Guess I'd better order the .5m balanced cables before that happens. I thought that the 1m balanced cables were $875 a few weeks ago, and were now $925? I must be remembering wrong, my apologies!

I am extremely interested in buying one of your power cords and a balanced cable as I trust MarkL's ears quite a bit, and want the best I can afford for my PCs and ICs.

No aplogy required.

Best of listening to you and everyone. Let us celebrate the beauty of music.
By the way I went to hear Paul McCartney in concert the other night. I was stunned not so much by the music but by the presence of such a great composer.

Regards,
Michael

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It's out of pure greedy curiousity that I wish a second round of power cords (& or ICs) could be presented by markl. Cables of the next tier or two (or five!) up in pricing and of the big established names. Not that the established names have something to offer more than the smaller guys but just to find out if the status is well deserved or not. The big Shunyatas, Nordosts, etc. Shunyata Anaconda Alpha, Nordost Brahma 2M Power Cord , Nordost Valkyrja 1 Meter.

I don't suppose those guys are handing out audition samples. Dealers might though.

Since posting the review, I've been contacted by several cable-makers and even a couple private Head-Fiers who've asked me to review their power cables. I've had to politely decline at this time, as I'm a little burned out after 5 months of intensive cable-swapping, burning in, and analyzing results.

Maybe after a little break, I can start a "Round 2", but for now, I'd like to just go back to just listening to the music, not my power cords.

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"burned out"?
Oh come on you just got burned-in!

Yeah it's a burden and a lot of work, even the small surveys, nevermind 14 cords. Dropping it all and just enjoying music is a welcome relief.
Oh...and if a second round up occurs can the music used be specified? I find that useful info.

I've finished my rough comparison of the TG 688, XLO Reference2 and throw in 18awg non shielded PCs. Here are my unaltered notes:

tg vs. stock* - sft dynahi

Van Halen - Doin' Time

tg: not full black, good impact, down LOW, wood block recessed, good skinning

stock: better black, good impact, down LOW, better snare, shimmering, wood less recessed, good skinning


DMB - Mother Father

tg: good clarity, bass line fuzzy, highhat mia, poor shimmer, smooth but not quite together,

stock: lighter, bass line easier to follow, hat recessed but not mia, good shimmer, good pace, cleaner


tg vs. stock* - tri-vista

Van Halen - Doin' Time

tg: good black, good impact, LOW, snare back seat, good shimmer, wood not recessed, smooth

stock: minor compression, lower impact, not quite as low, snare more forward, good shimmer, wood not recessed, more immediate


DMB - Mother Father

tg: louder, fullness less focus, bass line in tact, hat present, smoothing effect, bloom hurting blackground, better finish

stock: same loudness, cleaner tighter, bassline clear, airy, hat present, micro intact, compressed macro, less pleasant exit but more presented


xlo vs. stock* a324

xlo: good impact, moderate separation, fuzzy, poor blackness, repeating sound, not very snappy,

stock: cleaner, better separation, tonally brighter, snappy, shimmer, energy


xlo vs. stock* headamp

xlo: black, clear, good impact, snappy, fairly bright, speed, build up

stock: about same, minor less swing*, minor less clean*

* when in power bar


xlo vs. stock* rudistor

xlo: good scaling, blackness, no loss, good low drop, see motion, shimmer, rattle background

stock: minor drop in dynamics, good low drop, clearer

Outside of my head these probably mean very little so here is how it break down into character:

Stock: baseline performance, neutral with good resolution, clearest most transparent of the ones I have at the expense of slight compression in its sound.

688: deviates from stock by having a fuller more bloom type sound, the main music is presented in the forefront while micro details take a back seat, smooth in its delivery

XLO: deviates on a large way towards euphoric bloom, fuzzy bottom heavy character that somehow manages to be very warm but with poor extension and impact

Stock is still my preferred PC on my system. The XLO was far to gone from neutral to be usable. The TG 688 though would be very pleasant on a dry or bright source that needed some warming up.

Also worth noting that in all cases the most drastic change comes from the source PC change. The amps respond in a much less obvious way

I will be holding onto my 688 though until both my Reference is back in house and my Volex 14AWG shielded and Monster AVS2000 arrive. Then we'll see what stays and what goes

Solude, was the TG688 fully burned in? Crump is adamant about 30-day full burn-in (24/7), although I found few changes after 3 weeks.

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One thing your comment says to me is that the TG688 is better at keeping loud sounds loud and soft sounds soft, that is leaving dynamic range intact. That agrees with my finding, but I don't find that a negative, to me that means it's more accurate than a cable that compresses everything. The main music should be louder, more present, smaller events should be smaller. But the problem is you need a system with a very low noise floor to take advantage of the full dynamic range without losing smaller events/micro-details into the mist (though it looks like you have a very nice set-up there!).

