I really want to thank Dave Elledge for including me on this tour, as I'd never tried quality power cables and I was a
huge skeptic. I mean huge. I mean arms folded, ready to fearlessly bag on them all over Audiocircle
all day long skeptical. You know how I roll. Dave was
very brave to send them my way. Or rather, very confident, its obvious now that that was the case. Sum: Anyone who has chosen the components for their system, and has dialed in and tuned their room with treatments, and are now looking for that last icing on the cake should look no further.
PI audio is a mainstay of GR Research, and his products like the Uberbuss (which I hope to also try), seem to be ubiquitous among the finer systems on this board.
I had a good extended amount of time with these cables, and put the Mongo on my cdp, and swapped the MPC+ (with Furutech), and MPC back and forth on my subwoofer.
These are extremely attractive cables that are definitely "OFFICIAL" power cables. You touch the exterior and you can feel a whole lot of wire going on under there. It's like drinking with one of your stupid friends who chugs creatine and does bicep curls all day. At some point he's going to want you to feel his bicep (in order to shame you), and, yes, sadly, these PI cables also make me feel inadequate in the same way.
On listening, ok, there was definitely something going on here. The human aural memory is pretty pathetic so I am a believer in long term listening with components, then swapping, followed by further long term listening, and staying with the same listening material, a single album is best. To me, when components are similar, snapping back and forth won't do it. Is there a difference? Yes. Is my human capability able to detect it in snap switches? No. Maybe if I was a robot, then it would be different. Humans have terrible aural memories. Unless the difference is hugely drastically different, we need time to settle before we can actually quantify differences. I am learning a lot as a "journeyman" audiophile. I've tried several speakers now, several amps, and sometimes the difference in a piece of gear is blatantly, obviously,staggeringly better, like the Ncore amp, and sometimes it is subtle and requires listening, like my ERC-2 player versus XDA-1 dac. When the differences are small, we must listen at length. But don't kid yourself, there are differences.
That said, the differences with the MPC+ on my Epik Legend subwoofer were not subtle. I had to actually
turn the gain down because the sub was now above that fine balance I'd had before. And there was definitely an increase in lower bass definition, noticed on a repeated and familiar BassNectar track that had a passage that sort of vibrated the low bass in a certain section.. with the MPC+ attached I definitely without a doubt noticed finer definition and a bit more oomph.
With the Mongo on my cdp for a good long while, with sporadic swaps to the... pretty robust stock EMO cable, I definitely noticed blacker backgrounds, a smoother presentation of the sound, more defined highs, again, not noticeable at a party, hey let's swap cables, it's more something you'll hear personally at length with familiar material, a subtle refinement of the sound.
Again, I wouldn't place the emphasis on these as a system replacement. Power cables are not the same as replacing speakers with something of higher quality, or not the same as treating your room, but they are definitely something that should be looked at as a final "finish". I know I will.
Dave is a great guy, contact him, these cables cost less that you'd expect, and will last a lifetime.
I've sent these off to the law offices of a one, Gopher, and hopefully this is something for him to enjoy after that ridiculous storm over there.
