Fancy Mains Leads For Active Speakers

I actually thought this was a clever joke Nigel.

I think my engineering background was quite useful when I visited ATC a couple of years ago.

I spent some hours talking to all of their engineers (design and production) in detail about why and how their designs had evolved the way they had. They were very open with me and I learned much more than I would be prepared to repeat on here. I have spent all of my career in a “need to know” environment so only let on what is essential.

And no I don’t have a PhD in zoology but I have witnessed some pretty weird things in my time.

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I do.

Sounds like the antithesis of my career, which was one of know and share all information (obviously apart from certain legitimately confidential information like personal stuff), maximising learning and understanding, and never blindly accepting.

And I still have NO idea why :joy::joy::joy::joy:.

ATB, J

By all means quote me BW

However what I’m looking to do is to get every last bit of performance I can from the system I’ve chosen

Chosen system is Atom HE and active 19a’s

If more fancy mains cables would extract more from the ATC’s, without spending a fortune, then I’d be interested

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Let your new system settle in for a few months and enjoy, it takes a good few months for your speakers to settle in and your brain to adjust to how the musical information is being received!

If you want more from your system then a dedicated spur, a power line on your HE are worth considering.

A few of us have found using products like Stack Audio Avuva’s work well underneath your speakers (have a chat with them, they do a sale or return)

As for power cables for speakers I use power lines but that’s only as I had a couple spare - I think ATC would say just use stock cables. Some report success with different cables and some don’t - I would have just used stock cables had I not had the power lines spare….

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I use a fancy silver cable on my dough making machine. The gluten formes a better and more elastic dough with this cable. I will also try a Base platform.

But on the amps, I just use a standard cable. The transformator and the electrolytes smoothens the electrical signal anyway.

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It would make a lot of sense to keep it coherent.
If ATC could have their way you would be
running an ATC preamplifier and an ATC source.
Similarly if you have fancy cables connecting things upstream then the fancy needs to flow true through to the fancy finality.

Try it yourself… you’ll form your own opinion rather than listening to others who are so different! A cable is easy to test…

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Do these give a genuinely noticeable benefit? First time I’ve come across this product.

You’re just rinse and repeating your previous experience with your XS3 and CD5si . You claim you have found your endgame system and yet here you are once again looking for improvements. Please just let your system settle and enjoy the music for a while.

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Yes they do work as per the description and review on Musicwork’s website.

I bought two AcouPlex SOX initially and immediately after putting them on the power cords for my balanced power supply and my power amp I bought two more; for my streaming preamp and my audio server.

There aren’t many MusicWorks dealers in the UK, and even fewer who list them on their websites ~ just phone and ask…

These slowed down my desire to further upgrade the power side of my system.

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In ninanina’s previous post, they said they wanted to get all the performance they could out of the system. If different mains leads are able to achieve that for them, then why should they wait.

When i bought my active 40’s i had some mogami cables, but my dealer lent me some cables from chord to try as well. There was a clear difference with the chords, that prompted me to immediately get some better cable.

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And how did either compare with the original ATC cables?

Can somebody explain why changing a power cable can make a difference to a system. It is logical that any good quality well insulated cable, like a humble kettle cable will do the job 100%.

These components are cheap. I cannot imagine that any decent HiFi components come with an cable, that will not perform well.

I followed in disbelief a thread about a €2800 ethernet cable. You can buy the connecters they specify in their blurb for €30 retail. No the core is not in solid gold. Just plain old copper. A cable with a superior specification for data transfer and shielding can be bought for €50

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You can believe in anything you want and it is impossible for anyone to prove you wrong!

About half of ATCs output (the top end) goes to professional recording studios and no-one has ever suggested they use anything but the provided mains cables.

However for best stereo image, I recommend wearing a blue sock on the left foot and a red one on the right. Prove me wrong!

Paul.

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The only real answer is try for yourself & see. Either have a dealer lend you some or look for something secondhand that you can move along with little to no loss if you don’t like what they do/don’t notice any change.

When it comes to audio, there is no one size fits all answer. What can have a large impact for one person may have none for another. What makes a big difference when you’ve got 6 figures plus worth of kit, all dialed in vs someone who just starting out with entry level kit could likely be no difference at all.

Lots of things in audio make a difference, that logically make no sense. If you actually hear these differences a lot of the time comes down to how transparent your kit is & how much of that performance you’re actually getting out of it (ie how good is your room & power supply).

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I think unless ones tried really good mains cables on their Active ATC’s then their opinion is fairly worthless. Even Naim believes better cables work. Just as an aside in the US when I got my ATC’s they came with super cheap junky power cables. The only purpose is to at least be able to get the speakers up and running.. oh and no XLR cables.

Well here’s a few studios that use Shunyata Research Products. I’d post their web site but it’s verboten

David Gilmour: Astoria Studio

Rick Rubin, Eric Lynn: Shangri-la Recording Studio

James Guthrie: Das Boot Recording

SkyWalker Sound

Glenn Tabor: GAT3 Studios

Greg Wells: Recording Engineer

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I never tried the supplied mains cables as i had some spare puritan cables. I didn’t get any interconnects with the speakers, so i bought some mogami cables to get me up and running and may well as kept them but trying the chord cables showed what the mogami wasn’t doing.