£16.50 diy mains power cord.

[AL13N]

FrankHarveyHiFi:Which is what I've said all along! If you can hear a difference that's fine, if you can't, that's fine! I'm refusing to get into any cable debates any more, it's just a waste of time.
The debate is still relevant. You yourself mentioned that people "don't listen properly".

How many people actually experience cables by properly blind testing as apposed to swapping out the cables themselves?

Why are the documented results of a multitude of blind tests ignored?

What if after discovering the placebo effect the medical profession had simply chosen to ignore it in the same manner?

As mentioned above, why is the measured output at the speaker always the same when changing cables? Yet when changing components (crossover, drivers, etc.) it can change dramatically?

 

[AL13N]

FrankHarveyHiFi:FrankHarveyHiFi:Those that know me already know what I think - I'll leave it at that.
But this debate is not about you, or those that know you, or those that don't.

It's about those that don't know why cables make a difference, and those that claim to know and produce cables that they say, with certainty, do.

 

[idc]

FrankHarveyHiFi:AL13N:audioaffair:Best advice really is to trust your own ears and listen to the changes for yourself.I concur. Until you've experienced something, you cannot form an opinion. For example, no matter how detailed and elaborate a description you may read of an orange, or any other food, until you've tasted it for yourself there's simply no way of knowing. Which is what I've said all along! If you can hear a difference that's fine, if you can't, that's fine! I'm refusing to get into any cable debates any more, it's just a waste of time. Those that know me already know what I think - I'll leave it at that.

So long as you do trust your ears and you listen in blind test conditions before reaching a conclusion. Otherwise sighted testing is not trusting your ears, instead you add in your eyes and other impressions.

Is it really fine? That some hear a difference and others do not, with the same cable is further evidence that the difference is in the mind and not the cable. So long as cables are sold with that in mind and not sold with psuedo-science thats fine. But that is not what happens.

 

[Frank Harvey]

idc:So long as you do trust your ears and you listen in blind test conditions before reaching a conclusion. Otherwise sighted testing is not trusting your ears, instead you add in your eyes and other impressions.Good or bad impressions? Surely if I imagine something that I'm not hearing, it's going to be good addition, right? I tried a mains cable in a specific system I had, and while there was plainly a difference, I didn't like that overall difference. Surely if I imagined A difference, it'd have been an awesome cable and sounded better than what I was currently using?

Is it really fine? That some hear a difference and others do not, with the same cable is further evidence that the difference is in the mind and not the cable. So long as cables are sold with that in mind and not sold with psuedo-science thats fine.Yes, it's fine. And by that rationale, if someone can't hear a difference between two different amplifiers, does that mean that everyone else who hears a difference are imagining it?

But you're saying it's fine to sell mains cables (knowing by the evidence you state) that there is no difference in these cables? Is that fine?

Like I said before, if someone asks about a cable,I'll respond, but I'm no longer getting involved in cable debates. I just wanted to reply to the above.

I'll stand by what I've always said. Whether a mains cables makes a difference or not, depends on the equipment being used, your room, your mains, your frame of mind etc etc. Try the cable, if it sounds better, then it's up to you if you're willing to pay the asking price for that difference. If you can't her a difference or it sounds worse, you've saved yourself some money -go buy some music

 

[Anonymous]

It seems few people have understanding how internal power supplies of equipment are hampered by poor quality mains feed.

Further more when one examines the components (Transformer,diode bridge) and the resulting effect they have on circuits when they draw current, great improvements can be made, even on high end equipment.

Mains will carry contamination to some extent, that in turn will be carried through the power paths inside equipment, which does effect the signal carrying paths as well!
Hence the audible deterioration.

There are upgrades that can be made internally to improve performance of audio equipment, indeed upgrades are offered by manufactures. I have done many of them.
It is a known that a pure and stable supply will allow circuitry to perform at its designed optimum.

Now anything that reduces the noise floor present in the Mains, deals with surge etc will have a positive effect. As we all know (as this thread is discussing) some items have greater results than others.
Our Ears are most sensitive in audio testing equipment, use them, trust them. If a modification works - keep it, if it doesn't step back one pace.
Dealing outside the box that works, (cables, plugs, extensions, wiring etc) on circuitry it isn't quite as simple as that!

Oh, I will get my hat and coat now, and be off.

 

[audioaffair]

AL13N:
audioaffair:Most carefully engineered, professionally made cables will IMHO sound a lot better than any home made alternatives.
That is a bold statement.

Especially considering the amount of praise heaped by Hi-Fi press on certain cottage industries that market "hand-made" as a major benefit.

Then there's the fact that many cables used in DIY are the same used by both cable manufacturers and sound engineers. The latter for both studio and live use by the very people who make and perform the music we listen to in the first place.

