2023 Editors’ Choice: Best Power Cords $1,000 and Up.

Everything that goes into DPS-4.1 can be found directly online or through a dealer network. The parts are available to home users who are interested in finishing their own custom lengths and terminations, and who are handy enough with a crimping tool and a soldering iron to complete the task. The home assembly approach of the DPS-4.1 may not be for everyone, but the finished product performs on a par with some of the top contenders, at a considerable savings. NG, 317

The new Studio One version of Audience’s already superb Au24 AC cords render an across-the-board sonic improvement. Studio One brings to the table new connectors with higher-quality metallurgy and lower-mass terminations. Moreover, Audience now offers the Studio One in three versions, low-power for DACs, preamps, and phonostages, medium-power for lower-powered integrated amplifiers, and high-power for power amplifiers. Each delivers a low noise floor, neutrality, an almost preternatural sense of recorded space and ambience and seemingly effortless flow and immediacy. Last but not least, these cords are among the most flexible available, very handy for angled runs. NG, 219, 245

The Alpha XC v2 power cord may be less than half the price of Shunyata’s flagship Sigma but you wouldn’t know that from listening to it. The XC delivers blacker backgrounds, enhanced textural density, smoother treble, and greater resolution in a flexible and sanely priced power cord. RH

Designed for use primarily with front-end components, the Silver III AC 10 delivers tremendous clarity, smoothness, and definition across the entire frequency spectrum, and does so without constricting dynamics or softening the treble. A built-in noise filter acts as an AC conditioner to remove line noise. SK

Shunyata’s new Sigma NR AC cords raise the bar in performance in the category. Even compared with Shunyata’s reference-grade Alpha, the Sigma delivers a quieter background, a more richly detailed soundstage, and greater dimensionality. Each cable behaves like a mini-power conditioner by incorporating noise-filtering technology. SSc, 311

In Jacob Heilbrunn’s view, these AC cords are very much the best of the power products that AudioQuest makes. Though he greatly enjoyed the AudioQuest Niagara 7000 Low-Z Power Noise Dissipation System, he feels that these power cords have even more of an immediate sonic impact. Compared with the towering prices of some top-notch rival power cables, the AudioQuest Dragon Source and High-Current wires are also something of a steal. They are remarkably effective products that anyone interested in experimenting with power cords should consider. JHb, 291

These top-end power cords are made from a mix of exotic materials and construction techniques, including pure-silver, single-crystal, continuous-cast, Ohno eight-gauge conductors and rhodium-plated-over-tellurium copper connectors, individually insulated with velocity-matched Teflon dielectrics and heavily braided silver-plated copper shielding. MC found that the VooDoo power cords produced an instantly apparent increase in resolution and separation of instruments. These improvements are due in part to a lowered noise floor and improved conveyance of speed and articulation. In addition, the system’s electronics seemed to get a boost in channel separation. The improved sense of resonance and timbre in the bottom end clearly comes from that lowered noise floor in conjunction with an improvement in phase coherence. That the VooDoo power cables resulted in a profound improvement in almost every aspect of MC’s system is flat fact—incontrovertible and astounding. MC, 334

Au24 SX represents Audience’s latest wire geometry. Compared with its forerunner SE, SX presents an even lower noise floor—a virtual black palette of calm. The upshot is a soundstage of rock-solid stability and continuity, with more fully realized dimensionality and depth. A state-of-the-art cord. NG, 291

Shunyata’s Omega XC power cords use the company’s VTX-Ag conductors in massively thick array (AWG4). It also features carbon-fiber headshells and CopperConn terminations. When used with Shunyata’s Everest conditioner, the Omega offers seemingly unlimited current delivery, a dead-quiet noise floor, and a greater sense of instrumental presence. The Omega QR/QR-s ($9000/$7,500, not reviewed) adds noise-reduction technology right in the cable. RH, 312

Like Crystal’s superb Da Vinci cables and interconnects, this flexible, beautifully made, silver-and-gold wire stuff costs an arm and a foot. But…if you got the money, it’s very much worth it. This is the quietest, most transparent power cord JV has heard—gorgeous in color, unstinting in dynamics, unexceeded in resolution. JV, 333