Cable Cooker & DIY 600V Duelund DCA12GA power cable
After providing the update of Ron's, Leo's and my listening impressions from last Friday, I then put my DIY 600V Duelund DCA12GA power cable on my Audiodharma Cable Cooker and let it get 3 days of run-in time.
Soundsmith MMP3 phono preamp (left) and SPEC RSA-M3 EX Real Sound Amplifier (center).
While I was letting the DIY 600V Duelund DCA12GA power cable get some run-in time on the Cable Cooker, I pulled my vintage McIntosh MX110 tuner-preamplifier back out of the system, and went back to running the SPEC RSA-M3 EX Real Sound Amplifier as an integrated amplifier, while I got some more listening time in on the Duelund-Altec Project's exotic Duelund CAST tinned-copper crossovers.
"Stokowski" Altec loudspeakers with the exotic Duelund CAST tinned-copper crossovers.
For the Duelund Altec Project I've been using the $12K USD Acoustic Revive Absolute Power Cable for the SPEC RSA-M3 EX Real Sound Amplifier ($9500 USD) as my reference power cable and amplifier, respectively, and they are a formidable combination both musically and sonically.
I'll be writing an update on the Duelund-Altec Project's exotic Duelund CAST tinned-copper crossovers shortly, but let me just say - wow! - they are absolutely stunning, and I'm excited to tell you about what I'm hearing from them on the "Stokowski" Altec's.
600V Duelund DCA12GA power cable
Ok, back to the DIY 600V Duelund DCA12GA power cable, which I removed from the Cable Cooker today.
As I reported in my last post, the DIY 600V Duelund DCA12GA power cable showed promise, but sounded somewhat shut-in and thin by comparison to my reference Acoustic Revive Absolute Power Cable, which sounded rich, natural, vivid, and very expressive, so I was curious as to what the sort of changes I would hear after a little conditioning with the Cable Cooker.
Acoustic Revive Absolute Power Cable (left) and 600V Duelund DCA12GA power cable (right).
Generally speaking, 3 days on the Cable Cooker made a significant positive difference in the DIY 600V Duelund DCA12GA power cable's performance, with it opening up significantly, and with the thinness I was hearing disappearing.
The 3 days of conditioning on the Cable Cooker brought the DIY 600V Duelund DCA12GA power cable much closer to the performance of my reference $12K USD Acoustic Revive Absolute Power Cable.
It probably seems unfair to compare the $100 USD DIY 600V Duelund DCA12GA power cable's performance to that of my $12K USD Acoustic Revive Absolute Power Cable, which is easily the best power cable I've ever heard, but hey, that's what references are for - to get the measure of something else!
Acoustic Revive Absolute Power Cable
It would also be one heck of a story if a $100 USD DIY power cable could compare favorably with the $12K USD Acoustic Revive Absolute Power Cable.
600V Duelund DCA12GA power cable
Actually, if the DIY 600V Duelund DCA12GA power cable could even achieve around 80-90% of the performance of the Absolute, it would mean that it is a phenomenally good power cord, and would represent truly impressive results from a modest $100 USD or so investment.
Last Friday the difference in performance between the DIY 600V Duelund DCA12GA power cable and my reference Acoustic Revive Absolute Power Cable were pretty significant, so I was interested to hear what exactly had changed from the 3 days of conditioning, other than just the aural opening-up and warming-up that I mentioned earlier.
Seattle's Jazz24 stream
To get a general feel for the effects of conditioning the DIY 600V Duelund DCA12GA power cable, I installed it on the SPEC RSA-M3 EX Real Sound Amplifier and listened to the phenomenal jazz stream out of Seattle, Jazz24, which is almost always playing in the background at my place.
I streamed Jazz24 from my MacBook via a DIY Art of Tone USB interconnect to a Mhdt Labs Havana USB DAC (review HERE), which received AC via an Acoustic Revive Power Reference TripleC NCF AC power cable, and which was connected to the SPEC amp with a Belden 8402 tinned-copper microphone cable interconnects.
This digital front-end combination gave me a surprisingly analogue-like high-fidelity presentation for a budget rig, one that you could be forgiven for mistaking as an Analogue Productions LP, when listening to it over the "Stokowski" Altec's with their exotic Duelund CAST tinned-copper crossovers.
