@Allegromoderato Have you thought about making your own lead to try? I found 4mm yy flex and a wattgate evo iec plug sounded considerably better than the supplied mains lead on my naim equipment.
The Powerline is a very worthwhile upgrade for a Nova, I have no hesitation in recommending it.
You are right that the argument about the size of the market is weak, especially if we think about medicines and supplements :).
Personally, I follow the principle that I read reviews, opinions of other people and choose the equipment for testing on this basis. I only buy if it makes a difference to me.
Therefore, I have attached a link to the reviews, a quote from HiFI World magazine: “So, are the new Tellurium Q cables worth the money? Definitely. When combined, the improvement was on the scale of a hardware upgrade. As for the difference in cables? Wholly palpable and easily heard. Frankly?”
Personally, I have a weaker speaker cable (2x7m Tellurium Q Black II Speaker Cable), but my feelings are similar.
I tested a few cables and I can also agree that some do not improve much, others do not fit the configuration (eg Cardas Clear Reflection Power was too bright for me and caused ear pain). Depending on which stage you finish, you can draw different conclusions.
For me and my configuration, the change of the cable was comparable to, for example, the change from the Atom to the Nova. The change is immediately noticeable. If someone thinks that more power, bass, details are just a slight improvement, you can also call it that.
If anyone would like to try, the cables change their sound over time and at the very beginning they sounded darker to me. There are CDs on the market that speed up the burn-in process - some people call them the cheapest method of improvement (I tested them, they work, but that’s a topic for another discussion;)). Such a CD will allow a faster assessment of how the cable will sound after a long time.
I used to read some interesting articles that explained, based on physics, why power cables can make a difference. So if someone is curious, I recommend you look for it.
So if you are curious, test different combinations, see how you have it all connected and what, and the results can positively surprise you :).
I have to disagree and I wasn’t a big believer in audiophile power cables until two days ago. I’ve been burning in my daughter’s new Atom HE for about 200 hours and when I listened it still sounded pretty uninspiring. It actually sounded much worse than my old V1. This was with the stock Naim power cord. After replacing the stock cord with a PSAudio Premier SC cord (was considered one of the best available circa 2008 with solid silver wires and a $1,300 price), the Atom HE was completely transformed. It was shocking because my experience usually was power cords only made subtle improvements.
Is the Atom HE extremely sensitive to power cords, is the stock cord terrible, or are certain power cords capable of transforming a component? If the Nova is anything like the Atom HE then I’d absolutely add a better power cord.
Disclaimer: I’ve never used stock power cords. I started with $300 Transparent cords and quickly moved to Powerlines. This was the first time I’ve ever listened with the Naim stock cord that people claim is “really good” and surprisingly it was terrible. Now it is possible that after only using powerlines I’ve become more sensitive to differences which some might view as subtle but are significant to me. It’s similar to how your old “less capable” system sounds terrible after being replaced with much better system. For years I thought my SN2 system was amazingly good but now? Doubt I could ever go back. Obviously some people downsize without issue so it could be a function to personal sensitivities to audiophile vs musical aspects of sound reproduction. Recently I’ve become more of an audiophile meaning I want to listen to the best sounding music vs getting the best sound from my music.
IMO, the fundamental problem with the “power cord” debate is everything an individual experiences is subjective and each person will apply an unknown weight to all subtle changes which for some is transforming but others subtle, no better, or even worse.
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