We have been auditioning the Elrod Statement power cords here for a few months now – and it has become one of those things that we, epsecially Neli, just can’t live without (and its not so awfully expensive that we don’t have to live without them – at least for a little while :-)).
After seeing the Elrod powercords for years at shows like CES and Stereophile’s Home Entertainment Show, an audition was arranged. Being somewhat unweildy, we tried them mostly on amplifiers.
They just do something that no other powercord does, in our experience, nor is it likely to. These puppies are massive – they seem to let the amp have as much juice as it wants when it wants it [thinking of audiphile powercords now as a local reservoir of electrons – at the ready when the music’s dynamics require there to be adequate power NOW] and the resulting relaxed, open and deep sound is refreshing and natural.
An upcoming Blog post will talk more about powercords – and the shootouts, specifically – but for now just imagine a spectrum:
Very detailed, Fast < --------------------> Very open, relaxed, round and full-sounding
on that spectrum we have:
Nordost Valhalla powercords < -------- Shunyata Helix Anaconda Alpha ------ Shunyata Anaconda Helix Vx -------- older Shunyata Anaconda Vx -------> Elrod Statements
The older Shunyata Anaconda Alpha is not as open sounding as the new Shunyata Anaconda Helix Vx so it should go to the left of it…
but it is less detailed, so it should go to the right of it… so this is not a perfect scale against which to measure all powercords…. but it is a start, I think.
Anywho, the Elrod powercords on the right there is the sound that we, and many of our customers, are often looking for. A sort of antidote to the tight, controlled, detailed sound that many of our other customers like – but which some find a little too clinical and unnatural and who like more macrodynamics.
We have had the Elron Statements on the ML2.1 monoblock amplifiers quite a bit of late. Luckily the Marten Design Coltrane loudspeakers have a bass adjustment knob, because we got a LOT more bass all of a sudden when we put these powercords on.
We got similar, but somewhat less dramatic, results on the other systems and amplifiers we put these on.
These powercords are an easy fix for A LOT of anemic and/or clinical-sounding systems out there!