A Mains Cable Story

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izzy wizzy
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#1 A Mains Cable Story

Post by izzy wizzy »

Warning, it's a bit long.

First a preface about my bias. I’m confident why mains cables make a difference from a technical POV. But maybe that’s another discussion. My bias is, being a DIYer, that I can make better improvements for the money by investment in making my gear and the components/topology than the cabling connecting it.

I had the opportunity to sample a bunch of mains cables recently but first I had to change my distribution strip. Mine was the one I took to Owston which is 3 pairs of switched outlets supplied by a beefy mains cable (2 x RG213 coax). Having been in NZ for over a year, thought it about time to use NZ plugs so changed these outlets for 6 x unswitched single outlets and changed the plugs to these https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000174 ... f19cIFvDEz which are allegedly, rhodium plated copper, about £8 a pair. Overall, this move alone was well worth the money for a sonic improvement.

My mains cables are common kettle cords that come free with most electrical equipment. Given the outlets are non-switched and the plugs here don’t have fuses could easily account for what I heard as better.

Then replaced the IEC plugs for the moulded on ones and that I thought was an improvement I wasn’t prepared for. To put this into perspective, I thought it better than replacing a BHC electro in the line stage for a WKz Black Gate if that means anything.

Now I was ready to play.

First up, some fire hose cables from PS Audio that come with their top of the line power amps, BHK300. These were not highly rated by friends and had been replaced by some Furutech models (see later) in their systems. They initially sounded very sophisticated until after a day, I wondered where all the fun had gone. Bit like a comfy blanket than music so out they went.

Next up Furutech FP-TCS21 for £60/m. I thought these sounded very nice and refined compared to the kettle cords with Aliexpress connectors so they stayed in for a week while I played with a Topping D90 DAC I’d borrowed. The Furutech had similar connectors.

After that week, was able to try some Gotham mains cables. Gotham supply studios and this was yet another shielded mains cable. I liked these better than the Furutech. After trying these cables on the power amps and the line stage, a pattern started to emerge. The Furutech seem to have a “house sound” and after this, I read some reviews. It sounds polished and sophisticated, but that same sound makes whatever you plug it into, have that sound. The Gotham less so.

I can imagine if your equipment needed some “voicing” or “taming”, these things could be the go or if you weren’t a DIYer and you wanted to spend some money to alter the sound to your liking, mains cable rolling might do it. All my power supplies are choke input, vacuum rectified so maybe don’t need sophisticated cabling.

After the week, I had to give all this back and plug my kettle cord cables back in with my fancy Aliexpress connectors. I liked this the best. There was more fun and less laid on sophistication and suppression of … well that’s hard to pin down. All in all, fun to try but some might say with my disclosed bias, I was only going to come to one conclusion.
simon
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#2 Re: A Mains Cable Story

Post by simon »

Interesting Stephen, thanks for sharing.

FWIW Exposure used to solder a chunky piece of wire across the fuse holder in the captive 3 pin plugs they used to use as they said the fuse impacted sound quality negatively, and just used fusing inside the amp itself.
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#3 Re: A Mains Cable Story

Post by IslandPink »

Thanks Stephen.
It's interesting that you could hear differences despite using old-school power supplies with chokes and valve rectifiers.
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#4 Re: A Mains Cable Story

Post by Daniel Quinn »

I'm confident from a technical pov that mains cable makes fuck all difference .

But I thats my bias.

I thank you however for giving me a shortcut for positioning your posts.
brig001
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#5 Re: A Mains Cable Story

Post by brig001 »

Please note the following:
2 x RG213 Co-ax is not suitable for mains use - no CPC and no protective outer sheath
The fuse in the plug protects the cable, not the equipment, so should never be shorted
Using unfused plugs on a British ring main is dangerous. If you want to use them, convert the ring into two 16A radials
The plugs in the link don’t meet AS/NZS 3112
NZ sockets don’t have to be shuttered, but I would always get shuttered

It’s your equipment and you can do what you like, but anyone else reading this needs to be careful

Brian
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#6 Re: A Mains Cable Story

Post by Scottmoose »

I can give a mains cable story on those lines. A few years back, there was a one-man company over on another forum that hand-built a variety of gear -amplifiers, some speakers, a few other bits & pieces. Two of their most popular items were sets of unbalanced interconnects & loudspeaker cables, both of which they made out of 1950s vintage NOS Western Electric wire. I don't remember the model number, but it was 22AWG solid core copper with a waxed cloth insulation -the speaker leads paralleled a bunch of them together for roughly 16AWG if memory serves.

