JBN
Just buy new!
56 THE ABSOLUTE SOUND n AUGUST 2006
Long after I’d discovered
through my own listening
experience that signal interconnects
and loudspeaker
cables are important to good
sound, I resisted the idea that power
cords could affect sound quality. Think
of the miles of transmission wires
between the power generator and your
home, and of the dozens or hundreds of
feet of Romex in your house wiring, and
then ask how a few feet of exotic AC
cable at the end of that long chain can
make one whit of sonic difference.
But as with all things audio, the
proof is in the listening. In 1989, a visiting
amplifier designer and I were auditioning
two amplifiers, and after about
an hour of comparisons he casually
switched the two amplifiers’ power
cords. Sonic characteristics that I had
attributed to Amplifier A suddenly
appeared in Amplifier B. I was listening
to the difference in power cords.
The idea that a power cord comes at
the end of a very long power-transmission
system is purely one of perspective.
From the amplifier’s point of view the
power cord is the first few feet of the
power-deliver system. You can almost
consider the power cord an extension of
the power transformer’s primary windings.
And if you think of an audio system’s
AC connections as a local network
that begins at your wall outlet, the notion
that AC cables can make an audible difference
no longer seems so far-fetched.
As for power conditioners, there’s never
been a debate; individually filtered AC
outlets prevent noise generated by one
component from getting into another
component through the AC connection,
improving sound quality (assuming an
ideally designed conditioner).
Whether or not there’s a theoretical
basis for an audio phenomenon, there’s
no denying the truth of a thorough listening
experience. And that is a test the
AC products from Shunyata Research
passed—with jaw-dropping effect.
I went full-bore, replacing, all at
once, an entire system’s worth of stock or
aftermarket AC cords with the Shunyata
Hydra 8 conditioner on the front-end
components, a Hydra 2 on each power
amplifier, and Shunyata Anaconda and
Python Powersnake AC cables throughout.
Even before products had settled in,
the transformation of my system was
unmistakable.
Think of flying at night over a city
when there’s a thin layer of fog or mist
beneath you. You see the lights below,
but they’re slightly diffused and out of
focus. The mist tends to scatter the
light, reducing the contrast between the
lights and the black background as the
mist takes on a faint glow. Now think of
flying over a city in the bone-dry
Southwest on a perfectly clear and pitchblack
night. The lights are vivid and
distinct pinpoints cast against a coalblack
background. You can easily discern—
without trying—tiny details in
the lights’ sizes, shapes, and hues. The
view takes on an almost crystalline quality
in its razor-sharp vividness.
That’s the effect the Shunyata products
had on the musical presentation. I
heard a huge increase in transparency—
the magnitude of which was easily the
equal of replacing a fairly veiled midgrade
preamp with a world-class unit.
The term “clarity” is seldom used in
audio criticism, perhaps because it’s
rather plain. But clarity is the best single
word to describe the Shunyata’s effect on
my system’s sound. This clarity was
manifested as a sense of nothing between
me and the music, of soundstage transparency,
of precise spatial definition, and
of instrumental timbre purity.
A closer look at how the Shunyata
products affected the soundstage showed
that instruments within the acoustic
became tightly and precisely defined,
and the sense of air around those images
became more palpable. The delineation
between the image and surrounding air
was sharper, fostering a greater impression
of hearing an actual instrument in
an acoustic space. Concomitantly, the
Shunyata system allowed my system to
Shunyata Research AC Power-Conditioning System
Is a power cord the “Last Four Feet” in AC power delivery or the
“First Four Feet”?
Robert Harley
e q u i p m e n t r e p o r t
58 THE ABSOLUTE SOUND n AUGUST 2006
better express what Jonathan Valin calls
“action”—the sense of bloom around an
instrument expanding dynamically with
its volume of sound. With more sharply
defined image boundaries, and a more
palpable sense of transparent air around
those images, a greater sense of “action”
was resolved. Consequently, music
sounded more natural and organic, and
less like a synthetic re-creation. A vivid
example of “action” is the trombone solo
on “Soft Winds” from the spectacular
Keith Johnson recording From the Age of
Swing by Dick Hyman [Reference
Recordings].
