mains cables

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Deleted member 188516

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i've never understood the need for various designs of hifi mains cables. its function after all is just to get electricity from the wall socket into your equipment and thats it...

i did try 2 aftermarket designs some years ago (russ andrews and clearer audio)
plugged into my musical fidelity m6i integrated amplifier (which was pugged direct to wall socket) and detected no sound quality difference hence experiment over !

as a result, unlike interconnect and speaker cable, that actually carries the musical signal (and therefore design changes, i believe, effect this and the sound we hear) a mains cable can only have one correct / perfect design.

here is a video explaining why hifi mains cables are basically "snake oil". it is based on american cable / plug designs but the information i believe is still relevant to the u.k designs.

of particular interest is the safety advice regarding the use of shielding on the more exotic designs and their lack of safety approval markings...
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rgun97VK7y8
 
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Gray

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He said he really knows what he's doing, bless him :)

Though what he's doing is pointless, he might get away with the current consumption of a tumble dryer through that setup.
But if he ever loads up that double socket with a few more thousand watts, he might be aware of actual burning - before the 13A fuse in his wall plug blows.
 
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I have to disagree here.

I've got some reasonable kit I think. I've dived down the rabbit hole of power cables a couple of times. Interestingly I've had various Russ Andrew's and Clearer Audio and they got bought/tried/sold quite promptly as no odds to my setup. I have tried quite a few.

I have in my current kit setup (see sig) Shunyata Research and Furutech power cables, fed into a DC blocker mains power block.

Are these going anywhere? Hell no.

Edit: have to say I didn't watch the vid. No point as I've tried this for myself. My lugholes tell me what works or not... If it's good, it stays. If it's not it goes.
 
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Deleted member 188516

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I have to disagree here.

I've got some reasonable kit I think. I've dived down the rabbit hole of power cables a couple of times. Interestingly I've had various Russ Andrew's and Clearer Audio and they got bought/tried/sold quite promptly as no odds to my setup. I have tried quite a few.

I have in my current kit setup (see sig) Shunyata Research and Furutech power cables, fed into a DC blocker mains power block.

Are these going anywhere? Hell no.

Edit: have to say I didn't watch the vid. No point as I've tried this for myself. My lugholes tell me what works or not... If it's good, it stays. If it's not it goes.

same here i try / test items myself and if something "works" i buy. i can honestly say i don't let price influence me. i have owned speakers (audio physic) costing rrp £2k that were not as good as much cheaper speakers to my ears...same goes for amplifiers too.

as for mains cables the 1st video explains why upgrade ones may be pointless but the safety information (regarding shielded designs) i thought was interesting. thing is for every video that says "snake oil" there are other videos that demonstrate changes in a hifi systems sound when mains cables are changed !

so what is going on ?

i found a shunyata demo video were it is explained that (amplifier) power supplies dont always remove all mains noise hence the need for mains cables that do.
(the demo explains how their designs contain filters in the iec plugs).

as stated above the m6i must of had a good power supply design but it should at rrp £2500...maybe my test / experience would of been different with a "lesser" amplifier with different designed mains cables ?

my next system will include active loudspeakers hence any mains cable "effects", i guess, would be more obvious with the amplifiers being in the actual speakers themselves.
 
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He said he really knows what he's doing, bless him :)

Though what he's doing is pointless, he might get away with the current consumption of a tumble dryer through that setup.
But if he ever loads up that double socket with a few more thousand watts, he might be aware of actual burning - before the 13A fuse in his wall plug blows.

i did not know what to make of this 2nd video...rest assured i would not try it !
 
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Longchops

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i found a shunyata demo video were it is explained that (amplifier) power supplies dont always remove all mains noise hence the need for mains cables that do.
(the demo explains how their designs contain filters in the iec plugs).

if there was such a cable that filtered out 'noise' from power supplies then surely it would filter the music out too?

In my experience this is all the high grade cables do, different degrees of tone suck, what's your favourite suck for what you listen to, might make a difference with vinyl or tape or something I guess; where there is audible sound that isn't part of the music

I could believe designer power cables could be necessary if you had 200 cables all close to each other but for the regular user I don't get it. Same with all the 'mods' that will take your (whatever) to stage 2 or even 3. What a crap!
 
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if there was such a cable that filtered out 'noise' from power supplies then surely it would filter the music out too?

In my experience this is all the high grade cables do, different degrees of tone suck, what's your favourite suck for what you listen to, might make a difference with vinyl or tape or something I guess; where there is audible sound that isn't part of the music

I could believe designer power cables could be necessary if you had 200 cables all close to each other but for the regular user I don't get it. Same with all the 'mods' that will take your (whatever) to stage 2 or even 3. What a crap!

thats an interesting way of putting it. i believe the noise the shunyata products claim to "suck" out the mains supply is the hash / grunge distortion that impacts on a systems clarity and the noise floor.

here is the shunyata demo video. a lot of waffle / over explanation but he eventually demonstrates the filter effect at the 16m 30sec mark :-
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=if2yKdd4WYI
 

Longchops

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shunyata: at the core of Mahayana philosophy lies the notion of Emptiness

This is what you are buying into: emptiness.

