Just tested the Clearer Audio Copper-Line Alpha mains cable - here are my findings...

[clearer_audio]

Hello Everyone,

Here are my further responses:

Faizal -

The difference in performance between directly connecting to the wall sockets and a block is variably. Plugging directly into a wall socket will offer the best power transfer. If plugging into a block then benefits can be gained from surge protection and filtration etc. With regards to blocks they all vary in performance; apologies but I do not have any experience of Monster blocks. However if you have a block that is daisy chained wired (i.e., first socket is wired to the second socket, the second socket is wired to the third socket and so on) then as trevor79 pointed out it is best to plug components in order that draw the most current. Obviously if the block is fully star-wired then the order is irrelevant since all sockets will perform optimally. Ultimately I would suggest trying both options if possible and see what works best for you. I know some of my customers have plugged powerful amplifiers directly into wall sockets and sensitive components like CD players and pre-amps into a filtered block to gain the best performance; whilst others find plugging everything into a block offers the best performance.

With regards to purchasing our products in South Africa we only sell direct to the consumer and you can place an order through our online store on our website. We hand-build all cables to order and then your cables would be sent directly to you. Our 60 Day Money Back Guarantee also applies for international customers like yourself so you can try without risk.

Topbloke55 - it was great to read your experiences and feedback. I am always amazed at the performance that a Silver-line can provide in the right system and it seems it has worked well for you. With regards to bulk buys I presume you are talking about discounts for a quantity order. This is not something that we offer since each cable is hand-built to order with the utmost care and attention; so whether you purchase 1 cable or 10 cables then costs per cable are the same for us.

rob_981 - your Sony TV is 'double insulated' so does not need to be earthed hence the middle pin is missing. You can still use our power cables but the earth line is simply not utilised. With regards to your Onkyo 606 you have two options: have an IEC inlet put onto the back (most electrical workshops can do this); or fit an IEC Adaptor to the existing captive cable (4 inches or so from the end). We can provide IEC Adaptors if want to go down this route. Bear in mind that if the 606 is still within warranty then doing any modification like this can invalidate it.

Hope that this might have helped.

Kind regards,
Darren

 

[Anonymous]

Hi darren!

Just a quick question ive got a copperline cable and i will admit that to my suprise there was a subtle gain in preformance when plugged in to my roksan kandy cdp(i really didnt think it would make any differnce but the money back offer couldnt be argued with .But the kettle lead end seems a little lose when connected to my equipment and falls out without much provication! should it be a tight fit?????

 

[Anonymous]

Would love to hear your system Trevor79. I can almost here it breathing by it's self. You have put a lot of thought and work into your system and clearly made substantial gains. Must be great to have the front seat at a live concert when you feel like it.

In my early day's of buying hi if equipment I walked in to a hi fi show in an Edinburgh hotel. There was a system full of Cyurs amps and mission speakers. I will never forget the sound stage from that system. It was like air full of music and so from that point I have been hooked.

I have ordered 4 clearer audio alpha cables for my hi fi. Reading the above I can now see me moving these cables to my home cinema system and buying the silver line, one at a time till all my hi fi equipment has one.
Grrrrrrrrr why did I join this forum

 

[Anonymous]

Thank you for your kind comments IDC.
All of us start with a bench mark, and mine was many years ago
a Linn Sondeck LP-12 / rega tonearm / AD MC paired with Quad amps and Rogers speakers.

I bought in 1989 a Meridian 207 CD/Pre which was regarded as the best CD player in the world. Didn't get near to my Thornes 160/hadcock/Audio Tec MC combo in musical presence so I decided to wring the most out of it that I could and sent it off to Russ Andrews to work on. Cost me then about half as much as the player to buy.
Was astounded by the result, which set me off down the road I have been on since.
It never fails to surprise me how good decent equipment can sound if given a helping hand.

I am now getting near to that platto again on my current system, then I will sit back for many years of enjoyment with it!

 

[The_Lhc]

trevor79:My pleasure Jase, personally I have gone way past that and have a low impedence 40A spur direct from a 20A circuit breaker in the 1st rail on the Consumer Unit.

Hi Trevor, quick question, I've been thinking of having this done when I move my equipment rack into the cupboard under the stairs, largely because that's where the Consumer Unit is, so it wouldn't need a very long run. Is a 20A breaker sufficient for something like a 7-channel AV amp, plus blu-ray, etc (but not TV that'll be plugged in elsewhere...)? I have a spare 32A breaker that has nothing attached to it that I was thinking of using, largely for convenience more than anything else, just wondering if that's suitable.ÿ

 

[Anonymous]

You clearly have your set up to a T Trevor and deserve a big leather seat with a small table top built into it for your glass of wine to sit back and enjoy your system. I for one find your knowledge on mains power to equipment very interesting to the point I will make changes further up the line when the budget permits. My wife is going to think I'm totally off my rocker.

