So I’ve spent a couple of days trying the MCRU 75 and comparing them to the stock Naim cables. SN2 always powered by a Powerline. I’ve let them two days play night and day with volume at zero, just in case cable burn-in is a fact .
Right now my temporary speakers are a pair of Bowers & Wilkins 685, and I tried them with 3.5m of NACA5 cable and 7.5m of el cheapo Amazon cable (4mm2 OFC though ).
The conclusion is that the sound with the MCRUs is completely messed up! There is a strong emphasis on the vocals, which have become more “shouty”, and you cannot follow the music in the background. There is more bass (the B&Ws started exciting my 45Hz room mode which wasn’t happening before) and overall they are more bright. Overall the stock cables are much more balanced and the music has more cohesion. So it’s definitely a no-no, at least with this setup.
Following this trial I am really surprised that:
- I can consistently hear differences between power cables
- The sound of the system can be affected so much by the cables
- The sound of these cables in my system can be so terrible
The cable change was motivated by the desire to get shorter cables, without expecting any significant sound change. So the MCRU 75 seemed a safe bet with their moderate cost and good comments. Alas, life is not so simple…
My OH also made the same conclusions for the cables, without me mentioning anything beforehand, to avoid biasing her. So I can say that our findings are pretty consistent and objective (again, for this system/room etc.)
I am expecting my new PMC 21i in the coming days, so I’ll give them a chance until then. Of course the speakers will also need some proper run-in, and I need to audition different speaker cables to see what will match better, so it’s a lot of variables at the same time, which is annoying. We will see… For now I will keep the system playing overnight to burn the MCRUs even more (just in case…), but I can’t really see them improving. So back to scavenging used Powerlines if I want to make any modifications I suppose!