Power Cables
Hello, a power cable sceptic here. What about you?
A week or two ago I was at Jedi master OB-Jim kinobi's place, and amongst other things we discussed power cables. After patiently listening to me, Jim asked if I had time for a quick experiement. He unplugged the 'boutique' power cable from the Croft pre amp and put in a standard black moulded IEC cable, without adjusting anything in the system.
To say I was surprised at the change I heard is fair, and a bit of an understatement TBH. When his normal cable was re-instated the effect was reversed. What the change was and what was preferable isn't relevant but the fact there was a noticable change is.
Is anyone else an advocate (or otherwise) of 'decent' mains cables? What makes a good one, in your view?
I am used to amps with captive mains leads, have been for nearly five years now, but I am going to have some new amps in a few months. These will now have IEC sockets.
A week or two ago I was at Jedi master OB-Jim kinobi's place, and amongst other things we discussed power cables. After patiently listening to me, Jim asked if I had time for a quick experiement. He unplugged the 'boutique' power cable from the Croft pre amp and put in a standard black moulded IEC cable, without adjusting anything in the system.
To say I was surprised at the change I heard is fair, and a bit of an understatement TBH. When his normal cable was re-instated the effect was reversed. What the change was and what was preferable isn't relevant but the fact there was a noticable change is.
Is anyone else an advocate (or otherwise) of 'decent' mains cables? What makes a good one, in your view?
I am used to amps with captive mains leads, have been for nearly five years now, but I am going to have some new amps in a few months. These will now have IEC sockets.
Comments
I understand the argument that hardwiring is better than having the best plug, though whether or not that is true I don't know.
Is it all about RFI rejection, or shielding? Core size? Material purity? Can the cable raise mains impedence unnessesarily? Plug/socket quality? Bling?
Life is soooo simple at Ugly Towers :-)
I had a NOS CD player for a bit, sounded nice & timed well but no detail to speak of. Part of my HiFi growing up, so to speak, but that was the last component I had with IEC mains cable. Of course, there wasn't much to hear with that...
Also, I did once hard wire an cable into a DVD player that I was using as a CD transport at felt that I heard improvements thereafter.
Most of my kit is NVA so its hardwired already.
The mains block that I use is one that I made for the bake-off. It's a metre of some moderately fancy 15A Belden cable feeding an unfused silver plated 6 way mains block. I remember it sounding fine at the bakeoff, but I've never compared it to anything else at home.
Also, as my hifi is right next to the consumer unit in the corner of the lounge, a couple of years ago I stuck in a dedicated MCB and 30cm of 20A domestic mains cable feeding a double socket directly behind my left speaker. After finding an unswitched double socket in my shed, I experimented between switched and unswitched socket and felt the unswitched sounded better.
It always surprises me when I hear a difference between mains cables.
[-O<
It has to long enough to reach the socket.
... my coat is already half on
(do we have a 'green' facility on vanilla mr. R...?)
Gwlad rugby chat (welsh rugby forum) is from where I know it.
I'll have a look, if you like.
It's just a thought.
What sort of IEC inlets would fit into this chain? If you spend time considering the conductor (material & construction), and the plugs and what they are plated with, it would be daft not to consider the IEC socket as well. I have in mind an amp with a large rectified linear PS.
[-X . For digital sources (DACs in particular) I prefer to use shielded as digital sources are notorious emitters of EMI, so the idea is to tap this and shunt it to ground (floating shield connected at mains plug).