Posted by Albertporter on November 26, 2002 at 13:36:26:
In Reply to: Re: Re: How Do After Market Power Cords.......Sound ? posted by Terry Koehn on November 26, 2002 at 00:05:56:
Terry, regarding your quote:
"What does Dr. West say of all the Sonic Accessories....Well he doesn't.!...And there is much spoken in what he chooses to send with his Speakers...If a 30 dollar Power cord made a real sonic difference...He would have to send it along with all his speakers."
My take on this:
Dr. West does as everyone else in this industry. He supplies product with parts that provide the best performance for the dollar spent. If Dr. West included an audiophile power cord he would also need to consider upgrading the power supplies. The parts there are less accessible for consumers than swapping power cords and there is no question that the capacitors, inductors and resistors supplied are far from the best. I.E.: The Ultimate One is far from all "Ultimate" parts.
In my Ultimate Ones the caps will be replaced with Jensen oil and paper, which are far superior to the factory Solen. I am substituting Madisound iron core inductors instead of the tiny ferrite ones supplied. Mills resistors will go in place of the block style sand resistors. With luck this will allow me to dispose of the brilliance control.
Electrically, my parts are identical to those supplied by the factory. In theory there will be no improvement and no point in this parts swap. However, in the real world these aftermarket parts offer significant improvement over the originals.
So to return to the subject of why there are no premium power cords supplied? The same answer as why not supply premium parts in the crossover........expense.
The performance of the Soundlab is excellent as supplied. Truly represents one of the best values in high end audio. If the factory chose to install the crossover parts I listed, cost at retail would rise by approximately $4,000.00. Add the two premium power cords we're debating and retail goes up another $500.00 to $4,500.00 (depending on brand).
Simpler is better, and that is why it will be left as is. Those who wish to spend the money for improvements do so at our own risk and expense. Preferable to asking everyone to pay an additional $4,000.00 to $8,500.00 to join the Soundlab family.
Even if the price could be justified, imagine the heat Soundlab would take after they settled on a cord that proved better, ( ANY brand! ).
How many customers or dealers might ask: "If you ship these Soundlabs with a stock Belden cord, how much would you take off the price?"
Or, "If you substitute Audioquest power cords instead of the Cardas, what would my price be?"
Or worse: "I am a FIM dealer and now your shipping Soundlab with Cardas cords, your driving my customers to my competition by making my cords look inferior."
Things are difficult enough building and upgrading the worlds best speakers. They don't need these problems, and I assure you some or all would occur, while significantly raising the price of the product.
Discussing these options is why we have SLOG and Audiogon. Audiophiles may exchange information and raise the performance of our products beyond what the factory may reasonably offer. Those who are happy with a near perfect speaker may enjoy as is. Those who are long time owners may choose to experiment in ways to improve what is already great.
The analogy I like to make. It is much like buying an excellent tube amplifier or preamp, then removing every factory tube and replacing with better NOS variety.
For what it is worth, the Ultimate was my idea, you may call Connie to confirm. So sometime the factory does choose to improve things, even at great expense. Obviously it is the least popular speaker in the line due to cost.