However, instead of listening at lower background levels, today I played Jazz24 at live-like levels to get the overall measure of the DIY 600V Duelund DCA12GA power cable on the SPEC amp, and then swapped it back & forth with my reference Acoustic Revive Absolute Power Cable for comparisons.
That allowed me to get some broad impressions of the performance differences between the two power cables, but as Jazz24 is a stream that changes over time it doesn't lend itself to repeated comparative listening tests to nail down subtle differences, but it does allow the listener to hear a lot of music in a relatively short amount of time to establish a general performance baseline and get a feel for the overall gestalt of the cables.
So in this post I'll address the high-level overall gestalt of the DIY 600V Duelund DCA12GA power cable and my reference Acoustic Revive Absolute Power Cable on the Jazz24 stream, to be followed in a future post by more detailed impressions using LP's and my vinyl front-end as I get more time on the DIY 600V Duelund DCA12GA power cable and can better understand what it is capable of.
Here's what I heard from the DIY 600V Duelund DCA12GA power cable on Jazz24:
As I mentioned above, very generally speaking, the Cable Cooker conditioning of the DIY 600V Duelund DCA12GA power cable took care of the somewhat shut-in and thin sound I was hearing from it on Friday, opening it up from a transparency & spaciousness standpoint, and fleshing it out so that it no longer sounded thin.
On the Jazz24 stream the DIY 600V Duelund DCA12GA power cable now sounded spacious, infusing the room with a good sense of the recording acoustic and its reverb qualities, and provided vivid imaging with a lot of presence.
The music sounded rich, timbrally correct, and colorful. Vocals sounded natural, with no unnatural sibilance, and there was a lot of image presence that made for exciting and engaging listening. Lots of timbral textures were present, as well as easily audible overtones and harmonics, which makes for an exciting presentation of the music.
The presentation of beat, melody, rhythm, and tempo was believably live-like and very engaging from a musical perspective.
That important triad of tone, presence, and dynamics that makes recorded music sound live-like in the listening room was present in generous amounts and made the music very satisfying to listen to.
Overall, I would say the DIY 600V Duelund DCA12GA power cable got the gestalt of the music right, and provided a fun, exciting, and satisfying music listening experience, and did it at the very affordable price of around $100 USD.
All of this together makes the DIY 600V Duelund DCA12GA power cable an easy recommendation for a high-performance power cord at a very affordable price.
Here's what I heard from the Acoustic Revive Absolute Power Cable on Jazz24:
After listening for a while with the DIY 600V Duelund DCA12GA power cable on the SPEC amp, I switched it out for my reference Acoustic Revive Absolute Power Cable.
As I mentioned earlier, the spendy Acoustic Revive Absolute Power Cable sounded rich, natural, vivid, and very expressive when we listened to it last Friday, and it sounded mighty impressive on the Jazz 24 stream today.
I'm not quite sure why yet, but the Acoustic Revive Absolute Power Cable sounds somewhat louder overall at the exact same volume setting than does the DIY 600V Duelund DCA12GA power cable.
There is a very present and room filling sense of the recorded acoustic and its reverb qualities with the Acoustic Revive Absolute Power Cable, which will endear it to those who love hearing "the sense of space" in recordings.
The music sounded rich, timbrally correct, vivid, and very colorful and engaging with the Acoustic Revive Absolute Power Cable. Horns sounded utterly natural and live-like, with no unnatural sibilance. Image presence was particularly vivid, giving a spooky realism that gave me goosebumps.
The Acoustic Revive Absolute Power Cable makes for exciting and engaging listening, with lots of timbral textures being present, a gorgeous presentation of overtones and harmonics, and lots of musically interesting detail being resolved.
Make no mistake about it, the Acoustic Revive Absolute Power Cable is very resolving and transparent, yet it still very natural sounding, and not at all etched or forward sounding like some high-resolution cable products can be.
The Acoustic Revive Absolute Power Cable presents beat, melody, rhythm, and tempo in a particularly live-like way that is very engaging and exciting to hear.
The tone, presence, and dynamics that makes recorded music sound live-like in the listening room was particularly notable and made the music very engaging to listen to.