 

[Pistol Pete1]

Glad you are all enjoying my topic I posted...wow over 900 people have had a read, with 30 posts.

I have now moved the Copper-line Alpha to my tv tonight, to see how it improved the picture.

The results were very noticable. The colour were much more vibrant, and the picture seemed clearer and stable with sd broadcasts. (blu ray not tested yet!) The improvement has been described, in the past, as watching a tv after cleaning a very dirty tv screen.

I can see what the guy meant completely. It does exactly that.

Thanks to Darren from Clearer Audio for commenting on the improvement on my amp. I will keep it connected and see if it improves as time goes on.

Someone was asking on this thread how to connect to the onkyo 606. I'm actually using this amp, and cut the mains cable and added a connector for the Alpha cable. I will probably (time permitting) connect a surface mounted connection to the backplate at some point.

'Touch wood', I don't need the to use the warranty in the future (bought it last May). I guess this is a gamble you take when doing such an upgrade.

Although:

The BIG question is: why don't manufacturers supply this kind of quality mains cable in the first place. Now I have seen the improvements they bring, I would not be bothered paying a little more for the products to be supplied with them!

I guess I'll be purchasing more of these cables in the near future after seeing what they can do to sound & vision......

 

[Anonymous]

the_lhc:
trevor79:My pleasure Jase, personally I have gone way past that and have a low impedence 40A spur direct from a 20A circuit breaker in the 1st rail on the Consumer Unit.

Hi Trevor, quick question, I've been thinking of having this done when I move my equipment rack into the cupboard under the stairs, largely because that's where the Consumer Unit is, so it wouldn't need a very long run. Is a 20A breaker sufficient for something like a 7-channel AV amp, plus blu-ray, etc (but not TV that'll be plugged in elsewhere...)? I have a spare 32A breaker that has nothing attached to it that I was thinking of using, largely for convenience more than anything else, just wondering if that's suitable.ÿ

Yes, a 20A breaker should be OK. You don't want to set the value too high IMHO as you want it to trip instantly with a line fault. However for the breaker to trip it would likely be a short in the wiring or plug (rather than a trickle discharge) so the 32A breaker would trip anyway. The good thing with Breakers is that they allow full flow through them, unlike fuses.

I have the TV running through the Spur along with everything else. Overload protection is handled by the BT units as well.

 

[TitusG]

Just a quick note. Circuit brakers only protect the hard wired cable not your equipment. You could stick in a 10-16 amp braker on your spur due to the fact your equipment will never pull that many amps and use a larger cable 4mm - 6mm (instead of 2.5mm) would offer less resistance.

 

[clearer_audio]

garethwd:Hi darren!

Just a quick question ive got a copperline cable and i will admit that to my suprise there was a subtle gain in preformance when plugged in to my roksan kandy cdp(i really didnt think it would make any differnce but the money back offer couldnt be argued with .But the kettle lead end seems a little lose when connected to my equipment and falls out without much provication! should it be a tight fit?????

Hi garethwd,

I am pleased to hear that the Copper-line Power Cable is providing improvements. If you purchased recently then it will continue to improve over the next few weeks. With regards to the fit, IEC sockets vary slightly in size so the fit can vary from tight to slightly loose. Ensure that the Wattgate IEC is enagaged fully home - support the front of your component and then push the plug firmly into the IEC socket (you should feel the contact pins engage). If it is slightly loose then this will generally not be a problem and is fairly common. It will also not affect performance as long as the plug is fully engaged.

I hope that this helps. If you have any further questions or queries then please do not hesitate to contact me.

Kind regards,
Darren

 

[Anonymous]

TitusG:
Just a quick note. Circuit brakers only protect the hard wired cable not your equipment. You could stick in a 10-16 amp braker on your spur due to the fact your equipment will never pull that many amps and use a larger cable 4mm - 6mm (instead of 2.5mm) would offer less resistance.

Protect the hard wired cable and connections, yes of course.

40A (rather than 20A standard ring circuit cable) is fine for me as the run is only 8ft long and only another 5ft to the meter!
As I have a full 'Class A' 200w x 7 amp it draws its maximuim loading all the time (hense the heat!) which is off the top of my head around 8/10A.
TV's have the potential to draw high peak loads, whilst players don't draw much. So a extension plug with a 13A fuse in it can be quite borderline in this case, it certainly will be strangling the supply feed through it with a noticable thinness and masking to the sound coming out from the speakers. That's why I don't use them in this area.
The line inductance is very important on cables, I agree and is a major factor when planing out the runs.

