Intro
Contents
Power, energy… the foundation of any hi-fi system. We keep saying it: music is basically modulated energy. And the powercord is not only the last meter, but also the first meter. There are often other cables close to it. In short: powercords are important. And if you don’t believe it or have never tried it: just try it. You’ll be amazed by the differences it can bring. But before we go in depth in the the intro, let’s listen to the Audioquest Dragon Source… a… pricy model, made by the American company Audioquest.
Since the arrival of Garth Powell, Audioquest has been cleaning up the category of power products – and now speaker cables as well. Garth created up a complete product line of filters (Niagara series) and later added a whole new line of cables. This line actually consists of three series: NRG, storm-series and the Mythical Creatures. We got the last one: the Dragon. And then specifically the dragon for a source: the Dragon Source. There is also a fire blowing model for power amplifiers. The Dragon High-Current.
Twisted
There are – according to Garth – two things an ‘ac-power cord’ has to deal with: noise (noise / interference), think of bluetooth, gps, cell phone, wifi, etc – and power supply to the device itself. Especially with power amplifiers this is an important element. It often requires a very short, but very large amount of power. A cable must be able to cope with this demand and therefore not resist. (Hence the ZERO technique or geometry for new Audioquest cables).
What immediately strikes you with Dragon Source is the twist of three seperate bundles. We often see the braided structure and it has to counteract interaction between the bundles. Sometimes – often – it is also done internally. The bundle – the entire cable – is bizarrely stiff. So getting this cable somewhere behind your system is really tricky. A slight bend is still possible, but a tight one actually is not. Keep that in mind.
The Dragon Source consists of copper (PSC+) and silver (PSS) cores. Audioquest reports that the interaction of copper and silver conductors counteracts intermodulation distortion. An important source of listening fatigue. Also – and we can endorse this – silver reacts differently to the higher frequencies. Silver sounds ‘fluid’ and open. Whether that is also the case with power-cords… well: we are going to find out.
To complete the construction of the cable, we look at Ground Noise dissipation and DBS. Both technologies are of course incorporated in this high-end power-cable. Ground Noise dissipation counteracts pollution via the grounding by – among other things – efficiently converting it into heat. We have known DBS for years. This creates a continuous dielectric field in the insulation of the cable. According to Audioquest, this provides more bandwidth and aids to the removal of noise. As a bonus, it also ensures that the cable almost always remains burned in… Pleasant.
Finally, we report that the Dragon Source – just like the William Tell speaker cables – has no characteristic impedance. With some cables this is indicated by ZERO in the name.
Let’s take a look at the performance!
