Wouldn't it be nice if we could all agree what neutrality means? Webster's definition may be clear, but in the dialect of HiFi, we don't get off so easy. Is it a binary—either present or not—or a sliding scale with degrees of the quality? And consider that it is a loaded term carrying a positive charge. Marketing hacks know this and take advantage of its evasive nature, using it to describe everything from dry and colorless products at the fundamentalist extreme, to the progressively less orthodox as you tilt to the other side. Maybe we'd be better off thinking in terms of natural. We all know what that is, right? Right? Silence in the room. (Judging by the systems I hear, natural won't get us much further.)
Let's jettison the semantics for a real world analogy. Two guys meet at a party and discover they both play the violin. The amateur has a $150 instrument that serves his purpose. The professional musician, on the other hand, mortgaged his house for an eighteenth-century instrument. Obviously, both are neutral and natural. What makes the original instrument so desirable?
Listening to a concert in Carnegie Hall, which violin do you imagine is being played?
The analogy transfers easily to audio. While a beginner audiophile can pay $150 for a power cord that measures perfectly fine, a connoisseur-level audiophile would not have the slightest interest in using it. In a nutshell, this is the justification for why you can spend thousands for a power cord.
Kraken with IEC & 20 amp plugs
Today, I'm auditioning the third round of power cord candidates for my amps, the Kraken model from Stage III Concepts. Round one was the wonderful AudioQuest Dragon PCs. Round two was the equally impressive frontRow powerChords from Audience.
Not the Newest Design
The Kraken is not new. I pulled up the review I did years ago and was shocked to see it dated from 2013. That seven years later it is still in the inventory is unusual in this hobby. Brian Ackerman, the Stage III distributor (and owner of Aaudio Imports), says the design is unchanged—there have been some adjustments over the years with the housings and plugs, but the internals are the same. On the other hand, he noted that since the MSRP has not increased, it is an even better value today. It has always been the best seller in the line; it is a classic with good resale value. There are no plans to update or retire it.
Build Quality and Construction
The Kraken doesn't look like most power cords. It is bulky, stiff, unwieldy, and weighs a ton—and much harder to install than the other PCs in my survey (which are all oversized specimens). The sheer bulk and physical weight of the cord is a real concern, causing me to think twice before running them to a component on the top shelf of my rack for fear of stressing the IEC jack.
The cable is wider in the middle and stepped down at the ends. The conductors are the same throughout: the stepped-down section is only missing the granular mechanical damping/shielding layer. Conductor gauge is massive, supporting huge current capacity and the ability to service big power amplifiers. It has an unusual degree of shielding, starting with H.D.A. (High Density Alloy), a unique, solid foil material developed for medical and military use. A silver-plated copper braid surrounds the HDA layer. Then a layer of powdered silica/ceramic/ferrite material provides high levels of mechanical damping in addition to more shielding.
The Kraken is entirely handcrafted and most of the parts are freshly conceived. It looks like a gaudy piece of audio jewelry and has a price to match (MSRP $8400 1.5 meter).
Audience frontRow (on bottom); AQ Dragon; Stage III Kraken
The Sound
Considering how over-built it is, this muscle-bound guy looks like he's gonna launch a ton of low end and the issue will be how to deal with a bottom-heavy frequency response. A corollary inference takes into account the extreme degree of damping and shielding. Experience with many wire brands has shown this results in dull, closed-in sound. It's hard to imagine the cable will allow the music to dance.
Surprise, surprise! The Kraken confounds both assumptions.
I enthused over many alluring aspects of the Kraken in my old review, but foremost was an abundant low end that had to be addressed. Looking back, however, I see I was nearly always comparing it to PCs well below its price point. Now, up against the two worthy peers in the current shootout, there's been a further reckoning.
The Kraken's low end is not exceptional in terms of quantity. The AQ Dragon has the most; the Audience frontRow comes in second. And, as far as dynamic range and thrust, any of these contenders will challenge your room to contain them. The Audience frontRow sports the widest macros. The Dragon is the most impressive on the micro side. Its remarkable pianissimos descend deep into quietude, to the very threshold of audition.
All three present an attractive tonal balance well inside my target zone, leaving only minor tweaking required. (Getting my reference system into the zone was no picnic, let me tell you.) Each of them is capable of throwing a highly dimensional stage with similar proportions and natural imaging (as opposed to the hard-edged kind). All are eye-poppingly good.
