Power Cord Quality and Sound. An exercise in Curiosity.

[Cafad]

Power Cords. 

Can they make enough of a difference to warrant me worrying about them? 

That’s the question.  And in order to make some progress on an answer I’ve gone and gotten myself quite a collection of cords, from cheap (and generally considered crappy) to sort-of expensive and then some stuff in between. 

Let me start off with a picture of the contestants. 

At the bottom left I have three cables from Cable Chick.  Listed as “medical cables” they cost $19.95 aussie each.  They contain 3 by 1mm square copper conductors and no shielding.  The connectors seem to be set in plastic like an anthropologist would set insects in resin.  Cool!  I think I’ll refer to these as the “Orange Chicks”. 

To the right of the “Orange Chicks” are a pair of cables I made myself (I will have to make another one as I’ll be needing three).  These are made of the same cables that are in the wall, in between the sub board and the power point.  What’s that?  Not compliant you say?  Yep, that is very much the case, do not try this at home!  (I mean it, don’t!) But since I have seen, so many times, people claim that the final few feet of cable can’t make a difference since there is so much of a different cable in the wall I’m just damn curious to find out if using the same “in wall” cable will actually sound better or worse (or not really worth it, if that’s the case then I’m prepared for it).  I just want to know.  This cable is unshielded (obviously!) but it does have the ground wire situated in between the active and neutral, which is something that no conventional power cord can replicate.  It contains three runs of 2.5mm square copper.  Let’s call these the “Prysmian Cables” as that’s what is printed on them. 

 

Above the Orange Chicks, in the top left, is a set of un-named power cords that I purchased from ebay.  They cost $20 aussie each and were made in China.  The listing claimed that they are 2.5mm square copper cables and that all three cables are mylar shielded.  That would be cool, except I took the ends off of them to have a peak and I found that there was no shield connected to ground on any of them.  So I don’t actually know if they are mylar shielded or not (I may perform some destructive investigation after I’m finished if I feel in the mood for it) and if they are then that shielding is of minimal use.  Let’s call these the “Zebra” cables, since they’re striped.   They are very much not certified for use in Australia and I will be testing them prior to plugging them in.

 

To the right of the Zebras are the three power cords that came with my pre/pwr combo units.  They look to be fairly standard cords of 1mm square copper cables.  I do like the yellow clips as they look cool, but I don’t believe they mean anything special.  I’ll call them the “Yellow Spots”. 

To the right of them are my standard cables.  I purchased 5 of them from Little Blue Penguin (another SNA’er) back around 2013 or so (and no, I do not recall what I paid for them, it was just too long ago).  I did this so I could be using a standard power cable for everything and I wouldn’t have to think too much about power cords and what, if any, effect they have on the sound.  I do not recall how thick they are internally but I do know they all contain a woven steel shield which is grounded at the wall plug.  Nice!  So, how can I call them anything except “Blue Penguins”? 

 

And that leaves us with the thick, brown cables in the bottom right.  I have high hopes for these as they tick both the boxes that seem to be important for power cords.  First up they contain 3 runs of 6mm square copper cables, so plenty of bulk there.  And second they contain shielding.  Lots of shielding!  Each cable has a foil shield, then there is a foil shield around all three of them, and then there is a copper braided shield around that foil shield.  So not only are the active and neutral shielded from the “noise” of the outside world but they are also shielded from each other.  Like I said, high hopes.  I’m calling these the “Brown Viborgs”. 

 

And, what is a cable comparison without a headliner?  Not in the picture above but in the one below we have two EGM Emerald power cords (one connected to each mono-block) and an EGM Black Pearl cord powering the preamp. 

 

I chose to use the Mola Mola Makua pre and Kaluga mono-blocks for this experiment as I have heard tell that they are fairly sensitive to power cords.  I have also heard differences myself (on different units in a different room but I heard them) so I have reason to believe that if I can hear differences on my gear in my room then I should be able to hear them on the Mola Molas. 

