ack's system - end of round 1

zonto

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I would like to see recent measurements from Shunyata to support that "cables subsequent to the Black Mamba CX meets or exceeds the standard set forth in those rise time measurements above" - but you did the right thing to ask them directly.

Regardless, coincidentally, I have a new Shunyata cord on order - the Venom V-12 NR2 - to use on my Alpha DAC, and I suspect it will be very beneficial. The hope is that, if it works well, I will get more for some of my source components. I also use a pair of Venom RCAs on this DAC and they are also sensational, but would also like to have seen a tighter fit in the plugs; performance-wise, they rock!

I agree! I have asked for such measurements, but have been told (previously and this time) that they don't publish the DTCD measurements for each cable. I have read that the older CX line (especially the King Cobra) have a warmer sound, whereas most of the newer products trade a bit of that in favor of the noise reduction, neutrality, and better timing. Horses for courses I suppose! I only have tried the Venom line (3, HC, digital) and the older Alpha line (Digital, Analog, HC) on my audio components and definitely preferred the latter due to the better bass response and elimination of the slightly forward/grating midrange I heard on the Venom line. Preferred both Shunyata lines to the Cardas Golden Reference cables I had used for years.

Looking forward to hear what you think of the V-12 NR2 (did version 2 just come out along with the version 2 of the other lines?)! I run the original Venom NR V-12 for my plasma TV and like it well enough.
 

ack

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Looking forward to hear what you think of the V-12 NR2 (did version 2 just come out along with the version 2 of the other lines?)! I run the original Venom NR V-12 for my plasma TV and like it well enough.

Hmmm I don’t know where the heck that “2” designation came from, probably a typo. Will update when I get the cord.
 

Chops

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Ack, I should have never looked through your thread. LOL

Until now, I have never realized how much the panel upright supports vibrate, including the bass enclosure as well. I was playing something earlier, rather bass heavy and a little on the loud side. The Polk subs thumping away, I put my hands on their enclosures and could barely feel a thing. I put my hands on the uprights of the ML panels and holy smokes, vibration city! Likewise for the bass enclosure.

I've already planned on doing some crossover mods (either simple capacitor upgrades or Ascent 1 swap - still unclear on that one) once I get back on the job and funds pick back up, but now it looks like I'll have to address these vibration issues as well.

Gee Ack, thanks for nothing... LOL :p
 
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ack

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The art of crossover tuning

Until now, I have never realized how much the panel upright supports vibrate, including the bass enclosure as well.

I did not respond earlier because I wanted to give you some concrete advise on a couple of things.

First, yes, vibrations can be significant in MLs (especially the post-Sanders models) and they need to be managed; what I have done is proof positive. Second, the bass enclosures in my speakers were already much more solid than your SL3's, and additional damping as documented in these pages resulted in extremely low vibrations.

And here's a more important tweak: in-series resistance to the panels. If you go back to post 850 https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/acks-system-end-of-round-1.2740/page-43#post-578139 you will notice that I have been experimenting with this for quite a long time. Lately, I have settled for 1.1 ohms, which renders a very smooth midrange and treble, unlike say 1.0 ohms which does have a hint of midrange glare, which became quite evident to me just a few days ago with a certain track. I can also tell the differences between 1.08 ohms and 1.1 - it's that fine of an adjustment, to get the right sound, and it takes months to figure out what to listen for.

You may just be shocked at the results. I am just going to repeat a key post here:

Then, I read jazzman53's blog on his own electrostatic panels, and to quote the aforementioned link in the previous post:
The transformer's winding capacitance adds to the load capacitance and its leakage inductance combines with the load capacitance to generate an ultrasonic resonance peak in the frequency response and rapid rolloff above it. Coincident with this response peak is an impedance minimum which can be a difficult load for the amplifier. When series resistance is added on the primary side it dampens this resonance peak. However, as previously noted, too much resistance over-damps the resonance, rolling off the audible highs.
The general guidance is to omit the section one resistors on the secondary side, add a 1? series resistor on the primary side and give it a whirl.
That ultrasonic peak/resonance is quite similar in character to that of an MC cartridge/phono combination (discussed many times here at WBF), and it does audibly affect the midrange; once you hear it and damp it - either on the phono stage or here in the crossover - there is no going back.
 
