Shunyata Research Omega QR-s power cord and DF-SS cable elevators

Fans of British TV from 15 or so years ago might remember Mr Doovdé by the Phonejacker, Kayvan Novak. His schtick was to phone up companies and repeatedly – and frustratingly – pronounce acronyms as proper names, such as ‘Derveder’, ‘Doovday’ or ‘Doovdé’ in place of ‘DVD’. So, I am pleased to review Shunyata Research’s Omega Querse power cord, especially as it comes supplied with a trio of Derfs cable elevators. OK, so it’s Omega QR-s and DF-SS, but from here on in, when you see the term DF-SS, you’ll be thinking ‘Derfs’. Sorry, Shunyata.

Omega QR is the absolute pinnacle of Shunyata’s research and development in power cord and took three years of iterative product testing to deliver a performance that sets the standard for eliminating any kind of dynamic compromise between outlet and component. The people heard it, loved it… and then whined about how inflexible it was. So, Omega QR-s was born; a cable that takes the technology found in the very top power cord Shunyata makes with the sort of flexibility that means your DAC or phono stage isn’t floating in mid-air.

Like most things Shunyata, the Omega QR-s bristles with Shunyata’s own technology, each neatly described by its own acronym, none of which get the Mr Doovdé treatment for brevity. Omega QR-s uses a QR/BB module (which provides a local reserve of energy to mitigate the inductive reactance of the power cord, but without resorting to an R/C network) and a NIC (Noise Isolation Chamber) device in the central tube surrounding the cable, which is already one of Shunyata’s Noise Reduction designs. Factor in the company’s VTA-Ag (outer copper strands with a solid silver core) conductors, its own CopperCONN connectors with carbon fibre outer shells, a design optimised for optimum current delivery by its proprietary DT/CD measurement system and finalised with Shunyata’s KPIP kinetic phase inversion run-in process and you have a lot of tech in one chunky cable inside its own flight case.

Shunyata’s Omega QR-s is one of the most dynamically unconstrained power cords out there, and that’s saying a lot. Granted this needs some big-hitter electronics to fully realise, but it lets the dynamics through almost irrespective. Meaning if you end up with one of those ‘reviewer’s folly’ systems where the cable is five times more expensive than the device it pokes into, you still hear the dynamic freedom of expression. Naturally, if order is preserved and you use something really high-end (I used the Gryphon Ethos CD player, which I hope doesn’t remind Gryphon that I have the Ethos CD player), then that ‘dynamics, unconstrained’ presentation takes on a gravitas all its own. This applies just as much to small-scale ‘girl-with-guitar’ music as it does with an orchestra playing at full tilt, but perhaps the best example of how it works well is with the soundtrack to Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom [Branford Marsalis, Sony]. Playing ‘Those Dogs of Mine’, the separation between vocal and piano is marked, and Viola Davis rasping vocal and its inherent humour comes through perfectly. But really, the whole album is extremely well recorded and benefits from the extra sense of dynamic freedom the Omega QR-s brings.