 

[carter]

trevor79,have i got this wrong.you dont have any plug fuses ?how do you get protection for your appliances and would this go for the tacima also.

 

[Anonymous]

Yes that is correct (no plug fuses).
The circuit breaker in the CU reacts much quicker than the plug fuse anyway so will trip, all the fuse looks after is the length of lead wire.
All the equipment have internal fuses to protect them and everything but the TV goes through the BT Units with protection circuits and replacement output fuses built in.
Using MK plugs (IMHO the best) and a Multi Plug the plug wiring of the Classic Powerkords is exemplary.
I have not had in over 30 years of doing this 1 incident so am quite happy placing the £24 Tacima at risk in the event of the Dog chewing through the cable.(which he has shown no inclination to do!)

This mod has been done by many HiFi enthusiasts since the 70's.

 

[TitusG]

trevor79:TitusG:

Just a quick note. Circuit brakers only protect the hard wired cable not your equipment. You could stick in a 10-16 amp braker on your spur due to the fact your equipment will never pull that many amps and use a larger cable 4mm - 6mm (instead of 2.5mm) would offer less resistance.

Protect the hard wired cable and connections, yes of course. 40A (rather than 20A standard ring circuit cable) is fine for me as the run is only 8ft long and only another 5ft to the meter! As I have a full class A 200w x 7 amp it draws its maximuim loading all the time (hense the heat!) which is off the top of my head around 8/10A. TV's have the potential to draw high peak loads, whilst players don't draw much. So a extension plug with a 13A fuse in it can be quite borderline in this case, it certainly will be strangling the supply feed through it with a noticable thinness and masking to the sound coming out from the speakers. That's why I don't use them in this area. The line inductance is very important on cables, I agree and is a major factor when planing out the runs.

Sorry I thought that you had a 40A braker protecting your circuit and not 40A rated cable (6mm?) on a 20A braker which you have.

Wow! drawing full power all the time, you must have the volume cranked right up! Although by my calculations you're only drawing about 6 amps. My plasma pulls just over an amp and players don't draw much at all so an extension plug would be fine with current to spare.

Try this calculation: Watts divided by voltage=amps.

 

[Anonymous]

Hi, let me explain further.
Class-A is the most desirable of the amplifier configurations from a purist point of view, but is not suited to high power systems unless outrageous power dissipation is acceptable (like between 825 to 1500 Watts of pure heat, to get 300 Watts of audio).
Yep, that's an Onkyo!

It is the most inefficient of all Amp designs as the output devices conducts through 360 degrees of the input cycle ALL THE TIME!
They will typically draw anything from 1/2 to about 1« times the peak speaker current in its quiescent state (i.e. while it is just sitting there doing nothing).
The Onkyo uses a push/pull design as it is a dual supply rather than mono.

So its current demands at rest are very high. Its a little like having an electric fire that also produces beautiful sound.

 

[Gerrardasnails]

clearer_audio:garethwd:Hi darren!

Just a quick question ive got a copperline cable and i will admit that to my suprise there was a subtle gain in preformance when plugged in to my roksan kandy cdp(i really didnt think it would make any differnce but the money back offer couldnt be argued with .But the kettle lead end seems a little lose when connected to my equipment and falls out without much provication! should it be a tight fit?????

Hi garethwd,

I am pleased to hear that the Copper-line Power Cable is providing improvements. If you purchased recently then it will continue to improve over the next few weeks. With regards to the fit, IEC sockets vary slightly in size so the fit can vary from tight to slightly loose. Ensure that the Wattgate IEC is enagaged fully home - support the front of your component and then push the plug firmly into the IEC socket (you should feel the contact pins engage). If it is slightly loose then this will generally not be a problem and is fairly common. It will also not affect performance as long as the plug is fully engaged.

I hope that this helps. If you have any further questions or queries then please do not hesitate to contact me.

Kind regards,
Darren

I was worried about this also Gareth but as Darren says, it's not a problem. I've had mine for about 4 months now and no issue.

 

[clearer_audio]

Gerrardasnails:clearer_audio:garethwd:Hi darren!

Just a quick question ive got a copperline cable and i will admit that to my suprise there was a subtle gain in preformance when plugged in to my roksan kandy cdp(i really didnt think it would make any differnce but the money back offer couldnt be argued with .But the kettle lead end seems a little lose when connected to my equipment and falls out without much provication! should it be a tight fit?????