Overall, the Acoustic Revive Absolute Power Cable provides an exciting and exhilarating sense of the overall gestalt of the music, and provide the sort of listening experience you would expect from a $12K power cable.
Comparing the DIY 600V Duelund DCA12GA power cable and the Acoustic Revive Absolute Power Cable on Jazz24:
The most obvious aural difference between the two power cables while listening to Jazz24 was that the Acoustic Revive Absolute Power Cable sounded louder and more present at the exact same volume level than did the DIY 600V Duelund DCA12GA power cable. Why? I'm not sure, but it was noticeable.
Also, the amount of resolved detail is greater with the Acoustic Revive Absolute Power Cable than with the DIY 600V Duelund DCA12GA power cable. I could hear more musical detail, more resolved overtones and harmonics, for example.
That enhance resolution is easier for me to understand, as the Acoustic Revive Absolute Power Cable uses the exotic Degawa method MD unit that is a magnetic thermal fluctuation noise suppressor that would feel right at home on a scanning electron microscope (more HERE), as well as the exotic and spendy noise suppressing NCF(R) Piezo Ceramic Series of Furutech AC plugs, the FI-50M NCF(R) on the wall outlet end, and the FI-50 NCF(R) IEC plug for connecting to components, as well as shielding for the conductors.
Like it or not, the addition of that all that technology makes an easily audible difference that you probably can't achieve any other way, but you pay a lot for it.
It does make me wonder what would happen if one were to build a power cable using 600V Duelund DCA12GA as conductors, with the same shielding, Degawa method MD unit, and Furutech plugs.
The noise reducing techniques used in the Acoustic Revive Absolute Power Cable also provide blacker backgrounds between instruments (and vocals), and a somewhat more vivid sense of acoustic space and imaging.
Also, with the Acoustic Revive Absolute Power Cable, the beat, melody, rhythm, and dynamics were presented with more presence and impact, making music sound very live-like and engaging.
By mentioning those comparisons it probably reads like the Acoustic Revive Absolute Power Cable slapped down the DIY 600V Duelund DCA12GA power cable pretty severely, however, that's not really the case.
Overall, both of these power cables sounded very impressive to me, and I immensely enjoyed what I was hearing from the Jazz24 stream with both of them, and from an overall musicality-sonic perspective, you can't go wrong with either of these cables, they're both really good.
Acoustic Revive Absolute Power Cable (left) and 600V Duelund DCA12GA power cable (right).
The real question on my mind is how close did the $100 USD DIY 600V Duelund DCA12GA power cable come musically & sonically to the exotic and high-tech $12K Acoustic Revive Absolute Power Cable?
Did the DIY 600V Duelund DCA12GA power cable get within that 80-90% performance range of performance to the Acoustic Revive Absolute Power Cable that would make it a stone cold bargain?
Yes it did. In fact I'm really impressed how good musically & sonically the $100 USD DIY 600V Duelund DCA12GA power cable sounded in comparison to the $12K Acoustic Revive Absolute Power Cable, and I think you would be too.
The take-away message from this post is that the DIY 600V Duelund DCA12GA power cable can sound very impressive, but to get the best out of it you'll need to do some Cable Cooker conditioning of it, or give it plenty of run-in time. I'd suggest starting with 3 days of conditioning on the Cable Cooker if you want to hear from it what I've been talking about today.
As a side note, Ron built 600V Duelund DCA12GA power cables for his deHavilland Electric Amplifier Co. Super 40 monaural amplifiers - very impressive amplifiers by the way - and reported that the result was quite "favorable" compared to the stock power cords.
I'll be looking forward to hearing more from Ron about the results as he gets more run-in time on his 600V Duelund DCA12GA power cables.
I want to get Ron and Leo back over here to listen to the Cable Cooker conditioned DIY 600V Duelund DCA12GA power cable, and get their impressions, which I'll report back to you about in a future post.
600V Duelund DCA12GA power cable
Also, I want to hear from you about your results with your own DIY 600V Duelund DCA12GA power cable projects, and I hope you'll share any tips and recommendations you discover along the way.
In my next post about the DIY 600V Duelund DCA12GA power cable I'll provide some more detailed impressions using vinyl as a source.
Ok, that's it for now, and as always, thanks for stopping by, and may the tone be with you!