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ack

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Ear sensitivity and the Harvard Tone Deafness Test

Take this easy test from Harvard https://www.themusiclab.org/quizzes/td - it tests your ability to differentiate fine gradations between two consecutive tones, down to 1/64th. I got 29 out of 32 right with an average of 2 seconds response, and one of those misses I accidentally hit the wrong answer; that score puts me above 85% of the population and it could have been better.

Background: I have posted before that I can hear differences between 1.1? and 1.08? in-series resistance with my panels, a mere 20 milliohms, which is really hard to believe. Lately, after very careful listening, I discovered more tiny sound resonances in a certain very-narrow frequency range, with violins and piano. That sent me increasing the resistor value to 1.19?, and then the last two days, finally to 1.21?. The differences again between these two values - a mere 20 milliohms apart - were yet again easily discernible to me, and easy to demonstrate in an A/B test with the right material that excites that resonance. I got rid of that tiny resonance with 1.21?, while the treble overall is clearly better behaved as well.

Then, yesterday, my son joins me and I said nothing of my changes. "You changed the resistors again, didn't you". The kid picked up that 20m? difference within a few seconds. "Less treble, it's clearer now" - yes, he's so damn right. That's exactly what I discovered as well - the midrange is significantly clearer now that the treble is better behaved.

So then we started talking about tone sensitivity in the human ear and he goes, "Oh, take the Tone Deafness Test" by Harvard "to confirm that you are not imagining things. I took it and I can discern tone change down to 1/64th". Well, so far these ears are still doing really well.

Finally, two unrelated things:

1) Really looking forward to the Spectral 30SV Series 2 preamp being announced shortly
2) Installed a Shunyata Venom NR V12 on my heavily modified Alpha DAC and it has clearly elevated its performance a little bit; it replaced an off-the-shelf cord

-ack
 
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sbnx

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Interesting test. Sometimes I swear the third tone would be different as well as the last one.
 

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sbnx

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I fully believe your 20 mOhm resistor can be heard. A few years ago at LSAF an acoustician brought a pair of speakers he made. The crossover had a switch that you could control from your seat. It was a seamless switch (no glitch in the music at all) so one could go back and forth at will. It made a 0.25dB difference at the crossover point. It was easily audible. He was doing a survey as to what percentage of people preferred position A to position B. At the end of the show he posted the results which were very much in favor of the 0.25 dB down position which gave the sound less bite and overall smoother presentation.
 
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LL21

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This reminds me a little of the time when I first got the Wilson X1s. I had an opportunity to do a cashless trade-in of my SF Strads plus shipping to get them...but they were located 3,000 miles away in a warehouse...so I took a gamble and agreed to take this particular pair 'blind') based on an audition a year prior of the X1.

They arrive in-store, a 16-year old 2nd hand speaker...not calibrated, just assembled. The treble is SO painful to listen to, I tell the store owner if this cannot be fixed, I do not want them to even bring them to the house given all the hassle of moving 1000 lbs of speaker. I get every assurance the adjustability will be sorted to our complete satisfaction, or they will carry them away and leave the Strads.

They arrive...and 10 hours later of setup...and they have changed the tweeter resistor twice...and it turns out to be a 0.7db decrease in treble output. But it was the difference between just plain painful to hear that extreme level of treble and pretty darn beautiful...and my references were the two speakers I owned previously which were the SF Strad and before that the SF Guarneri.
 

ack

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Shunyata rocks again

Thank you sbnx and LL21 for your comments! Well done sbnx on the test! Great test, isn't it.

The 20m? difference is easily heard because it affects the entire panel range. I was going to experiment with another 20m? increase, but the package of resistors was not delivered today, though the Post Office says it is. Oh well, I will have to wait a little longer.

Meantime, this post is going to be about Shunyata and the Venom NR V12 power cord, which offers noise reduction (per their claims) of >12dB @ 1MHz, like all the rest in the current high-end lineup.

To me, audiophile power cords are, for the most part, a scam. To consider any one of them, they must meet certain basic criteria:

1) Fully shielded
2) Extremely fast high-current delivery
3) Must trap and reduce noise
4) Must not take anything away
5) Only copper need apply
6) They must be backed by scientific evidence

So I bought one of them to plug into my heavily modified Alpha DAC, and to make a long story short, the Alpha + V12 NR + Shunyata Venom interconnects eat the Yggy2 + Shunyata CX + MIT interconnects for lunch. The power cord is the only change, and is solely responsible for elevating this Alpha DAC above the Yggy as configured, plain and simple. The increase is speed and dynamic headroom is phenomenal, quite evident with brass and drums, with micro-dynamics shockingly good and in horn territory. Let me be clear about this: the dynamic headroom alone - as evidenced by powerful drum hits - in this Alpha configuration easily surpasses the Yggy2's, which is one of its fortes. Bass is also obviously tighter, and the midrange clearer. And I am not even comparing HDCD here.