But maybe this is not what you are describing? Cheers.

I also just realized I never addressed my methodology in the review, which differs from yours, Solude, but may be interesting to discuss or at least note.

*In general*, I would install the PC, and give it an hour or 3 to warm up or settle in before any initial listening. If the cable was pre-owned, and fully burned in, I could then go straight into taking notes. I would use CDs very familiar to me, and continue listening over the course of a week (for cables I didn't really like), or more (for cables I did like) to any number of CDs (easily 40+ for each PC, I have a CD changer, so could load up 5 at a time and switch on the fly). There was one occasion where a pre-owned cable was removed after only 2 days because I just hated it (the PS Audio cable).

If the cable was new, I would burn-in for 100 hours or more before beginning taking notes (although I would sneak some listens.

I very seldom (although I did) do A/B type tests of different cables (but only to verify some very broad observations), but those are tricky because of all the time and effort involved in swapping out the cables, a lot of time elapses between impressions. I know that Michael Wolff, for one, feels his cable needs to "settle in" for a couple hours after you swap its position before it sounds right, so that made A/B-ing with his cable potentially more difficult, although that was one cable I did some A/B-ing with to figure out its relative bass response in a broad way. I'm sure this effect can vary from PC to PC. Anyway, in general, I preferred to do longer-term listening over the period of many listening sessions and just recording impressions as I went.

One thing I discovered for me is that it's important not to rush to judgement. It may just be that the first CD you fire up happens to sound great on that particular cable, then you get all excited, only to be let down on other discs. It can also be that one particular cable is just more honest than another and plays a CD back that sounded great on a stock cord, not so well. I've also found that certain CDs I've really thought were reference recordings don't sound as good with certain PCs. Then you throw the old PC back on, and suddenly it's back to sounding good, even though, in general, on other recordings you prefer the sound of the PC that didn't play back your reference recording the best. Anyway, I found that if I relied on just a few songs to evaluate a particular PC, it could have a tendency to really narrow the possibilities (or times at bat for a particular PC), and skew the results in favor of an overall bad PC or against an otherwise fine performer. YMMV.

Not saying there is anything wrong particularly with the A/B process, just noting that I approached my imprerssions differently. In the future, I think I'll include a Methodology section in my reviews, it never really occurred to me to do that before.

Cheers.

These are pretty priliminary findings. I bought the TG used so no idea how much burnin before me but I have about 200 hours on it.

Granted this is my preference but so far I find the 688 hides the micro details in the bloom. I really enjoy the micro details, its what splits pop rock and genuine rock talent but if you bury the background melody under the main music it loses some flavour.

In the case of DMB-Mother Father the admitedly background cymbal work is totally MIA taking away some timing queues right out of the mix. Or the wood percussion in Doin' Time building the pace kicks in later than normal reducing the build up.

But this is all in my system, with my preferences. The Tri-Vista is already pretty warm with good bottom end weight and the Dynahi is neutral if a little shouty. On my previous A324 the added bottom end and smoothness would have really helped.

That said it just goes to show that PCs really offer different though not always positive changes in one's system. I'll run another comparison with more varied music when I get my Reference back. The Dynahi is nice but frankly I prefer a well implemented Dynalo. The Lo has more weight with a less shouty character similar to the 688 just to a smaller degree.

I'd imagine the 688 to be heaven on something like a Benchmark DAC1.

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Couldn't agree more, Solude. That's why PC reviews are so tricky and why I put the big caveat at the start of my review. Gotta run.

I normally use more songs but this is prilim, just trying to get a jist for the 688 character. What I do is use varying artists, ranging from simple to complex, rock to jazz, vocal to instrumental...

I really like Doin' Time because its well recorded, has lots of activity but all percussion, varying layers of volume, incredible soundstage depth and width... so its a great tune to judge dynamics, decay, timbre, pace, blackness, staging, bass right on through to treble. On my previous speaker rig its scary how well layed out the set is, you could duplicate Alex's set in your home with it as a reference :O

Anyway there are others I generally use but basically I build my play list, doubling up on every song. I listen on the first pass of a song, take notes on the second and repeat this for as many songs that make the playlist. I try to keep it between 2-6 for time and memory reasons. Then I swap components and run through it again. Listening without notes, then with for each song. Whatever is 'on deck' is plugged into something else to keep it warm. So while the stocker is under critique the 688 is powering my monitor.

