The Significance of Veridion
I was home in Hawaii in late 2024 when I received a DM from Anas one afternoon. I hadn’t heard from him in awhile and he told me he had come up with something new and he wanted to send me a few small items. From time to time, I get requests from friends, colleagues, and manufacturers to listen to something new and in the past, I had been much more open to discovering new things related to audio but since moving to Hawaii at the beginning of 2024, I had lost interest and could no longer really be bothered.
My wife and I chose to move to Hawaii because we wanted to enjoy all the outdoor opportunities offered by this tropical paradise and so my focus now was largely on activities that require movement. I was also now in a much more confined living space and so gone were my giant class A monoblocks, dCS Vivaldi, and Taiko Extreme. I decided to keep my Wilson Alexia 2s which are really overkill for my room but fortunately, fronted by a much more space-efficient but still very capable CH Precision I1 streaming amplifier, I was still getting very good sound and music was still very much a part of my life. However, gone was the lifelike scale I was used to in my previous home and so gone also was my desire for further exploration and tinkering. I had essentially transitioned from audiophile to mere music lover.
When Anas reached out with his offer, I couldn’t tell him “no” but it was a half-hearted “yes.” Shortly after, I received a package from Belgium that contained a cheap looking 18awg power cord, LAN cable, and HDMI cable. What was I supposed to do with these cables that looked like they were purchased from Amazon? Anas told me while he was still partnered with Steven in Hong Kong, he was now treating cables in Belgium and not having to fly back and forth to Hong Kong anymore. Because Steven is so busy and because Anas now had more time on his hands, he was able to come up with what he felt was a more transparent version of Infinity which was previously QSA’s best treatment.
My curiosity was piqued but not really that much. I already had a virtually full loom of QSA Lanedri cables, from Gamma to Spectra to the Ultimatum Infinity power cord powering my CH Precision I1 and while my system is much simpler these days, I was convinced there was no way a piddly 18awg power cord could have a positive impact. I asked Anas what I should compare this skinny power cord against? A 10awg Gamma Revelation cord powering my router? He asked me to compare it against the Ultimatum Infinity powering my CH Precision I1. Ok, that was a bold thing to ask. If Anas wanted to get my attention, he now had it.
Veridion (version 1 prototype) vs Infinity vs Revelation
The enjoyment of music is very much subjective and there are those who prefer Revelation to the more expensive Infinity but to my ears, while Revelation sounds pleasantly full bodied and inoffensive, it lacks the transparency and brilliance of Infinity. Compared to Infinity, Revelation sounds more “forgiving” and can benefit systems that are lean or bright or recordings that are harsh but in the right system and with well-recorded music, Infinity is the superior treatment.
When I disconnected the giant 0awg Ultimatum Infinity power cord from my CH Precision I1 streaming amplifier and replaced it with the comparatively miniscule 18awg power cord that Anas sent me, I was struck by the physical differences between the two. Up until now, the 0awg Ultimatum Infinity power cord was the most impactful cable I had heard in my life and powering my CH Precision I1 which was the heart of my system, it was more impactful than even my 4/0 awg Ultimatum speaker cables. I didn’t believe there was any way this tiny power cable had a chance against an Ultimatum and so I opted not to give it any burn-in or settling time because I was determined to quickly put it out of its misery and instead compare it against a Gamma power cord on my router or switch which I felt would be a more fair comparison.
My immediate impressions of this 18awg power cord with an early version of Veridion were interesting to me. When I first hear something, among the things I naturally gravitate toward or at least am very sensitive to is transient response. When I blind test, it is usually differences in transient response that allow me to pick 2 different presentations apart and associated with transient response are qualities such as speed of attack, agility, physicality, but also subtlety and nuance. The Ultimatum Infinity power cord is a master of these qualities and while the 18awg Veridion cable couldn’t really match the Ultimatum in most of these areas, it was another quality that caught my attention more because of how much better it was in comparison. With Veridion, the presentation was so much clearer. It sounded more real. This small cable sounded more dynamically compressed as it should at 18awg but because of the clarity, it sounded better resolved and more lifelike. 0awg Ultimatum Infinity compared against 18awg Veridion was like comparing VHS on a giant 100 inch screen against a 4k Blu-ray player on a tiny 32 inch monitor. This is perhaps an exaggeration but you hopefully understand what I’m getting at. There is no matching the scale that Ultimatum offers, it projects a soundstage so grandly but Veridion just makes Infinity sound smeared and veiled. This new Veridion treatment was now sounding like Infinity and making Infinity sound like Revelation but to my ears, the gap between Veridion and Infinity is much bigger than the gap between Infinity and Revelation.
From here, I tried this 18awg power cable on my modem, router, switch, clock, RoonServer, and even my 98 inch TV. I compared it against an untreated 18awg power cable I purchased from Amazon, cables from other audiophile manufacturers including my other QSA Lanedri power cords and in each instance, no matter what I compared it to, the Veridion-treated power cable just sounded clearer, more alive, and more real.
Were there any negatives? Yes, a few important ones. Compared against Infinity, this initial version of Veridion sounded a bit forward in the midrange. With Infinity, you got a better sense of the recording venue. There was more bloom and space. Anas came up with a 2nd version. I had high hopes based on how good the 1st version was. He succeeded in bringing back the air and space that was in Infinity and the clarity was still there, however, the presentation had become U-shaped. Treble was tipped too bright and bass had become overpowering. It had lost balance. It seemed that tweaking could bring about positive traits but also unintentional negative traits.
It took some time but Anas got back to me with a new discovery. He was very excited. He told me he had figured out a way to make the desired changes that we were after while countering the negative consequences. Essentially, he now had more levers he could adjust during treatment. A 3rd version of Veridion was spot on. It was more of a 5th-row center presentation where you could appreciate the recording venue with symphonic music while still experiencing the engagement of sitting up close. There was better width but more impressively, there was really good depth. Most importantly, it all sounded balanced and natural sounding. Credit to Anas, he has come up with a 4th and for the foreseeable future, the final iteration of Veridion. It has all the qualities of the 3rd version but the midrange sounds even more refined. Compared against all previous QSA treatments, we feel this one is superior in every way.
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