If you ever get that kind of earth buzz from a power outlet you can just put some tape around the earth socket, thats all it is. You could rewire your entire house with oxygen free vegan cables but its not going to make a difference to the sound
 
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Wire conducts electricity, electricity feeds your stuff. Nothing in any power lead can change anything about that, so use the one in the box.

after my (mini) experiment / experience with "upgrade" power cables i agree but... videos such as this appear that, if they are genuine, seem to show the effect changing a power cable can have :-
(the description below the video is as about as detailed as possible).
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sj2BqZST_7E
 

Adam W.

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I use a power strip/adapter with 4 sockets. It has surge protection, a circuit breaker and apparently filters out EMI and RFI noise.

It wasn't expensive. It's a Tripp Lite Isobar4.

Can such things actually lower sound quality?
 
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if there was such a cable that filtered out 'noise' from power supplies then surely it would filter the music out too?

In my experience this is all the high grade cables do, different degrees of tone suck, what's your favourite suck for what you listen to, might make a difference with vinyl or tape or something I guess; where there is audible sound that isn't part of the music

I could believe designer power cables could be necessary if you had 200 cables all close to each other but for the regular user I don't get it. Same with all the 'mods' that will take your (whatever) to stage 2 or even 3. What a crap!

this is the shunyata cable that "filters", hence, a mains cable and filter in one. note the price !
(seriously how much would this actually cost to manufacture ?)
 
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this is the shunyata cable that "filters", hence, a mains cable and filter in one.
note the price !
(seriously how much would this actually cost to manufacture ?)
I need three. Do you think I'll get a discount? :)
 

RobGardner

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On some of my kit Hi-Fi power cables make a significant difference to the sound or picture quality. On other bits of kit they make little difference. Most surprising to me was the extra clarity gained by using a Hi-Fi cable on my NAS drive. I tried various mains cables, with and without filters and they all affected the sound quality of my system in one way or another.

I had just down sized the number of boxes in my system so I thought I would make some money by selling the redundant Hi-Fi mains cables. After experimenting with the NAS drive and getting such a surprisingly positive result the remains cables were put to use in other peripheral areas like modems and routers. Tiny differences here but they all added up. I’m not sure I would advocate buying new cables to do this, but As I had them anyway I decided to keep them and use them.

Over the last couple of decades I have acquired various Hi-Fi power cables and they all make a different kind of sound. Even after I had a clean mains supply installed there were benefits from using Hi-Fi cables. However it would probably cost less to get a clean mains supply installed than to buy even a mid range power cable, so I think that’s the way to go as it will benefit the entire system.

I have to say in my experience the most expensive cables offer the biggest boost, but offer very poor value for money. There are so many other things that will add to your enjoyment of music for a tiny cost, a bottle of good wine or a great beer, good company etc.

My partner now says my system has a nice tone, so it was all obviously worth doing!
 

Longchops

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(seriously how much would this actually cost to manufacture ?)

I reckon for about £500 I reckon I could make something that looked like that. the carbon fibre is probably the most expensive part of it, there's nothing particularly valuable used in the construction otherwise

How many customers do you reckon they have for this? I'm going to go for zero. the amount of people interested in high performance cables is niche even on this site, if we don't want one you have to ask well who does exactly? What is the target market for this? You'd have to be a rockstar to be able to afford a ten grand cable in the first place. I think its a showpiece. Its just an advert basically. 'Look how ridiculous we are'

Its kind of clever if you think about it because we are basically doing the marketing for them by speaking about it. All press is good press as they say....
 
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I reckon for about £500 I reckon I could make something that looked like that. the carbon fibre is probably the most expensive part of it, there's nothing particularly valuable used in the construction otherwise

How many customers do you reckon they have for this? I'm going to go for zero. the amount of people interested in high performance cables is niche even on this site, if we don't want one you have to ask well who does exactly? What is the target market for this? You'd have to be a rockstar to be able to afford a ten grand cable in the first place. I think its a showpiece. Its just an advert basically. 'Look how ridiculous we are'

Its kind of clever if you think about it because we are basically doing the marketing for them by speaking about it. All press is good press as they say....

in the shunyata video i posted above (post 9) the rep boasts how he installed the cables for the dcs listening room...

if i had £140k for the top of range dcs vivaldi stack i would expect it to work 100% with the supplied cables...not 4 of these things at an additional £40k !

these cables have filters of some sort fitted (in their defence !) but the type of super high end super expensive kit that would justify (barely) the use of such cables would have power supplies so good that all mains noise etc would be taken care of anyway right ?

maybe if i win the euromillions (for a laugh) i could trial one on the end of a £300 amp to see if it works eh ?!
 

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