My biggest takeaway was unexpectedly how lateral their virtues are. I had hoped one of them would be outlandishly above and beyond, but none took off that way. To be clear, there was a seismic shakeup at the beginning, when I installed Round One (the AQ Dragon PCs). That was a quake of dramatic proportions.
Burn-In
The Krakens' burn-in was lengthy, akin to a roller coaster ride. I took copious notes. Out of the box they sound meltingly good, with a bounteous low end like dark chocolate. After maybe 60 hours, the low end starts to dissipate and the cable begins to limber up. Around 120 hours, they sound sweet and flowing with not much down below, like a classic solid-silver conductor wire. (Kraken conductors are actually ribbons made of silver/palladium alloy.)
The Switcheroo
At around 160 hours, I was on the couch reading while the Schubert Trout string quintet played in the background. My ears perked up—I could hear the bass stealthily gaining. Eventually it settled into a nice balance with the other frequency bands, but it never attained the outlandish, rockin' low end of my dreams. (Brian says 300 hours does the trick for full burn-in. The long burn-in probably has to do with the extensive layers of shielding.)
The cable has done a genuine switcheroo on me. The Kraken sounds fabulous, but it's not the bass that mesmerizes me—it's the midrange. The Kraken has taken the beguiling warmth and sweetness of classic silver conductors, typically restricted to the upper mids, and expanded it to encompass the entire midrange. (Must be that palladium in the alloy.) The cables' midrange has an intoxicating bias towards beauty, but there's nothing fake or manufactured about it.
This is not to shortchange the extremely fine treble. The Kraken has seriously good integration of highs and midrange. The bands are so thoroughly interwoven that it allows for expression of fine details on top while moving the treble out of the foreground, where it doesn't call attention to itself. You never hear it in isolation; it always has the support of the mids. The low end is my third favorite band now. It is commensurate in quality with the others—clean, articulate, natural—but it is not the one you notice.
The Kraken shows off timbres that are in a class by themselves. I am a tough customer on timbre these days. Reasonably close used to be enough: now I want each instrument to sound unique and ring true, I want full expression. The Kraken timbres are wonderfully developed, refined, and flat out believable. It has an allure like that of the eighteenth-century instrument. This is as near as you'll get in the soundroom to the twin gods of beauty and truth. When I'm in the sweet spot, the sound washes over me and the active side of my brain chills out. I have the sensation of sinking into it.
In terms of this comparison, while I was engaged by the colorful aspects of the Audience frontRow and floored by the straight-up linearity of the AQ Dragons, the Krakens split the difference to come away with an alloy of greater sonic value. As Lynn observed, "I haven't heard that in a while. This is the most complete sound you've had in a long time."
Remember: Listening to a concert in Carnegie Hall, which violin do you imagine is being played?
Conclusion
I've always been in love with beautiful sound. I can trace it to the influence of a music teacher Lynn studied with for a very long stretch, a man passionately invested in drawing exquisite tonal colors from the oboe and, secondly, not deviating from the correct interpretation of the score (of course, that would be his interpretation of it).
He soon joined my listening panel and now the HiFi had to abide by those twin dictates. The kicker was a third requirement: it had to be realistic. Anything souped-up or HiFi was ridiculed into oblivion.
I willingly joined the pursuit because there was a lot of support for taking the high road at this time. Just resurrect any volume of TAS from the 1980s and you'll likely find an article that mentions something called the grail. We set our sights on the sound of unamplified acoustic instruments in a good hall, knowing it was nigh to unattainable. But the grey beard writers of that era have since retired, and the grail ain't talked about much these days. It may be a generational thing.
In concluding this three-way power cord survey, the biggest takeaway is how strong they all are. Each brought head-spinning performance that will take your system from very good to outstanding, making me wish I had done this project a long time ago
But the Stage III Kraken is the one that brings me closest to meeting the heady challenge for both beauty and realism. The Kraken pushes hardest those buttons the classical music lover cares about most. They are the ones that will take up long-term service on my amps.
Kraken Power Cord
Retail: $8400 1.5 meter
Stage III Concepts
Distributor
Aaudio Imports