Related to this phenomenon was a
heightened ability to hear very quiet
sounds, usually toward the soundstage
rear, even in the presence of louder
instruments. The result was a deeper
involvement in complex music as each
voice in the tapestry remained clearly
audible. Hearing familiar music in this
new light gave me an even greater
appreciation for the compositions and
arrangements. Two salient examples are
the Ensemble Modern’s masterful playing
on Zappa’s The Yellow Shark, and the
fascinating, M.C. Escher-like pieces on
Philip Glass’ soundtrack to Powaqatsi
[Barking Pumpkin and Nonesuch,
respectively]. The Shunyata products
gave me new insights into these compositions
and performances by making
more vivid the interplay between instrumental
voices. I could hear deeper into
the music by virtue of the system’s higher
sonic resolution.
The resolution of low-level detail
increased largely because the details
emerged from a background of absolute
black silence. It wasn’t that my system
was noisy before the Shunyata, but it didn’t
have such a dramatic, dead-silent backdrop
against which to portray the music.
In addition to these specific sonic
improvements—some of which were
startling in their own right—music
through the system with the Shunyata
products just seemed more natural,
relaxed, and pure, fostering a deeper and
more immediate involvement.
Significantly, there were no sonic drawbacks
often associated with AC power
conditioning systems such as compression
of dynamics.
The Shunyata products are the most
effective AC products I’ve had in my
system, rendering a larger increase in
sound quality than any other power-conditioning
products I’ve tried. This
extraordinary performance, however,
comes at an extraordinary price: The
complete system as reviewed is more
than $18,000. Of course, I needed two
Hydra 2s and six PowerSnakes on the
e q u i p m e n t r e p o r t
WWW.THEABSOLUTESOUND.COM 59
monoblock BAT VK-600 amplifiers,
each of which requires two power cords.
For most systems, a Hydra 8, a Hydra 2,
and five or six PowerSnakes are sufficient,
bringing the price to about half
that of the review package. Still, that
represents a considerable investment,
but one that is cost-effective in a very
high-end system. Keep in mind that the
products reviewed here are Shunyata’s
flagship units; the company makes a
complete line of less-expensive conditioners
and AC cables. Moreover, I found
little sonic improvement in the
Anaconda AC cable compared with the
half-the-price Python. Careful selection
of components from Shunyata’s line
could get you most of the way there for
considerably less than a system of all
top-of-the-line products.
So, is an AC power cable the last few
feet in AC power-delivery or the first few
feet? Try the Shunyata AC products in
your system and you won’t care about
such academic questions—you’ll be too
busy enjoying the music.
Max Shepherd Comments
Although I had the Shunyata Hydra 8 and
PowerSnakes AC cables in my system for
only five days (Robert Harley lent me his
review samples), I immediately noticed
that they caused the soundstage to
expand like a soufflé, creating a deeper
and wider soundspace. On this larger
stage I could see and hear the players
more clearly. For example, there was a
marked improvement in the placement
and separation of the performers. Each
was more cleanly delineated and threedimensional
and buffered by an increased
sense of surrounding air. Along with this
greater openness came an increase in the
clarity and resolution of instrumental timbres.
Keith Jarrett’s piano sounded less
bright and more realistic than ever before
in my system. Clarinets had a fuller, richer
tone, as if the pitch of the instrument had
changed slightly or the tone had shifted
from the mouthpiece to the bell. Female
vocalists sounded slightly more forward,
almost with a convex rather than a concave
perspective. The opening trumpet in
Mahler’s 5th Symphony floated in a cosmos
of dark matter, creating a hauntingly
spatial sound. Finally, bass in Massive
Attack’s “Mezzanine” was tight, highly
resolved, and visceral. In short, the
Shunyata Hydra 8 and PowerSnakes AC
cables created such an open, spatial,
detailed, natural, and musical sound in my
system that I really hated to return RH’s
review samples.
&
e q u i p m e n t r e p o r t
About Hydra
The Hydra 8 is about the size of toaster, providing
eight AC outlets on its rear panel. Virtually every
component inside the Hydra 8 has been designed,
modified, or carefully evaluated by designer Caelin Gabriel. The AC outlets are custommade
for Shunyata by Hubbel and feature silver plating; the internal wiring and bussbars
are made from special custom copper; and the inner workings are hermetically
sealed in a sub-chassis filled with a patented crystalline compound called FeSi-1000.