From the very first few seconds, it was quite evident that this cord does meet all the criteria, and better than the CX. The interesting thing is that it enabled me to raise the volume level on the Alpha a whole 1dB w/o additional distortion, to 52.5, where it level-matches the Yggy2 down to 1mV - therefore, I can easily A/B things in the preamp. And at that level, this modified Alpha outperforms and outclasses the Yggy2 in just about everything. The Yggy2 does maintain a little more meat on the bones in the midrange.

One obvious question is: did I swap interconnects? Yes, I did, no discernible change. The next obvious question is: did I try the V12 on the Yggy2 - not yet, I am awaiting a cord for itself, to A/B on the preamp. The hope is that it will elevate the Yggy2 higher again.

The older Shunyata CX are very good, but they have been surpassed; so I am going all-in, for all source components. Interestingly enough, I use the same CX on the Spectral amps and preamp, and they do not appear to "respond" to the V12, which means, they already reject noise really well internally.

I've always thought Shunyata are the only game in town when it comes to power, and to me, this is still the case with the current line-up, exactly because they manage noise while leaving everything else alone. Let it also be known that I was not a fan of the original ?-tron products, but that's history now. The original CX patent - by some university professor - was quite the advancement, but technology does eventually improve; and that's great.

Frankly, I never thought I would write a post about a power cord...

-ack
 
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Vienna

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Shunyata rocks again

Thank you sbnx and LL21 for your comments! Well done sbnx on the test! Great test, isn't it.

The 20m? difference is easily heard because it affects the entire panel range. I was going to experiment with another 20m? increase, but the package of resistors was not delivered today, though the Post Office says it is. Oh well, I will have to wait a little longer.

Meantime, this post is going to be about Shunyata and the Venom NR V12 power cord, which offers noise reduction (per their claims) of >12dB @ 1MHz, like all the rest in the current high-end lineup.

To me, audiophile power cords are, for the most part, a scam. To consider any one of them, they must meet certain basic criteria:

1) Fully shielded
2) Extremely fast high-current delivery
3) Must trap and reduce noise
4) Must not take anything away
5) Only copper need apply
6) They must be backed by scientific evidence

So I bought one of them to plug into my heavily modified Alpha DAC, and to make a long story short, the Alpha + V12 NR + Shunyata Venom interconnects eat the Yggy2 + Shunyata CX + MIT interconnects for lunch. The power cord is the only change, and is solely responsible for elevating this Alpha DAC above the Yggy as configured, plain and simple. The increase is speed and dynamic headroom is phenomenal, quite evident with brass and drums, with micro-dynamics shockingly good and in horn territory. Let me be clear about this: the dynamic headroom alone - as evidenced by powerful drum hits - in this Alpha configuration easily surpasses the Yggy2's, which is one of its fortes. Bass is also obviously tighter, and the midrange clearer. And I am not even comparing HDCD here.

From the very first few seconds, it was quite evident that this cord does meet all the criteria, and better than the CX. The interesting thing is that it enabled me to raise the volume level on the Alpha a whole 1dB w/o additional distortion, to 52.5, where it level-matches the Yggy2 down to 1mV - therefore, I can easily A/B things in the preamp. And at that level, this modified Alpha outperforms and outclasses the Yggy2 in just about everything. The Yggy2 does maintain a little more meat on the bones in the midrange.

One obvious question is: did I swap interconnects? Yes, I did, no discernible change. The next obvious question is: did I try the V12 on the Yggy2 - not yet, I am awaiting a cord for itself, to A/B on the preamp. The hope is that it will elevate the Yggy2 higher again.

The older Shunyata CX are very good, but they have been surpassed; so I am going all-in, for all source components. Interestingly enough, I use the same CX on the Spectral amps and preamp, and they do not appear to "respond" to the V12, which means, they already reject noise really well internally.