Hi garethwd,

I am pleased to hear that the Copper-line Power Cable is providing improvements. If you purchased recently then it will continue to improve over the next few weeks. With regards to the fit, IEC sockets vary slightly in size so the fit can vary from tight to slightly loose. Ensure that the Wattgate IEC is enagaged fully home - support the front of your component and then push the plug firmly into the IEC socket (you should feel the contact pins engage). If it is slightly loose then this will generally not be a problem and is fairly common. It will also not affect performance as long as the plug is fully engaged.

I hope that this helps. If you have any further questions or queries then please do not hesitate to contact me.

Kind regards,
Darren

I was worried about this also Gareth but as Darren says, it's not a problem. I've had mine for about 4 months now and no issue.

Hi again,

Forgot to mention you could try putting in a tight right-angled bend a few inches from the Wattgate 320i IEC. This will help support the weight of the cable and limit any pulling on the connector.

Hope this helps.

Kind regards,
Darren

 

[clearer_audio]

Gerrardasnails:clearer_audio:garethwd:Hi darren!

Just a quick question ive got a copperline cable and i will admit that to my suprise there was a subtle gain in preformance when plugged in to my roksan kandy cdp(i really didnt think it would make any differnce but the money back offer couldnt be argued with .But the kettle lead end seems a little lose when connected to my equipment and falls out without much provication! should it be a tight fit?????

Hi garethwd,

I am pleased to hear that the Copper-line Power Cable is providing improvements. If you purchased recently then it will continue to improve over the next few weeks. With regards to the fit, IEC sockets vary slightly in size so the fit can vary from tight to slightly loose. Ensure that the Wattgate IEC is enagaged fully home - support the front of your component and then push the plug firmly into the IEC socket (you should feel the contact pins engage). If it is slightly loose then this will generally not be a problem and is fairly common. It will also not affect performance as long as the plug is fully engaged.

I hope that this helps. If you have any further questions or queries then please do not hesitate to contact me.

Kind regards,
Darren

I was worried about this also Gareth but as Darren says, it's not a problem. I've had mine for about 4 months now and no issue.

Hi again,

Forgot to mention you could try putting in a tight right-angled bend a few inches from the Wattgate 320i IEC. This will help support the weight of the cable and limit any pulling on the connector.

Hope this helps.

Kind regards,
Darren

 

[Anonymous]

All sounds good but where do you buy ones of these mains cables - I've just done a search around the web and come up blank!

 

[Anonymous]

Scrub last comment - always good to actually check the manufacturer's website!!

 

[Anonymous]

Hi Pistol Pete, If I run my plasma through sky HD box, will I benefit from having a Clearer Audio Copper-Line Alpha mains lead fitted to the TV and Sky box? The Sky box has a figure of 8 connector. Thanks

 

[Pistol Pete1]

Hi deed,

Easy answer is to order them and find out for yourself, as you have a 60 day money back guarantee.

I have tried mine on my Panny plasma, and both the wife and I can see a noticable difference.

As I have mentioned in a previous post, the colours are a lot more vibrant and the picture clearer. It's like I have just cleaned a lot of dirty off the screen.

As for the SkyHD box, I think I have read that there is some difference when using the upgraded cable, but not as much. Again, order the cable as normal, and go to the accessories section to order the figure 8 adapter. Or if both tv and SkyHD have the same rated fuse, order one cable and the figure 8 adapter, and try the cable on both tv and SkyHD box, using the adapter. Then make your own mind up whether or not ordering an additional cable is worth it.

I originally ordered only one cable and have tried it on tv, av amp and cd player. The fuse sent was a 13amp for my av amp (onkyo 606), so the cable is staying attached to it. I have ordered another one for the cd player today, as I have been impressed with this cable on both machines. Next month, I'll probably buy a third for the tv.

Hope that help.......

 

[kena]

Personally I think the Fig 8 adaptors could put undue strain on the socket/connection so currently in the process of replacing my 3.

Russ A now does a Fig 8 cable no adapter needed pretty dear now tho after Jan price increases £73.95 also Merlin as £35 , AlienRik on here really rates TM3 for value and quality (Fleabay shop) £22.50 inc. postage.

I have 1 x RA one but think due to cost will go TM3 for the other 2.

Edit: RA does 60 day return like Clearer_Audio

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks Pistol Pete. I think I'll give them a go.

 

[clearer_audio]

kena:Personally I think the Fig 8 adaptors could put undue strain on the socket/connection

If you feel that the adaptor is putting strain on the inlet (usually due to the position of the component and the weight of the cable pulling it down) then this can be helped by putting a small piece of wood (or similar spacer) under the adaptor to support it. I have not as yet had a customer report any problems with the adaptors.

Hope this might be of assistance.

Kind regards,

Darren