the power supply of a given piece of equipment. High frequencies simply don't get through (assuming there are any there to begin with). Even if they did, they would be instantly removed by the huge banks of capacitors in the power supply (which are afterall a low pass filter, designed to pass only DC and shunt anything else to ground).


ETA: To simplify, if your power conditioner is causing a noise reduction, one or more of your components has a crappy power supply circuit in it.

how fucking stupid can they be?!

You'd have to run that cable all the way back to the generator windings to see any improvement...that would cost like a BILLION!  


Oh, and the AC power that comes in though the wall IS NOT in the signal chain.  

The amp converts everything to DC!!!

Dumbasses.  

Quoted: What kills me though are the insanely priced DIGITAL optical and coaxial cables. Sheesh. They're DIGITAL, for crying out loud. The PCM data either makes it from your DVD player to your receiver, or it doesn't. There's no in-between. The PCM data is either completely intact at the destination or it's not.

Yep.

<-- Still smarting from his last stereo purchase.

Quoted: Just going thru my Stereophile magazine July 2005 The Nottingham Deco turntable and Ace-Anna tonearm $38,499 (page 34) Only an idiot would spend that kind of money on a turntable Ayre C-5xe universal digital disc player $5,995 (page 79)Only an idiot would spend that kind of money on a CD player Burmester 011 preamplifier $15,999 (page 103)Only an idiot would spend that kind of money on a pre-amp Aesthetix Saturen Calypso preamplifier $4,500 (page 113)Not having looked at it, I assume it's a phono only preamp, again only an idiot would spend that much on a phono pre-amp and the advertisement on the backpage, the Focal.JMLab GRANDE UTOPIA BERYLLIUM, $85,000!!!!!I don't even want to look!! I just know I'm in the wrong business! So, money spent on interconnects is just relative to what it's connected to...Or relative to the gullability or ignorance of the consumer pardon me while I play with my Korth revolver! Cheapskate!!! click here

All I'm saying here is that not one of these components costs much to design - hell most of the design work is now common knowledge among engineers. None are made of solid gold, and none have multiple carrots of diamonds imbedded in them. The price is part of the hype, plain and simple. In some cases, it may be about bragging rights among the wealthy. This stuff is still made of steel, aluminum, and wood. Electrical components don't cost very much, with the exception of transformers and some output transistors, and even then we're not talking even hundreds of dollars, much less tens of thousands. If buying this stuff floats your boat, so be it. Please send for one of my catalogs if I ever go into the business!!

Quoted: Quoted: Just going thru my Stereophile magazine July 2005 The Nottingham Deco turntable and Ace-Anna tonearm $38,499 (page 34) Only an idiot would spend that kind of money on a turntable Ayre C-5xe universal digital disc player $5,995 (page 79)Only an idiot would spend that kind of money on a CD player Burmester 011 preamplifier $15,999 (page 103)Only an idiot would spend that kind of money on a pre-amp Aesthetix Saturen Calypso preamplifier $4,500 (page 113)Not having looked at it, I assume it's a phono only preamp, again only an idiot would spend that much on a phono pre-amp and the advertisement on the backpage, the Focal.JMLab GRANDE UTOPIA BERYLLIUM, $85,000!!!!!I don't even want to look!! I just know I'm in the wrong business! So, money spent on interconnects is just relative to what it's connected to...Or relative to the gullability or ignorance of the consumer pardon me while I play with my Korth revolver! Cheapskate!!! click here All I'm saying here is that not one of these components costs much to design - hell most of the design work is now common knowledge among engineers. None are made of solid gold, and none have multiple carrots of diamonds imbedded in them. The price is part of the hype, plain and simple. In some cases, it may be about bragging rights among the wealthy. This stuff is still made of steel, aluminum, and wood. Electrical components don't cost very much, with the exception of transformers and some output transistors, and even then we're not talking even hundreds of dollars, much less tens of thousands. If buying this stuff floats your boat, so be it. Please send for one of my catalogs if I ever go into the business!!

Your avatar line says you are a stamp collector... have you ever spent more than 37 cents on a stamp?

There are a couple more things at work here... R&D, expertise, manufacturing, and yes, perceived value... I'm not going to argue that this stuff is just silicone, steel, aluminum and plastic... But it takes some smart people to put that stuff together into something useable, in this case, audio equipment...

Quoted: Your avatar line says you are a stamp collector... have you ever spent more than 37 cents on a stamp? There are a couple more things at work here... R&D, expertise, manufacturing, and yes, perceived value... I'm not going to argue that this stuff is just silicone, steel, aluminum and plastic... But it takes some smart people to put that stuff together into something useable, in this case, audio equipment...

The stamps I collect cost exactly $200 each.  Think machineguns!  I'm up to a collection of 2 now.

The R&D on analog audio circuits has pretty much been complete for the last 30 years or so. The high prices commanded by esoteric audio gear (I'm talking 37 thousand dollar turntables now) is purely one of perceived value. Perception. That's all it is.

Gotcha on the stamps  

I got to listen to a pair of these:

www.audioclassics.com/detail.php3?detail=XR290&nav=cat

Shipping weight 1000 lbs!


Driven by six 1000 watt Mc amps:

www.audioclassics.com/detail.php3?detail=MC1000&nav=cat

All pluged into a $1100 Mc cd player.

It was all lost on me I guess, sounded like every other $100,000 stereo system .  I'm no communist but no wonder the rest of thw world hates us.

At least when McIntosh overcharges, you get something of substance for your money! Also, speakers are one area where R&D is still very much alive. I firmly believe that the speakers generally should be at least 50% of the cost of a good system in today's world. I could justify some pretty serious money for speakers and power amps, if I were rich. In fact, I need to upgrade the amps on my system. Not a priority right now though.

There is a difference with RCA's... I think in my last car audio system I had like $3000 of RCA's in it and like $1000 of power cable.  Then there's all the caps, distribution blocks, fuses, brakes, etc....all just to try the damn thing on........

I switched to buying guns.

Quoted: At least when McIntosh overcharges, you get something of substance for your money!

McIntosh is a subculture of the high end...a lot of ppl. that are audiophiles make fun of the company...

Quoted: Quoted: At least when McIntosh overcharges, you get something of substance for your money! McIntosh is a subculture of the high end...a lot of ppl. that are audiophiles make fun of the company...

Oh I know!!  But at least their gear is built like a friggin tank. No better from an electronics standpoint though.

I am a recovering audioholic. Let's just say I have been there, and done that. Believe it or not, the tweaks are endless...and a lot of them do work. I have heard stereos that cost more than they homes they were in. I knew of a guy who easily had 60k in his system...and he also lived in a trailer. It can become a sickness, much worse than anything in the black rifle world.

Right now I don't even have an amp. But hidden in the closests around here are my old Optimus CD3400 (probably the ultimate cheap high end piece of audio equipment ever made), interconnects I made back in the day, and memories of the Naim, Mission, Quad, Meridian, Mod Squad, Magnepan. etc components and speakers that still haunt me. Two channel analog high end is very real...something that those that are used to mp3s will never know, but the costs are sometimes just too high...

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: At least when McIntosh overcharges, you get something of substance for your money! McIntosh is a subculture of the high end...a lot of ppl. that are audiophiles make fun of the company... Oh I know!!  But at least their gear is built like a friggin tank. No better from an electronics standpoint though.

Here is some audio porn for you...my old passive pre amp: