$1150 for a mains power cable

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LookingUp

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#479697 10-Jun-2011 12:38

I agree with Stuzzo, and as an Electrical Engineer I'd suggest that cable design is far more complex than just finding low resistance cable. Capacitive and inductive effects come in to play, including issues with reflections of signals at points where dissimilar cables or cables and connectors meet. That said, claiming that this has a noticable effect at the power cord point would be stretching it, unless your previous power cord was a bit of phone wire.

Impedance matching becomes very critical at high frequencies, as does connector design, however these frequencies are WAY above 50Hz, so not really something of a concern for a power cord. Any decent amplifer power supply will be designed to filter incoming (or outgoing) noise from the supply, and if your amplifer doesn't have a decent power supply then I'd suggest money would be better spent upgrading that before even considering replacing a power cord!

However, and possibly of interest, some years back I had a crack at making my own analogue signal cables for connections between source components and a pre-amp, and from the pre-amp to the main amp. In that case there WAS an audible difference between cable constructions, confirmed to me through blind testing with my wife. That would lead me to conclude that it IS worth spending more than the minimum on analogue source cables, but don't spend the max, or better still make your own - there are lots of recipies on the Internet, and it'll keep you amused for hours.

As another high-end component opportunity, has anyone thought about the sound improvements that could be made by upgrading your remote control batteries to super high capacity / low impedance varieties? ;-)

Things are LookingUp.... A photo from my back yard :-)

Skolink

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#479699 10-Jun-2011 12:51

Voltage drop in the power cord is completely irrelevant. NZ power supplies are only oblidged to supply power to your distribution board at 230V+/-6%. Thats excluding momentary dips and interruptions. So who cares about 0.1% drop across the power cord.

Noise on the power supply will have no effect on a decent amplifier.
In an amplifier the power usually goes through chokes (common mode and differential), the transformer, the recitifier, more filters, then a voltage regulator. It will also have the internals isolated from the case which will be bonded to ground (earth).

Noise is much more likely to come from the device (or cables) supply the analog audio signal, where sheilding grounding and isolation are far more important.

Holding cable up off the floor sounds like nonsense too, unless you have electric underfloor heating conductors running parallel to your speaker cables (or unsheilded, non-twisted pair signal cables).

toyonut

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#479723 10-Jun-2011 14:13

If you buy this cable, this guy comes and does a dance for you to a song of your choosing.

Try Vultr using this link and get us both some credit:

http://www.vultr.com/?ref=7033587-3B

LookingUp

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#479743 10-Jun-2011 15:03

paulmilbank: If you buy this cable, this guy comes and does a dance for you to a song of your choosing.

Haha - looks more like the effect you get with insufficient insulation on your mains cable

Things are LookingUp.... A photo from my back yard :-)

LookingUp

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#479744 10-Jun-2011 15:03

paulmilbank: If you buy this cable, this guy comes and does a dance for you to a song of your choosing.

Haha - looks more like the effect you get with insufficient insulation on your mains cable

Things are LookingUp.... A photo from my back yard :-)

Jaxson

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#479752 10-Jun-2011 15:21

Um that all skips past the fact you've got like 15m of power cable in the walls back to the main board. In most cases this will stop at multiple power sockets along the way. And the power doesn't start at the board either.

And, really not many of us are living in really noisy (electrical wise) environments in the first place. How many people live in an industrial plantroom here?

What good is it to just ensure no interference enters it in the last 1m or so. OR actually, maybe there is something in that, in that the rear of the equipment is a mess of cables, which all come together in that last meter. I couldn't say without a lot of testing with an oscilloscope etc at each individual installation location.

It does seem though, that we are just pretending the walls sufficiently shield the cable up to the power socket and our $1,000+ mains cable protects the power once it's out of the safety of the gib board and vulnerable into the dangerous environment of our living spaces?!

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Bung

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#479758 10-Jun-2011 15:36

Some people just have little voices in their heads telling them that they can hear things and if you can't hear the same voices don't bother with science.

My neighbour spends a fortune on fancy interconnects and then cuts firewood without earmuffs/plugs to make sure his hearing is tip top.

kiwitrc

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#479759 10-Jun-2011 15:38

Bung: Some people just have little voices in their heads telling them that they can hear things and if you can't hear the same voices don't bother with science.

My neighbour spends a fortune on fancy interconnects and then cuts firewood without earmuffs/plugs to make sure his hearing is tip top.

LMFAO

stevenz

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#479780 10-Jun-2011 16:31

Surely decent transforming\rectifying etc. circuitry in the amp itself would resolve _most_ of the issues, anything else such as major earth-loops and RF hum caused by the external wiring isn't going to be resolved by the amp.

I've heard the changes that different wiring to the speakers can make, but it's minor and subjective. Sometimes super-cheap cable can sound "better" than super-expensive cable, but it depends on the speakers and the amp as to what the capacitance of the cable is going to do. Impedence should be basically irrelevant except with very cheap wires over very long runs.

A good power conditioner could help by giving a more stable voltage & frequency (i.e. a clean SINE) to the amp but again, your system would have to be pretty deficient to notice any difference.

People with too much money need _something_ to spend it on otherwise what's the point of having too much money? :)

@KnightNZ

richms

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#479961 11-Jun-2011 00:45

Best thing I ever did for my system was put the mixer on an isolating transformer, stopped most of the chirps and buzz on disc access when using the analog out of the computer, stopped all the hum unless I put my ear right up to the midrange, and all the pops and clicks from the fluro lights etc are gone.

Is an isolating transfromer gonna fix everyones system? hell no, just those that have a budget a$$ junk mixer from china with loads of places on the circuitboard either empty or replaced with wire links, and a mains transformer that looks like it has more glue than iron in it.

The usual thing with speaker cables giving an improvement is the fresh connection that you have done to them, and replacing those pathetic straps between the mid and bass inputs with wire. Take that improvement and carry it over to power and say its more important, then you have a sure sale.

Power cable, yes, shielding does help, if you want that however, go find some hospital grade IEC cables - they are shielded and well made, and about $8 last I looked. But that shielding only helps if your interconnects are not shielded. But many of the audiophool ones are not, they just have a pair of silver conductors inside a fancy seethru jacket etc.

Oh, and the wooden speaker knobs started with issues with people static discharging thru the volume control causing problems. But as usual with the audio industry it takes a valid idea, and mismarkets it as a total solution to all problems with everything.

Richard rich.ms

ilovemusic

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#480015 11-Jun-2011 11:29

What good is it to just ensure no interference enters it in the last 1m or so.

Bingo.

From the cable makers' perspective, that 1m cable is the first link to mains not the last.

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oxnsox

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#480438 12-Jun-2011 21:35

Personally if he can hear the difference then I'd either want his ears, or his house, before I'd be tempted by a bit of blingy copper.

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