By professionally made, I meant considerable time and research has gone into its design, not that it's necessarily machine rather than hand made. Most cable manufacturers are experts in what they do and have the necessary research and development behind their cables with a team of people testing and developing them, considering the electrical and sonic aspects of each design, and the ability to buy better quality cable in bulk (economies of scale) and put hours and hours of overall development time in to ensure a cable is the best possible in what it does. Each cable can then be hand made as they will have a "winning design" they can then make over and over as required and will in many cases cost quite a bit less for the quality on offer than a homemade design.

I'm not suggesting that making a DIY cable at home can't yield some excellent results and can be a fantastic experience if done properly - it can and I've safely tried it in the past - just that the monetary cost and time cost involved in trying to make something that sounds as good or better is often greater than buying a professionally made cable.

Having said that, this is only my opinion and as stressed, I'll always encourage someone to trust their own ears. If you prefer a professionally made cable or home made cable so be it - its your system at the end of the day and your time and money invested in enjoying it

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the replies people.

I was only trying this out as a trial to see if there was some kind of differance to the sound whether good or bad because there is cause and effect in everything we do especialy in science and electronics components.

Signal cables:

The idea of any signal cable is to deliver that signal from one point to the recieving souce without loss or gain in the quickest time possible. In doing so , This gives the source ie the manafactors product the best chance of doing its job for what it was design for: (Without the unessary task of opening it up and rewirring it)

Power Cables: (Are not signal cables)

This at the point of where you plugin your hifi: anything that happend before this plug point is erelavent ( yes all the way back to the power station) it is after this plug point where the work off conditioning the mains begings the bit where we plug in our sorce/hifi:

The idea of any power cable is to deliver AC power ie 240v in a smooth consistacy with out it spiking and gianing any signal. In other words to stop the AC going up and down in its voltage ie jumping from 240v to 220v, to 210v, and back agian to 240v. Power cables and mains conditioners help to find a consistant average of power ie 220v without it going up and down (spiking)

A power cable is design not to carry any signal what so ever : In other words it has no signal to loose only to gain, You do not want to turn you power cable into a signal cable hense the reason for RF shielding/sleaving.

By stopping the spiking and the gaining of signal: this will prevent the components in your hifi from slaving, in other words over working the components. By stooping this you give your hifi the best possible chance of doing what it was designed to: Without openning up and changing anything.

Every component and every wire depending on the materials used and the way it is all configuard and contructed will have a diiferent cause and effect. This is the basic laws Science.

Like I said I did my research and it paid off without spending a fortune and the best thing of all I enjoyed it, Know I am off to listnen to my hifi.

 

[GSB]

Fancy making me some...????

 

[Cookie Monster]

Greatly believe there is a difference in cables and their performance. But i don't believe in ££££ worth either. Excellent screening from RFI and a great consistant delivery of electricity does the job for me. Seems clear that a highly screened, silver plated, Fig8 for example is going to deliver/ gain less noise than the 5mm low shielded brass types often included with even premium kit..

 

[Anonymous]

It is a bit late in this thread to make any difference, but I was the world's biggest sceptic regarding mains cables. I always maintained that the electricity is coming from a power station many miles away over cheap cable, so the last metre from your socket is irrelevant A friend of mine forced me to come to his house and listen to his new Cardas Golden Reference power cable. I laughed and mocked him (which was fun), but when I arrived and did some testing I heard an immediate improvement in the sound quality. I hated and despised myself for hearing the difference and was almost willing to lie to him, except that the difference was so obvious.

I should state though that his kit is all very high end. You may not get the same results on your £100 micro system.

I still laugh and mock him, but now I have moved on to his love of expensive digital cables. I haven't had a chance to audition those yet though. I hope that I don't have to eat my hat again though as I suffer from bad dandruff.

 

[stephennic]

Hi, I use to be a mains cable skeptic, I tried a few mains cables with my system with an engineering friend and the differences were obvious. We were both surprised - I can't explain why - but our ears convinced us. We noticed generally the soundstage opened up,heard more detail, it became cleaner sounding and in some mains cables tonality changed slightly too.

Cheers Steve

 

[roger06]

I'm very tempted to give this a go...

However, on eB@y, with delivery, I can only find the mains plug for £10.70, the cable at £6.44 and the IEC for £8.45 totaling £25.59. So I'm not so sure it's worth it.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=350447479608&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT




http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Audio-Hi-Fi-Quality-Mains-SHIELDED-Power-Cable-per-m-/250574347431?pt=UK_Computing_CablesConnectors_RL&hash=item3a57651ca7

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/MK-Plug-silver-plated---Toughplug---audio-grade-silver-_W0QQitemZ350328930870QQcmdZViewItem?rvr_id=223124975633&rvr_id=223124975633&cguid=c3cebe921200a0e203811921ff84f277

 

[Tonya]

Almost forgot! Mixer output uses ordinary digital cables which are then transported via CAT5 to the amp rack.
Not a supercable in sight . . . .