The speakers are Wilson Benesch ACTs (no suffix required but they are the third model to bear that name, they belong to the Odyssey range just in case anyone is wondering).  Speaker wire by Aurealis, the older UP series UP-620 using WB supplied jumpers.  Balanced interconnects are Argento Serenity and the digital cable is an Atlas Mavros AES-EBU.  And that is that for the other gear. 

 

Advocation for copper. 

I like copper.  Ok everyone.  I just do.  I believe that rhodium and gold plating are both unnecessary bling.  I’ll settle for brass if I have to (the plugs on the Brown Viborgs are brass in the picture above but I will be replacing them with copper plugs prior to testing them) but I have a firm preference for copper.  Unfortunately (IMO) both the Orange Chicks and the Yellow Spots look to have steel plugs fitted to them.  They are sealed, prefabricated cables so I can’t do anything about that physically, but I’m not really happy about it emotionally.  I want copper, not steel.  No bling on power cables, that’s my stance. 

 

Methodology.   

I was going to go about this all logically (and boring-ly) and start with the Orange Chicks and then move along trying each set and see what I could hear with each change but I’m afraid I did not do that.  But only because I felt it would be very long and more than a little boring, boring isn’t fun, and music should be fun.  So instead of that I’ve decided to go another way.   

I’ve put the EGM cables into service and let the system warm up for a few days.  After the Mola Mola gear has settled down (I know from experience that the Makua and Kalugas take between 2 and 3 days of use before they sound their best) I’ll be swapping out the EGM cables and swapping in one of the others.   

As much as I’ve tried to keep my expectations out of this process I do have them and I don’t really expect the differences between power cords to be so large that I can pinpoint the differences between each and every set of power cables so this method may just make things a bit easier on my ears. 

The songs I will use will generally only have the first 30 seconds or so played, I will be playing that 30 seconds 3 or 4 times on one set of cables and then swap the cables and do so again another 3 or 4 times.  I am aware that many people claim that you should leave power cables in the system for weeks in order to get them to sound their best, I am not going to do that.   

 

Step 1.  EGM to Yellow Spots. 

Looking back at my group picture I noticed that the Yellow Spots were not on a good angle and that from that picture it would be a complete mystery as to why I named them as I did.  So, just to help clear up that little mystery, here is a picture from a different angle. 

 

See?  Yellow clips.  Hence the “Yellow Spots” name.  All clear now?  OK, on with the show. 

 

Song 1. 

Freya Ridings.  Lost Without You. 

 

 

Listening to Freya with the EGM cables in use and you could swear she was singing in the mountains on a clear, windless day.  There was no sense of limit to the width or depth of the soundstage and her voice just fills that soundstage up.  Change over to the Yellow Spots and there’s definitely some unsettled and uncertain weather moving in to that soundstage.  It isn’t as deep or wide and there is some ambient noise getting in there somehow.  She’s still an awesome singer but it sounds like she’s recording in a studio that is only fair-to-middling in its treatment and equipment quality. 

 

Song 2. 

Alan Taylor.  Color to the Moon. 

 

The acoustic guitar has a more metallic twang with the Yellow Spots in use, and everything is a little more forward.  Instrumentals are also a little thinner and brighter.  And Alan’s voice is not quite as mellow.  Add all that up and It’s a far nicer listen through the EGM power cables than it is through the Yellow Spots. 

 

Song 3. 

Jennifer Warnes.  Bird on a Wire (digitally remastered) 

 

I thought I’d get deeper drums out of the EGM cables but I didn’t, what I did get is more initial impact and more body to the middle of each drum note.  Her voice is also just that bit sweeter and she sings against a darker background.  The differences were harder to pick here than they were with Freya and Alan but they were there. 

 

And last on the list, Song 4. 

Def Leppard.  Let’s get Rocked. 

 

 

It’s my belief that Def Leppard sound the same on every stereo system.  They use so many overdubs that all you hear on a more revealing system is that they are using even more overdubs than you first thought they were.  So I don’t really expect to hear anything much in the way of change between power cables here.  Let’s see if I’m right shall we? 