Not perfect but definitely sufficient for me to decide between components. I expect that once my Monster AVS2000 arrives and I'm dealing with perfect power judging PCs will be less a hit and miss. But that XLO is never coming back

Worth noting that I tend to look for what something does wrong more than right. If its wrongs are intolerable, it doesn't matter what it does right

I have received word that Bob Crump has passed away over the Thanksgiving holiday. He was a class act, a very nice guy in my (limited) dealings with him. Rest in peace, and thanks for the fine cables.



I suspect this means his TG Audio cable business is finished, as I'm certain it was a one-man operation, and he made them all himself. Probably only way to get his cables now will be on the used market.

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Sad news indeed.I will miss his posts over at AA a lot.Always an interesting read no matter what your opinion of the points being made.Yup.will be missed by many including me.

OK, so even though I'm supposed to be on a hiatus from power cable reviewing, my curiosity was piqued by Solude's review of the incredibly cheap Volex 17604. He liked it better than my number one choice, the TG Audio 688. Since it was so cheap, I thought, "what the heck, why not?" I've added a new section to the review, but I've cut and pasted it here so you don't have to hunt for it.

Here are my results:

15. Volex 17604

Pricing (6 ft. cord): $8-$12.00

Review
In other threads on this site, this cheap Volex cord has been compared favorably to cables costing 30X its price. The 17604 is the shielded version of Volex's basic cable which features wire made by Belden. How does it stack up for this reviewer among all the various cables I've had so far?

Surprisingly well. Let me amend that-- shockingly well (qualifier-- given the price). I can say that this power cord easily and handily beats out several of the much more expensive cables I've reviewed so far. To put that statement in perspective, though, as you've read, there are a number of fancy power cords I didn't care for at all, so it's in that context that this cheap Volex stands out ahead of them.

But saying the Volex is better than cables I really detested is not the same as saying it compares favorably with the really good aftermarket cables. A better, more fair and interesting comparison is against another mass-produced budget cable I think very highly of-- the Iron Lung Jellyfish.

I was quite surprised at the difference between these two budget cables. I suspected they would sound quite similar, but they don't.

The unshielded Jellyfish is much more extended at both ends-- there's clearly more treble and much more bass. The Jellyfish is more "hi-fi" sounding, where the Volex is more "natural" and warm. The Volex has the "tone" thing down. It *harmonizes* very well. It sounds very "real" and natural. In contrast, the Jellyfish has more "glare" than the Volex, sounds are more "recorded" than real, yielding an artifically sweetened sound. Tonally, Volex focuses more on the mid-range, Jellyfish more on the lows and the highs. Neither one is completely right; one has a smiley-face EQ (Jellyfish), the other a frowny-face EQ (Volex). Overall, the Volex is easier on the ears, the sound is "thicker", and less "exciting". If you want to relax into the sound, the Volex would be a better choice, but if you want to be a participant, rather than just an observer, the Jellyfish makes more sense.

The Jellyfish definitely is superior to the Volex in terms of PRAT and sheer slam. It's a much more forceful, impacting and energetic cable. In terms of soundstaging, the Volex is smaller, moving you back a couple rows. The Volex has less "air" and dimesionality than the Jellyfish, making it seem somewhat 2-dimensional and flat. They are roughly equal in terms of detail/resolution.

I estimated I switched out these two budget cables at least 30 times doing this comparison. This was a royal pain in the butt. It took quite a while to decide which one I preferred, it was not clear-cut. Overall, these are both terrific budget cables with different strengths and weaknesses, I think it comes down to where you are more willing to compromise. I can live without the extended highs of the Jellyfish (which can sound somewhat artificial), but the deal-breaker for me on the Volex is its pretty severely rolled bass response. I need every last drop of bass I can get, and the Volex withholds a little too much to overlook. And that's a shame because it's so tonally attractive and natural, very "musical" and quite enjoyable.

Flexibility: 9
Build quality: 5
Tonality: 9
Soundstaging/imaging: 5
PRAT/dynamics/speed: 5
Resolution/detail/transparency: 7
Value: 8
Overall Performance: 7.5

Here is where the Volex fits in on my rankings:

Conclusion

1.Split decision between the TG 688 (for my source), and the Wolff Source cord (for my headamp)
2.Virtual Dynamics Reference (since replaced/superseded by the David)
3.KAS Audio Primus (on my headamp)
4.VH Audio Flavor 1 and Flavor 2
5.Custom Power Cord Company Model 14 Series 2
6.Tek Line Eclipse
7.Iron Lung Jellyfish / Volex 17604
8. Straight Wire Blue Thunder
9.Audio Metallurgy Gold Alloy 9
10.Analysis Plus Oval 10
11.Absolute Power Cord
12.Zu Cable BoK
13.PS Audio XStream Plus