 

[Tonya]

Ahh!

The long running Great SuperMainsCable Debate rears it's head again.

Not going to get drawn into it again, apart from a quick comment - yesterday we took delivery of the latest studio mixer from SoundCraft (a great UK company renowned for first class studio mixers) and the mains cable that is supplied with this £20,000 piece of superb British engineering?

A standard, albeit rugged molded plastic EuroCable.

As with most electronic equipment these days, the voltage is immediately turned into DC as soon as it gets past the fuse, so two metres of mains cable between the outlet and the mixer is not IMHO going to make any difference whatsoever to my "soundstage" whatsoever.

But hey, that's just me and the R&D department of SoundCraft that have come to that conclusion ;-0

P.S. The mixer is a Vi1 and it sounds amazing!

 

[willgaunt]

I've always avoided these debates, having been deeply sceptical about the difference any cable could make to a system, beyond the blidingly obvious in terms of design. So I've always had DIY/fairly cheap/Cat 5 cables throughout. Last week I decided it was time to tidy up a bit, so swapped out the rather odd-looking bundles of cat5 for some Van Damme studio blue, as it was cheap, seems highly enough rated, and looks a lot neater. It took all the sparkle out of the sound. Can't say much more than that. This was confirmed by swapping back.

I was not to be defeated. I thought I'd give a more expensive mains cable a go, if only to settle my mind once and for all that it didn't make any real difference. So I got one made of (I think) silver and costing at least 4 times the amount of anything I'd had before. It arrived today. Totally different sound again. I'm not going to go into soundstage too much (was already good to my ears), but the tonal quality was completely restored in the higher range, and probably even improved over what it had been before.

Now bear in mind that I don't just hear good things in new cables because it's what I want to hear. The new speaker cable was worse, and I almost wanted the mains cable to make no difference. It made such a difference that I think my beliefs may be seriously challenged!

Edit: I should add that this was to my power amp. Am going to see if a similar (DIY copy - approx £30 I reckon) swap will help elsewhere. Worth a shot! And have suddenly started to notice greater sense of space even on spotify - stuff that had never even been hinted at before. Really don't understand it...

 

[aliEnRIK]

I've always avoided these debates, having been deeply sceptical about the difference any cable could make to a system, beyond the blidingly obvious in terms of design. So I've always had DIY/fairly cheap/Cat 5 cables throughout. Last week I decided it was time to tidy up a bit, so swapped out the rather odd-looking bundles of cat5 for some Van Damme studio blue, as it was cheap, seems highly enough rated, and looks a lot neater. It took all the sparkle out of the sound. Can't say much more than that. This was confirmed by swapping back.

I was not to be defeated. I thought I'd give a more expensive mains cable a go, if only to settle my mind once and for all that it didn't make any real difference. So I got one made of (I think) silver and costing at least 4 times the amount of anything I'd had before. It arrived today. Totally different sound again. I'm not going to go into soundstage too much (was already good to my ears), but the tonal quality was completely restored in the higher range, and probably even improved over what it had been before.

Now bear in mind that I don't just hear good things in new cables because it's what I want to hear. The new speaker cable was worse, and I almost wanted the mains cable to make no difference. It made such a difference that I think my beliefs may be seriously challenged!

Edit: I should add that this was to my power amp. Am going to see if a similar (DIY copy - approx £30 I reckon) swap will help elsewhere. Worth a shot! And have suddenly started to notice greater sense of space even on spotify - stuff that had never even been hinted at before. Really don't understand it...

Similar experience to me. I didnt believe in cables (especially mains cables) to begin with. Ive had good and bad (I generally hate QED now)

I also didnt like the Van Damme blue which everyone raves about, but I do like the UP LC-OFC which has less grain and sounds far better to my ears.

Ive found many cables costing a lot of money sound awful

My favourite mains cables are the braided type (Russ Andrews etc). But I dont like braided ICs and speaker cables

 

[roger06]

Ahh!

The long running Great SuperMainsCable Debate rears its head again.

I don't really see why people consider this such a contentious issue... people have clearly upgraded their power cables and have noticed a difference. I guess with different systems and many other variables with mains it's probable that power cable upgrade make a difference in some systems and not others.

A mate brought round a mains cable he paid over £900 for (can't remember the brand) and it made no difference to my Naim stuff whatsoever. But, on his Cyrus kit it's make a huge difference.

By far the biggest difference I noticed was when I rewired my mains plugs to bypass the fuses. Everything sounded so much clearer. However, I couldn't sleep at night knowing I'd probably invalidated my house insurance in the case of a fire so put them back. In fact I bought the Russ Andrews ones, but couldn't notice a difference between those and standard 5p fuses from Woolies...