Quote:
Originally Posted by iefbo
How does the Niagara compare to some of the newer models; Earth, Water?
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The AQ lineup can be extremely confusing. Earth and Water are the top copper models from the current lineup. The Niagara, though from the older lineup, is pure silver. Generally the AQ models improve on each lineup refresh, but the difference in resolution from their copper to their silver is very significant, and I'd expect Niagara to beat the Earth and Water. Note that the Wind is the updated Niagara in the new lineup, and those have been coming down in price on the used markets.
Now if you go back far enough in time to the old Cheetah, that's a silver model that I know (from comparisons) is closely competitive with the copper Water and Colorado (the older lineup's Earth) and probably will be beat by the Earth. But the newer silver models (including Niagara) are much better than the old Cheetah.
If you're interested in AQ interconnects, honestly I'd skip the coppers entirely and go right for the silver, starting at least at the Niagara/Wind. The old Sky v1 (their former flagship) will be competitive with those models too, but they retain high prices on the used market, and they were counterfeited like crazy -- so I'd skip Sky too. The current Fire model (i.e. the new Sky) is where they start sounding like a truly high-end interconnect. And for many systems (e.g. my Stax 009 / BHSE headphone setup), the Fire will be as far as you need to go.