Oh yes indeed. Next step: the chap who built the RCA & speaker leads for him then decided to make power leads out of the same stuff, the insulation of which was proudly announced to have become 'very hard' over the intervening six decades. No, I'm not joking: vintage 22AWG wire, that was never rated for high currents in the first place, with a clapped out, hardened-up (aka 'failing') waxed cloth dielectric, braided together, being used for mains. Presumably it gave a fantastic, natural glow. From the fire, as your house burned down. Or as you lay on the other side of the room, having just enjoyed 'a moment' with 230v.
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#7 Re: A Mains Cable Story

Post by Cressy Snr »

I remember that Scott. Sheer bloody lunacy! :shock:
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izzy wizzy
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#8 Re: A Mains Cable Story

Post by izzy wizzy »

IslandPink wrote: Thu Nov 24, 2022 2:55 pm Thanks Stephen.
It's interesting that you could hear differences despite using old-school power supplies with chokes and valve rectifiers.
My take was the differences weren't worth it and not an improvement for what I want to hear but I could see for some, it would work positively.

The friends that use the furutech have ss class ab amps with either smps or regular big cap supplies.
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izzy wizzy
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#9 Re: A Mains Cable Story

Post by izzy wizzy »

brig001 wrote: Thu Nov 24, 2022 11:25 pm Please note the following:
2 x RG213 Co-ax is not suitable for mains use - no CPC and no protective outer sheath
The fuse in the plug protects the cable, not the equipment, so should never be shorted
Using unfused plugs on a British ring main is dangerous. If you want to use them, convert the ring into two 16A radials
The plugs in the link don’t meet AS/NZS 3112
NZ sockets don’t have to be shuttered, but I would always get shuttered

It’s your equipment and you can do what you like, but anyone else reading this needs to be careful

Brian
I agree that care needs to be taken with mains wiring. However I'm making valve amplifiers with 1200v ht so there's always a judgement to be made.
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#10 Re: A Mains Cable Story

Post by Neal »

MJ is an interesting read on how much a cap input supply ‘pumps’ the mains with surprisingly high current pulses. I could see an argument being made that the cable may have an influence….
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#11 Re: A Mains Cable Story

Post by Scottmoose »

I could see one that says you need a mains lead capable of handling the current demands of a given application. I can also see an argument for shielded leads, to reduce possible interference with other gear. I'm not sure I can think of many others, other than 'fit for purpose', i.e. made from wire designed and rated / certified for mains use. If it isn't -well, we all make our choices.

Since I have a perverse interest in the subject of hi-fi wiring and the entertaining pseudo and / or misapplied science often evoked by brands and on some websites etc., I wombled over to Isotek and Supra to see what gives there. The former -alas, the usual wittering about crystal boundaries, cryogenic treatment, silver plating and at least in their 'cheaper' offerings, a total absence of any kind of shield, which is a bit depressing, but not entirely surprising. The latter -well, I used to have some time for them, as they were at least usually sensibly designed & put together. And I suppose some / most still are. But given that one of the first things I saw for their power-lead stated '...these products help shield you and your family from electric and magnetic interference fields, a today recognised reason for serious illness,' it has just gone the way of the dodo. That deserves a walrus-slapping if ever there was one. In fact, that has just hacked me off to the extent that the Classic 4.0 I've used for years is coming out in favour of my spare set of Fisual Studio 4.0. A bit bulkier, but it does exactly the same job and I've no interest in any company that chooses to use that sort of scaremongering drivel in their marketing.
Last edited by Scottmoose on Sat Nov 26, 2022 6:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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#12 Re: A Mains Cable Story

Post by brig001 »

Plenty of suitable screened cable available - standard CY should be good, but never felt the need
https://cpc.farnell.com/pro-elec/pelb08 ... dp/CB22909

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#13 Re: A Mains Cable Story

Post by Scottmoose »

Quite. And cheaply too.
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#14 Re: A Mains Cable Story

Post by chris661 »

Having spent a while working with equipment that has to work come-what-may, I find the talk of mains cable differences quite disorientating.

Examples:
- Running a medium-sized (multi-kilowatt) PA system on the end of 75m of 13A extension reels.
- Running the same PA system on a 5KVA petrol generator with no ballast load. Mains voltage would richochet every kick drum hit, dropping to 208V and jumping to 250V as the generator span up to compensate.


In both cases, the PA system (including mixing desk, handling many A/D and D/A conversions, lots of DSP, etc), amps, etc all carried on working fine. No weird noises, no loss of power, nothing at all to suggest that the equipment was running on a sub-optimal supply.


I'm certain it's possible to measure differences between mains cables of different constructions, cross-sectional areas, etc. Very very small differences.

However, given the fact that it's possible to design audio equipment to run under some rather challenging conditions (in terms of mains supply), I'd rather suggest that any audio equipment that does show audible differences between mains cables is clearly broken in some way.

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#15 Re: A Mains Cable Story

Post by IslandPink »

I could suggest that another explanation is that some systems are more transparent than what you're listening to....
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