This material reportedly acts as a ferrite filter but without introducing magnetic interaction.
This encapsulated chassis is mounted within the external chassis housing the
AC outlets. Each AC outlet is individually filtered. An in-house cryogenic tank processes
the AC outlets, buss-bars, and other components before assembly. The effect of
cryogenically freezing audio components was proved to me many years ago by Ed
Meitner, who sent me identical interconnects for comparison, one of which had been
frozen. The physics of why cryogenic freezing helps conductors pass audio signals is
beyond me, but the effect has been proved to my satisfaction.
The Hydra 2 is not nearly as elaborate as the flagship Hydra 8, lacking the dualchassis
design and encapsulation in FeSi-1000. Its two AC outlets (identical to those
used in the Hydra 8) make it ideal for power amplifiers. The Hydra 2 reportedly prevents
noise generated by the power amplifier’s rectifiers (the devices that convert
incoming AC to DC) from getting back into the AC power system where it could pollute
your preamp and source components.
I used a combination of Anaconda and Python AC cords. These are both based on
a patented helix structure (see photo on p. 56) that reportedly is the key to their performance.
The helix braid is so complex that it must be made by hand, requiring five
hours of braiding to make one cable (not including the terminations). The Anaconda
is the more elaborate of the two (6x6 helix geometry and 13 conductors versus 4x4
geometry and nine conductors), and carries a price twice that of the Python. Both feature
cryogenically treated silver-plated AC and IEC terminations. Shunyata also makes
six other power cords starting at $99. RH
M A N U FAC T U R E R I N F O R M AT I O N
SHUNYATA RESEARCH
5594 N.E. Minder Road
Poulsbo, Washington 98346
(608) 850-6752
shunyata.com
SPECIFICATIONS
Hydra 8
Outlets: Eight
Maximum power delivery: 2400 watts
Dimensions: 13" x 6" x 9.5"
Weight: 15.5 lbs.
Price: $2495
Hydra 2
Outlets: Two
Maximum power delivery: 2400 watts
Dimensions: 5" x 3" x 5"
Weight: 2 lbs.
Price: $395
Anaconda AC cable
Length: 8'
Price: $1995
Python AC cable
Length: 8'
Price: $995
Long after I’d discovered
through my own listening
experience that signal interconnects
and loudspeaker
cables are important to good
sound, I resisted the idea that power
cords could affect sound quality. Think
of the miles of transmission wires
between the power generator and your
home, and of the dozens or hundreds of
feet of Romex in your house wiring, and
then ask how a few feet of exotic AC
cable at the end of that long chain can
make one whit of sonic difference.
But as with all things audio, the
proof is in the listening. In 1989, a visiting
amplifier designer and I were auditioning
two amplifiers, and after about
an hour of comparisons he casually
switched the two amplifiers’ power
cords. Sonic characteristics that I had
attributed to Amplifier A suddenly
appeared in Amplifier B. I was listening
to the difference in power cords.
The idea that a power cord comes at
the end of a very long power-transmission
system is purely one of perspective.
From the amplifier’s point of view the
power cord is the first few feet of the
power-deliver system. You can almost
consider the power cord an extension of
the power transformer’s primary windings.
And if you think of an audio system’s
AC connections as a local network
that begins at your wall outlet, the notion
that AC cables can make an audible difference
no longer seems so far-fetched.
As for power conditioners, there’s never
been a debate; individually filtered AC
outlets prevent noise generated by one
component from getting into another
component through the AC connection,
improving sound quality (assuming an
ideally designed conditioner).
Whether or not there’s a theoretical
basis for an audio phenomenon, there’s
no denying the truth of a thorough listening
experience. And that is a test the
AC products from Shunyata Research
passed—with jaw-dropping effect.
I went full-bore, replacing, all at
once, an entire system’s worth of stock or
aftermarket AC cords with the Shunyata
Hydra 8 conditioner on the front-end
components, a Hydra 2 on each power
amplifier, and Shunyata Anaconda and
Python Powersnake AC cables throughout.
Even before products had settled in,
the transformation of my system was
unmistakable.
