power cord suggstions?

[CarlSeibert]

Hi,

Has anybody got a great idea for a really good power cable that's under about $50 in parts cost, including connectors?

The new Woo needs a power cord. At the moment, it's attached to the wall with a spare 14/3 Belden.

My past thoughts on power cords have been pretty basic - for-real adequately sized conductors and shield the living bejeezus out of it. I've had good luck with some nice star-quad plenum wire with the safety ground on the outside, a la the recipe on TakeFive Audio. I pulled one of those cords out of my living room system and tried it on the Woo. It was lovely.

But nowadays everybody's into braiding everything. I've made some very nice sounding interconnects that are unshielded. And, by the foot, that plenum cable is getting pretty pricey. Maybe it's time to question assumptions and maybe try something new.

Ideas?

-Carl

[spritzer]

If you can find some of the Kimber braided cords cheap then they would be a good option. I know that Russ Andrews in the UK sold them but they present a new definition for expensive...

[Hopstretch]

Signal Cable Video Reference?



14 AWG, 3 conductor, 100% foil shield, $49.

[EdipisReks]

i like my Volex cables just fine.

[CarlSeibert]

Signal Cable Video Reference?

14 AWG, 3 conductor, 100% foil shield, $49.

Thanks!

You're the second person to bring up Signal Cable. A local friend has one of their power amp cords and a set of speaker wires and is thrilled with them. They're beautifully crafted, good performing and he paid really fair prices.

On their site I saw this one:
MagicPower Digital Reference
12 AWG 3 conductor twisted design
High purity stranded copper for maximum conductivity
Copper braid + foil double shield
Teflon insulation + Teflon outer jacket


It looks REAL familiar. Deja vu all over again. It's pretty much exactly like mine, except they've got that cool herringbone jacket and they used a Schurter IEC plug instead of a Marinco. For about $10 more than the parts cost me(!) If only it wasn't as still as rebar.

Have you ever tried their digital cables, by chance? I'll probably build this cord. I've got to order some parts anyway. But I'll be needing a S/PDIF cable soon. It's longer than I have patience to build, unless it turns out to be a just-use-the-magic-coax-as-it-comes-off-the-reel affair.

Reks - I didn't remember, but I used a Volex cord on a project a while back. It looks a bit nicer than the Belden to me, but I never compared the two. When I Googled Volex, I hit Allied Electronics' site. I used to have their catalog when I was a kid. I had no idea they were still around.

-Carl

[diebenkorn]

I have this cable and it is obnoxiously stiff (physically) have not really compared it to others. I just ordered some Iron Lung Jelly's. Be happy to let you borrow it.

[Hopstretch]

I have this cable and it is obnoxiously stiff (physically) have not really compared it to others. I just ordered some Iron Lung Jelly's. Be happy to let you borrow it.

I have one too (Digital Reference) and agree it is way too inflexible. I used to use it on my PS3, but it didn't make me any faster in GT5 Prologue.

[EdipisReks]

I used to use it on my PS3, but it didn't make me any faster in GT5 Prologue.

you're supposed to use it as a controller cable, if you want to go faster.

[Currawong]

Once I added 2 basic Furutech plugs, it came closer to $100, but I rather like the result I got building one from Cryoparts CryoMax power cable. It's chunky and inflexible stuff though. AJ Van Den Hul reckons that power cables have to be at least 5ft/1.5m to make a difference though.

[CarlSeibert]

AJ Van Den Hul reckons that power cables have to be at least 5ft/1.5m to make a difference though.

Some people say that about speaker cable, too. Personally, I think the very act of having less cable is probably better. Unless of course the idea is to separate components that really shouldn't be right on top of each other. Then again, how many two-chassis components have umbilicals that are half a foot long... hmmm.

-Carl

[grawk]

The reason that's true is that short cables aren't as prone to introduce noise, which is the only way cables can make a difference for power.

100 miles of aluminum wire to your breaker panel from the power plant. 200 ft of romex from the breaker box to your outlet. 2 ft of anything from the outlet to your gear...

[Currawong]

I was pondering how involved it would be to set up battery-supplied power to a hi-fi system. I'm surprised all the high-end nuts don't have one.

[grawk]

some do (that's how redwine got his start)

There's also power regenerators, which do have a chance of making things better.

I think mostly, the idea is to have gear with good power supplies, then cables don't matter so much.

[CarlSeibert]

Speaking of power regenerators...

Has anybody actually tired one the the UPSs that work that way?

It's an intriguing thought. Five or six hundred bucks for a UPS is in the range of (sort of) reason for cleaning up mains power, particularly if you live somewhere where the sags and spikes are downright dangerous to your gear.

On the other hand, the several thousand dollars an audiophile re-gen power conditioner is silly unless you just have more money then you need. Personally, I'm pretty sure five grand for a Berkeley Alpha DAC will buy me a lot more sound quality than any amount of power line filtering.

-Carl

[Dusty Chalk]

I was pondering how involved it would be to set up battery-supplied power to a hi-fi system. I'm surprised all the high-end nuts don't have one.

Exists, I forget the name of the company though. I distinctly remember a pic from a trade show where it looked like you had to wade through car batteries, they had that many.

But I didn't think they had implemented it perfectly -- they used it to generate A/C, and then you know 90% of the internal power supplies converted it back to DC -- why didn't they just run it at DC to begin with? Strikes me as more efficient, though I could be wrong.

[n_maher]

why didn't they just run it at DC to begin with? Strikes me as more efficient, though I could be wrong.

Simple really (at least in my head), if you run DC through a rectifier (and how would you bypass that in most components, I don't know) you'd likely drop a bunch of volts needlessly and end up with less VDC than you need.

[luvdunhill]

I have something in the works... pretty crazy though. I use a SLA battery to generate 3 phase AC power. Key components are, precision clock, lots of logic ICs, 41Hz chip amp, and three toroids wired in reverse to step up the voltage.

I decided not to use an ipod playing a .wav to generate the control frequency for AC power, that's crazy.

[Hopstretch]

On the other hand, the several thousand dollars an audiophile re-gen power conditioner is silly unless you just have more money then you need. Personally, I'm pretty sure five grand for a Berkeley Alpha DAC will buy me a lot more sound quality than any amount of power line filtering.

Just get a dozen Noise Harvesters and let them eat all your tasty power impurities. Om nom nom nom. You can tell they work precisely as advertised because when you plug them into an electrical socket they light up, see?

[EdipisReks]

it lights up so you know it must be true!

[Dusty Chalk]

Simple really (at least in my head), if you run DC through a rectifier (and how would you bypass that in most components, I don't know) you'd likely drop a bunch of volts needlessly and end up with less VDC than you need.

Yeah, I figured it might be something like "a/c is easier to work with".