 

Hmm, well what can I say, when I’m wrong I don’t mess around with being just a bit wrong.  Right from the first word Joe’s vocals sound thinner and a little hashier on the Yellow Spots than they do on the EGMs.  Then when the drums kick in they have more weight and depth on the EGMs than they do with the Yellow Spots.  OK then, not what I was expecting but I can work with it. 

 

And that’s the first comparison done with.  And me done with plugging and unplugging things for the weekend, I’ll get back to this a little later, probably with the Orange Chicks.   

Happy Sunday Everybody. 

 

 

[Snoopy8]

Thank you for an excellent write-up of your power cable comparisons, and the care you took in the exercise.

 

May be opening up Pandora's box, but do you want to try further up the chain with an entry Shunyata power cable?

[Gryffles]

@Cafad yes, thanks for sharing your experience. Its a slippery slope but well worth it to give a good sounding system a decent jump in performance.

 

The Oyaide Black Mamba Sigma is a very good cable on digital equipment for a reasonable price via Ebay sellers. Just comes with a US plug 

[Kinsella]

@Cafad You are to be congratulated sir for both the dedication in undertaking this experiment and providing such a detailed write up  as well as the courage to go down this often highly contentious path.

A great read.

[doogie44]

I like EGM very much. I am much lazier than you but after your efforts I have a smirky smile of fellow-feeling 

[Cafad]

Thanks for the kind words gents.  And for the recommendations too, I will definitely check them out, I don't plan on adding in any more cables to my list but I suppose there is always the chance of the contestant numbers increasing. 

 

I do like the EGM cables, they seem to offer the same style of product that some others do but at a price that is far more reasonable.  Even so I am hoping that I can equal their performance with a DIY product if possible.  

As I said above, very high hopes for the double shielded, extra thick copper, Brown Viborgs.  Fingers crossed!

[lumholtzii]

Well done @Cafad - I’m looking for to the next instalment too.  
 

BTW, the insect tech specialist that I think you mean is an entomologist.  If it really was an anthropologist then they would have  humans in resin  .. hmm, that’s not a bad thought ! 

[mrbugeyes]

YES, WELL DONE ALSO.  CHEERS - M.

[Cafad]

42 minutes ago, lumholtzii said:

Well done @Cafad - I’m looking for to the next instalment too.  
 

BTW, the insect tech specialist that I think you mean is an entomologist.  If it really was an anthropologist then they would have  humans in resin  .. hmm, that’s not a bad thought ! 

Good point, I stand corrected.

[PKay]

Perhaps @andyrcould lend you some of his DIY power cables. I’m very impressed with the ones he made for me. 

[andyr]

10 minutes ago, PKay said:

Perhaps @andyrcould lend you some of his DIY power cables. I’m very impressed with the ones he made for me. 

 

Hah, thanks Peter.   

 

I had that thought, myself!  

 

[Cafad]

1 hour ago, PKay said:

Perhaps @andyrcould lend you some of his DIY power cables. I’m very impressed with the ones he made for me. 

I could be interested in that.

 

1 hour ago, andyr said:

 

Hah, thanks Peter.   

 

I had that thought, myself!  

 

Perhaps we should chat?  I'll fire you off a PM.

[Weka]

Also looking forward to your results and conclusions 

Don't get hung up regarding pure copper pin plugs - there's no such beast. Standard pure copper is too soft to machine for this purpose.

Most plugs and connectors sold as having copper pins are phosphor bronze alloy (94.8% copper) with a copper plated surface finish.

Tellurium copper alloy (99.9% copper) is the best and has the highest conductivity but is less common and very expensive).

 

 

Edited November 20, 2024 by Weka

[Cafad]

55 minutes ago, Weka said:

Also looking forward to your results and conclusions 

Don't get hung up regarding pure copper pin plugs - there's no such beast. Standard pure copper is too soft to machine for this purpose.