Think of flying at night over a city
when there’s a thin layer of fog or mist
beneath you. You see the lights below,
but they’re slightly diffused and out of
focus. The mist tends to scatter the
light, reducing the contrast between the
lights and the black background as the
mist takes on a faint glow. Now think of
flying over a city in the bone-dry
Southwest on a perfectly clear and pitchblack
night. The lights are vivid and
distinct pinpoints cast against a coalblack
background. You can easily discern—
without trying—tiny details in
the lights’ sizes, shapes, and hues. The
view takes on an almost crystalline quality
in its razor-sharp vividness.
That’s the effect the Shunyata products
had on the musical presentation. I
heard a huge increase in transparency—
the magnitude of which was easily the
equal of replacing a fairly veiled midgrade
preamp with a world-class unit.
The term “clarity” is seldom used in
audio criticism, perhaps because it’s
rather plain. But clarity is the best single
word to describe the Shunyata’s effect on
my system’s sound. This clarity was
manifested as a sense of nothing between
me and the music, of soundstage transparency,
of precise spatial definition, and
of instrumental timbre purity.
A closer look at how the Shunyata
products affected the soundstage showed
that instruments within the acoustic
became tightly and precisely defined,
and the sense of air around those images
became more palpable. The delineation
between the image and surrounding air
was sharper, fostering a greater impression
of hearing an actual instrument in
an acoustic space. Concomitantly, the
Shunyata system allowed my system to
Shunyata Research AC Power-Conditioning System
Is a power cord the “Last Four Feet” in AC power delivery or the
“First Four Feet”?
Robert Harley
e q u i p m e n t r e p o r t
58 THE ABSOLUTE SOUND n AUGUST 2006
better express what Jonathan Valin calls
“action”—the sense of bloom around an
instrument expanding dynamically with
its volume of sound. With more sharply
defined image boundaries, and a more
palpable sense of transparent air around
those images, a greater sense of “action”
was resolved. Consequently, music
sounded more natural and organic, and
less like a synthetic re-creation. A vivid
example of “action” is the trombone solo
on “Soft Winds” from the spectacular
Keith Johnson recording From the Age of
Swing by Dick Hyman [Reference
Recordings].
Related to this phenomenon was a
heightened ability to hear very quiet
sounds, usually toward the soundstage
rear, even in the presence of louder
instruments. The result was a deeper
involvement in complex music as each
voice in the tapestry remained clearly
audible. Hearing familiar music in this
new light gave me an even greater
appreciation for the compositions and
arrangements. Two salient examples are
the Ensemble Modern’s masterful playing
on Zappa’s The Yellow Shark, and the
fascinating, M.C. Escher-like pieces on
Philip Glass’ soundtrack to Powaqatsi
[Barking Pumpkin and Nonesuch,
respectively]. The Shunyata products
gave me new insights into these compositions
and performances by making
more vivid the interplay between instrumental
voices. I could hear deeper into
the music by virtue of the system’s higher
sonic resolution.
The resolution of low-level detail
increased largely because the details
emerged from a background of absolute
black silence. It wasn’t that my system
was noisy before the Shunyata, but it didn’t
have such a dramatic, dead-silent backdrop
against which to portray the music.
In addition to these specific sonic
improvements—some of which were
startling in their own right—music
through the system with the Shunyata
products just seemed more natural,
relaxed, and pure, fostering a deeper and
more immediate involvement.
Significantly, there were no sonic drawbacks
often associated with AC power
conditioning systems such as compression
of dynamics.
The Shunyata products are the most
effective AC products I’ve had in my
system, rendering a larger increase in
sound quality than any other power-conditioning
products I’ve tried. This
extraordinary performance, however,
comes at an extraordinary price: The
complete system as reviewed is more
than $18,000. Of course, I needed two
Hydra 2s and six PowerSnakes on the
e q u i p m e n t r e p o r t
WWW.THEABSOLUTESOUND.COM 59
monoblock BAT VK-600 amplifiers,
each of which requires two power cords.
For most systems, a Hydra 8, a Hydra 2,
and five or six PowerSnakes are sufficient,
bringing the price to about half
that of the review package. Still, that
represents a considerable investment,
but one that is cost-effective in a very
high-end system. Keep in mind that the
products reviewed here are Shunyata’s
flagship units; the company makes a
complete line of less-expensive conditioners
and AC cables. Moreover, I found
little sonic improvement in the
Anaconda AC cable compared with the
half-the-price Python. Careful selection
of components from Shunyata’s line
could get you most of the way there for
considerably less than a system of all
top-of-the-line products.
