Audioquest Niagara 1200 Review (Power Conditioner/Surge Protector)

[nyxnyxnyx]

I know Darko is a shill, but it's surreal to see how he can write all of that with a straight face.

It's not like the power strip is $10, it's fricking $1000....

 

[Ata]

Darko and Audioquest have a business relationship, that much is known. I am yet to see an Audioquest product that is doing something great... maybe their DACs, but the objective measurements tell us otherwise.

@amirm It is a bit of a waste of time measuring cables, power conditioners and such... Those who know the truth, know it already, those who believe in advertised value are not going to be swayed by yet another objective review. Your time is far too valuable for that.

 

[JohnYang1997]

Darko and Audioquest have a business relationship, that much is known. I am yet to see an Audioquest product that is doing something great... maybe their DACs, but the objective measurements tell us otherwise.

@amirm It is a bit of a waste of time measuring cables, power conditioners and such... Those who know the truth, know it already, those who believe in advertised value are not going to be swayed by yet another objective review. Your time is far too valuable for that.

It's about getting the message out. So getting some like this from time to time is good.

 

[ROOSKIE]

Darko and Audioquest have a business relationship, that much is known. I am yet to see an Audioquest product that is doing something great... maybe their DACs, but the objective measurements tell us otherwise.

@amirm It is a bit of a waste of time measuring cables, power conditioners and such... Those who know the truth, know it already, those who believe in advertised value are not going to be swayed by yet another objective review. Your time is far too valuable for that.

Disagree.
These are some of the funniest reviews available.
Love seeing them thrown in every now and then.

 

[Ata]

It's about getting the message out. So getting some like this from time to time is good.

Fair enough, my point is that an ignorant audiophile is going to ignore this even if they read it, and come up with all sorts of excuses ala "I can hear the difference". I am yet to see any of those convert to objectivism... would love to be corrected.

 

[JohnYang1997]

Fair enough, my point is that an ignorant audiophile is going to ignore this even if they read it, and come up with all sorts of excuses ala "I can hear the difference". I am yet to see any of those convert to objectivism... would love to be corrected.

I would assume there are many who are new or in between that can learn from this.

 

[amirm]

Fair enough, my point is that an ignorant audiophile is going to ignore this even if they read it, and come up with all sorts of excuses ala "I can hear the difference". I am yet to see any of those convert to objectivism... would love to be corrected.

Think about why I got this gear to test. People are starting to question these things but need more data. There is no shortage of objectivists saying this and that doesn't work. That, hasn't done a ton of good. But when we start with fresh sheet of paper and analyze these things and find that they do nothing useful, then it has more impact. People can and use these measurements as references, making their arguments more convincing.

 

[Ata]

OK, I put my argument to rest. I would still like to hear of people who found this useful in forming new opinions. Let the fun continue.

 

[wwenze]

I have a $200 SurgeX to protect most of my components, but I can’t use it with my power amp. The “inrush current elimination” feature which protects my other stuff kills the ability of my amp to draw instantaneous current for musical peaks with my low impedance speakers. Yes, it sounds worse with the SurgeX. So, it gets plugged in the wall socket, unprotected.

I wonder if the circuit design of the AQ has a similar impact with power amps.

Don't worry, the fact that 60Hz AC is, well, AC, means that the "inrush current elimination" is already naturally happening for 90% of the time, because when the AC instantaneous voltage is below your DC capacitor's voltage there is no input current.

For "peak current draw" lasting more than 10ms (i.e. longer than half of a 60Hz cycle) then yes any series impedance will reduce the max voltage. I'm not sure if that counts as "instantaneous" power anymore however, not when the frequency is lower than what the internal capacitors are designed to handle.

 

[DACs_Lover]

Want to see measurements of Powerplant PSaudio and Shunyata. All of them are snakeoils?

 

[wwenze]

Darko and Audioquest have a business relationship, that much is known. I am yet to see an Audioquest product that is doing something great... maybe their DACs, but the objective measurements tell us otherwise.

@amirm It is a bit of a waste of time measuring cables, power conditioners and such... Those who know the truth, know it already, those who believe in advertised value are not going to be swayed by yet another objective review. Your time is far too valuable for that.

Line filters have practical applications tho. Maybe not here, but elsewhere.

And I'm concerned if line filters that actually work are measured and concluded to be not working here. Fortunately that won't happen because EMI filters usually start working above 100kHz. Maybe for common mode noise you can get 20dB at 10kHz? But we are dealing with differential measurements. Plus common mode noise is a can of worms that can affect some people but not others so how are we going to implement a standard test condition. The data will be interesting tho - All those USB-powered dongles that measure well on AP, I can bet that most will drop to onboard sound level of SINAD in a typical setup.

 

[FeddyLost]

Such filter with decent filtration capability in audioband (i.e. from 100 Hz and up) and low impedance (= low resistance) would be extremely heavy and expensive with big chokes and a lot of thick wiring.
I've seen big industrial inductive filters - they use copper braided bus wound over glass composite former when need low impedance and no saturation.
I think invertor regen like UPS will be cheaper and better in that department.

 

[pma]

This should have been measured to 100 MHz at least. Audio frequency measurement at 1 place of the world power net with 1 component is pointless.

 

[trl]

that

Inverters may induce their own artefacts sometimes. Also, these online inverters are usually noisy and power consuming, this is why I swapped my former online 3kVA Liebert with an off-line 2kVA Legrand, so I can be able to listen to the music while the UPS is operating.

 

[H-713]

OK, so just to play devil's advocate (and I know that these products are snake oil), if we're going to test them with an amplifier, don't use something like a Topping. It is well-designed and won't care what kind of input power it gets. If a power conditioner were to make a difference (and on occasion, power conditioning can be beneficial- see below), it would be with something that isn't so well designed. Perhaps, maybe, an old amplifier (tube amp, perhaps) with little to no EMI filtering and (potentially) a relatively wideband power transformer and lackluster filtering.

As I mentioned, power conditioning can be useful. Occasionally I deal with equipment that is super picky about its incoming power. While most older equipment is pretty good in this regard, sometimes you run into something that is a real princess. In those situations, EMI filters and DC blockers usually solve the problem. Now and then I have to throw a Sola CVT at the problem.

 

[NYfan2]

It's not only Stereophile or Darko who promote the Audioquest products, over here in the Netherlands almost all reviewers are always promoting the Audioquest products, not only the power conditioners but also the cables.
Just recently I saw a review of an Audioquest USB cable that improved the sound significant according to the reviewer.

It's good that we have Armir and people that send in their products for testing so we can see the truth!

 

[Johannes AU]

Oh ...no .....

 

[tomita]

@amirm could you also test the poweramp sockets? For some reason, my Benchmark AHB2 performs worse when connected through the AQ Niagara 1200 than when it's connected directly to the power line. Worse dynamics.

 

[Koeitje]

Do we have any details on the device's surge filtering capability?

I see it also apparently has an over-voltage shutdown functionality, which can be rather useful.

Yes, an expensive power board in a nice box, but there's probably more to it than that.

If that mattered I would just buy something aimed at the b2b market and solely aimed at surge protection. Would save yourself a ton of money.

 

[Koeitje]

I know Darko is a shill, but it's surreal to see how he can write all of that with a straight face.

It's not like the power strip is $10, it's fricking $1000....