Most plugs and connectors sold as having copper pins are phosphor bronze alloy (94.8% copper) with a copper plated surface finish.

Tellurium copper alloy (99.9% copper) is the best and has the highest conductivity but is less common and very expensive).

 

 

I realize the plugs aren't pure copper, but I was thinking tellurium copper.  I was not aware of phosphor bronze.  Thanks for the information, i think I'm going to do some more googling.

[Cafad]

I thought I'd have a try at the Orange Chicks this evening.  I was a bit lacking in enthusiasm really as I'd already heard the Yellow Spots and the Orange Chicks are the same thickness and for some reason I thought that would mean they would both sound a bit thinner than the EGM cables and probably have a similar level of murky brightness to them.  

 

Well, as it turns out I was only half right.  There is indeed a bit of a murky brightness to their presentation and they sound a little thinner and more forward whereas the EGM cables are deeper, calmer, fuller and more expressive but that doesn't tell the whole story.  The big surprise with the Orange Chicks was that, even though they did indeed lack the resolution of the EGMs they added a feeling of vigor and enthusiasm.  They were quite lively and engaging.  Far from being boring I actually really like them.  They somehow give me that feeling I get when I listen to an artists debut album vs all their following albums.  That first album almost always has a sense of raw creativity and emotion that the following albums dilute as the artist starts to learn the same ways to do things as everybody else.  

 

Freya was really engaging, even though she was singing in a white room with thin walls and a busy intersection directly outside of the building.  It didn't sound as deep or as sweet as the EGMs but it still sounded pretty damn good.

 

Alan sounded at least 25 years younger, practicing his art on someone's front porch rather than in a studio.  

 

Jennifer's "Bird on a Wire" still carried a nice punch to the bass and while her voice was a little more lost in the mix than it should be I was really liking it.  It sounded more rock-ish and less polished than it usually does.

 

Def Leppard was really doing it for me.  Reminding me of when I used to crank them up on my old tape deck.  Less quality sure, but who cares when you get that raw, boisterous presentation and howling guitar.  

 

That was fun!  I did not expect it to be since it involved heaps of plugging and unplugging of power cords and listening to the same bits of songs several times in a row, but it was.  I actually played the entirety of "Let's get Rocked", but only because I wanted to.

 

Now I'm not going to adopt the Orange Chicks as my standard power cords and return the EGMs, the EGMs are still quite obviously the better cables, but I am absolutely stoked that the process that I thought was going to be tedious and dull turned out to be anything but.  

 

And just in case someone wants to buy an orange Chick for themselves, here's the details.  Cool fact, they came with a free key ring!

 

I think the Blue Penguins should be next.  Probably over the weekend.

Edited November 21, 2024 by Cafad
missed some words, sentences need to make sense.

[Cafad]

And it's the weekend.  So here we go again.

 

This time it's power by Little Blue Penguins' power cables.  I have tried and tried but I cannot remember the name that Brendan gave to these power cables, I know I have previously had Taranui speaker cables (at least I'm pretty sure that was the name given to the speaker cables) and I've found a PM from him telling me his interconnects were called Papakaio but I have not been able to find the name for these power cables so from here on they will be LBP power cables.

 

Freya's vocals came through well, not as clean and deep as with the EGMs but not as bright and hashy as the Orange Chicks or the Yellow Spots either.  Her voice is a little calmer than on either the Orange Chicks or the Yellow Spots and the soundstage is a touch deeper, but not as deep as the EGMs.

 

Alan has regained his correct age and returned to the studio on the LBPs, and the metallic ringing at the beginning of the song, while still bright-ish, is far more refined than either the Yellow Spots or the Orange Chicks.  

I would say the LBPs retain about 60% of the level of enthusiasm and emotion of the Orange Chicks but add some depth and clarity.  They also go a little deeper and fuller in the bass, again not as deep as the EGMs.  The top end is brighter than the EGMs but not as bright as either the OCs or the YSs.  