So, is an AC power cable the last few
feet in AC power-delivery or the first few
feet? Try the Shunyata AC products in
your system and you won’t care about
such academic questions—you’ll be too
busy enjoying the music.
Max Shepherd Comments
Although I had the Shunyata Hydra 8 and
PowerSnakes AC cables in my system for
only five days (Robert Harley lent me his
review samples), I immediately noticed
that they caused the soundstage to
expand like a soufflé, creating a deeper
and wider soundspace. On this larger
stage I could see and hear the players
more clearly. For example, there was a
marked improvement in the placement
and separation of the performers. Each
was more cleanly delineated and threedimensional
and buffered by an increased
sense of surrounding air. Along with this
greater openness came an increase in the
clarity and resolution of instrumental timbres.
Keith Jarrett’s piano sounded less
bright and more realistic than ever before
in my system. Clarinets had a fuller, richer
tone, as if the pitch of the instrument had
changed slightly or the tone had shifted
from the mouthpiece to the bell. Female
vocalists sounded slightly more forward,
almost with a convex rather than a concave
perspective. The opening trumpet in
Mahler’s 5th Symphony floated in a cosmos
of dark matter, creating a hauntingly
spatial sound. Finally, bass in Massive
Attack’s “Mezzanine” was tight, highly
resolved, and visceral. In short, the
Shunyata Hydra 8 and PowerSnakes AC
cables created such an open, spatial,
detailed, natural, and musical sound in my
system that I really hated to return RH’s
review samples.
&
e q u i p m e n t r e p o r t
About Hydra
The Hydra 8 is about the size of toaster, providing
eight AC outlets on its rear panel. Virtually every
component inside the Hydra 8 has been designed,
modified, or carefully evaluated by designer Caelin Gabriel. The AC outlets are custommade
for Shunyata by Hubbel and feature silver plating; the internal wiring and bussbars
are made from special custom copper; and the inner workings are hermetically
sealed in a sub-chassis filled with a patented crystalline compound called FeSi-1000.
This material reportedly acts as a ferrite filter but without introducing magnetic interaction.
This encapsulated chassis is mounted within the external chassis housing the
AC outlets. Each AC outlet is individually filtered. An in-house cryogenic tank processes
the AC outlets, buss-bars, and other components before assembly. The effect of
cryogenically freezing audio components was proved to me many years ago by Ed
Meitner, who sent me identical interconnects for comparison, one of which had been
frozen. The physics of why cryogenic freezing helps conductors pass audio signals is
beyond me, but the effect has been proved to my satisfaction.
The Hydra 2 is not nearly as elaborate as the flagship Hydra 8, lacking the dualchassis
design and encapsulation in FeSi-1000. Its two AC outlets (identical to those
used in the Hydra 8) make it ideal for power amplifiers. The Hydra 2 reportedly prevents
noise generated by the power amplifier’s rectifiers (the devices that convert
incoming AC to DC) from getting back into the AC power system where it could pollute
your preamp and source components.
I used a combination of Anaconda and Python AC cords. These are both based on
a patented helix structure (see photo on p. 56) that reportedly is the key to their performance.
The helix braid is so complex that it must be made by hand, requiring five
hours of braiding to make one cable (not including the terminations). The Anaconda
is the more elaborate of the two (6x6 helix geometry and 13 conductors versus 4x4
geometry and nine conductors), and carries a price twice that of the Python. Both feature
cryogenically treated silver-plated AC and IEC terminations. Shunyata also makes
six other power cords starting at $99. RH
M A N U FAC T U R E R I N F O R M AT I O N
SHUNYATA RESEARCH
5594 N.E. Minder Road
Poulsbo, Washington 98346
(608) 850-6752
shunyata.com
SPECIFICATIONS
Hydra 8
Outlets: Eight
Maximum power delivery: 2400 watts
Dimensions: 13" x 6" x 9.5"
Weight: 15.5 lbs.
Price: $2495
Hydra 2
Outlets: Two
Maximum power delivery: 2400 watts
Dimensions: 5" x 3" x 5"
Weight: 2 lbs.
Price: $395
Anaconda AC cable
Length: 8'
Price: $1995
Python AC cable
Length: 8'
Price: $995