I've always thought Shunyata are the only game in town when it comes to power, and to me, this is still the case with the current line-up, exactly because they manage noise while leaving everything else alone. Let it also be known that I was not a fan of the original ?-tron products, but that's history now. The original CX patent - by some university professor - was quite the advancement, but technology does eventually improve; and that's great.

Frankly, I never thought I would write a post about a power cord...

-ack

I wasn’t aware of this test, thank you
 

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ack

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Very interesting Tasos. Every power cord I Have tried in my system sounds different. The key is finding one that does not add or remove anything. Most of the ones I tried adding things.

Peter, I would disagree with the underlined - I do want a cord that removes noise, while adding nothing.
 
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PeterA

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Peter, I would disagree with the underlined - I do want a cord that removes noise, while adding nothing.

Yes I would agree with that as long as removing that noise does not remove content or energy and sense of liveliness. The various cords that I have tried in my system over the years generally add artifacts or seem to emphasize certain frequencies. Some have actually homogenized spatial information so that recordings sound more similar than different.

They can make a difference sometimes a profound one. Fascinating to read that your new cord has changed your impressions of the 2DAC’s relative to each other. That is quite something.
 
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sbnx

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Digital components are sensitive to noise and they create noise. I don' think getting rid of this noise could ever be a bad thing as long as the power cord isn't starving the device for current.

Fundamentally a power cord should be able to give 100% of the current to the device the instant it asks for it. It is nice if while doing this it could filter out some of the AC line noise. The trick seems to be filtering the noise without sacrificing dynamics. Shunyata seems to have figured out this balancing act.

I did see a post where Caelin mentioned a few other brands that he thought did a good job -- Elrod and Triode Wire.
 
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ack

VIP/Donor & WBF Founding Member
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The various cords that I have tried in my system over the years generally add artifacts or seem to emphasize certain frequencies. Some have actually homogenized spatial information so that recordings sound more similar than different.

Yes, no surprises there. I have sometimes wondered whether manufacturers are adding tiny oscillation or resonant devices or circuits in their cords... seriously.

The trick seems to be filtering the noise without sacrificing dynamics. Shunyata seems to have figured out this balancing act.

Right, and just the fact dynamic headroom went up in the Alpha was quite shocking.

Another equally interesting event was actually how my wife has reacted, a person who couldn't care less about my system. I was playing an organ symphony loudly last night on the Alpha, and then, in order to write the post above, I shut it off; after a few minutes, she goes "No more music?" - what??? That has never happened before.

I have mentioned the following two CDs a couple of times before - real acid tests and beautiful music:



 

microstrip

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Very interesting Tasos. Every power cord I Have tried in my system sounds different. The key is finding one that does not add or remove anything. Most of the ones I tried adding things.

A different opinion - IMHO decent power cables can't add anything - at best they can remove.
 
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ack

VIP/Donor & WBF Founding Member
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I did see a post where Caelin mentioned a few other brands that he thought did a good job -- Elrod and Triode Wire.

Yes, here https://www.audioshark.org/shunyata...n-greater-heights-18193-page2.html#post302487

Are you asking if I have experience with other power cords other than our own?
Yes of course.
Can I recommend other cables that I personally appreciate?
Yes. David Elrod and Cardas and Triode Wire.

Power conditioning has advanced enough right now that I am giving it a serious look. For example, beyond the cords, I am looking at the Denali 6000/S V2, which claims -50dB noise drop from 100KHz to 30MHz; this is huge, if true. It just aches me that there is no tower version of it, unlike the original V1, but I can stand it up actually and remove the feet.
 

PeterA

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A different opinion - IMHO decent power cables can't add anything - at best they can remove.

Fransisco, how would you describe a power cord that makes the spatial information of different recordings sound more similar than different? How would you describe a power cord that emphasises certain frequencies over others and strays from neutrality? I have heard cords that hype high frequencies and or low frequencies and refer to those cords as "adding" something. You must describe that effect differently.

If one hears some cords as being noisier than others, can we assume that the quieter ones are removing noise more effectively than the noisier cords? How do we be certain that the noisier cords are not somehow adding noise through their materials, design or connectors?

I have auditioned products, both cords and power devices, listening primarily for lower noise. I later found that along with the lower noise, there were other characteristics to the sound which were detrimental to sound quality. Some might simply say to my preference. Regardless, I did not like them, even though they did subjectively "lower noise".
 

ack

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The question for micro is: what do you consider a "decent" power cord
 
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