 

Jennifer's voice is still good but the bass in this track is cleaner and fuller than either the OCs or the YS's, also the combination of impact and depth feels more "correct" than it has on the other two.  Not as deep or smooth as the EGMs can give however.

 

Def Leppard sounds really good on the LBPs.  I liked it on the OCs but it had a little more soul on the LBPs and a little less noise all around.

 

OK, so the info above is all well and good but to summarize.  After listening to the Little Blue Penguins it would be really hard to go back to the Yellow Spots or the Orange Chicks.  Sure you don't get the depth of sound stage or bass as you do with the EGMs but everything else they do is markedly better than the other two sets of power cables.  I thoroughly enjoyed using the LBPs and I feel a little vindicated in my decision of buying them to use exclusively 12 or so years ago.  These cables are good enough that, if I was using a pair of speakers with a cooler top end or a more recessed presentation (or possibly warmer and/or smoother amps)  I may just be choosing them over the EGM cables.   Nice cables Brendan, very nice!

 

[Cafad]

I just cannot make these puppies look tidy.  I know that's cables in general but these are particularly untidy looking and short of putting them on a roll I don't think there would be an easy way to change that.  So, here we go with the Prysmian Cables.  These cables usually stay on the other side of the wall but in this case I've let them out of the wall to see how they perform on the other side of the gyprock.

 

 

I'm hearing a brightness to the Prysmians which has taken me a while to evaluate.  There doesn't seem to be any more brightness to the treble but there is in the mids.  Freya's vocals have a sheen around them that has not been there before as does the acoustic guitar in Alan's song.  There is a little less bass to Bird on a Wire and a bit more mid range coming to the fore.  And Def Leppard sound a little thinner and leaner.

 

This is a bit of a strange one.  The Prysmians seem to give a focus to the mids and a bit of a reduction to the bass (although I would say it would be four parts extra focus to the mids to only one part of bass reduction).  On some systems this may work quite well but on mine I found my listening fatigue kicking in very early indeed.  It actually kicked in before I managed to work out why it was kicking in.  45 seconds of Frya's vocals was all it took, so no, these cords are definitely not for me.

 

Well, at least my (admittedly mild) fears of the Prysmians outperforming all the other cords and then my having to work out what to do about that have not come to pass.  That's something worth knowing.

[andyr]

38 minutes ago, Cafad said:

So, here we go with the Prysmian Cables.  These cables usually stay on the other side of the wall but in this case I've let them out of the wall to see how they perform on the other side of the gyprock.

 

 

These, obviously, are not shielded

 

38 minutes ago, Cafad said:

I'm hearing a brightness to the Prysmians which has taken me a while to evaluate.  There doesn't seem to be any more brightness to the treble but there is in the mids.  Freya's vocals have a sheen around them that has not been there before as does the acoustic guitar in Alan's song.  There is a little less bass to Bird on a Wire and a bit more mid range coming to the fore.  And Def Leppard sound a little thinner and leaner.

 

Could this 'brightness' perhaps be due to them "infecting" your interconnects with an AC field?

 

[Cafad]

31 minutes ago, andyr said:

 

These, obviously, are not shielded

 

 

Could this 'brightness' perhaps be due to them "infecting" your interconnects with an AC field?

 

Absolutely. 

Although the Mola Mola Kalugas are balanced only on their inputs and the ICs are kept more than 8cm from the power cords (at their closest points and they certainly don't run parallel to each other at any point) so that should minimize any direct interference yes?

[andyr]

5 minutes ago, Cafad said:

Although the Mola Mola Kalugas are balanced only on their inputs and the ICs are kept more than 8cm from the power cords (at their closest points and they certainly don't run parallel to each other at any point) so that should minimize any direct interference yes?

 

Yes, it should.  

 

Are any of the other power cords also not shielded (to compare)?

 

[Cafad]

So far the only shielded cables are the EGMs and the Little Blue Penguins.  Neither the Orange Chicks nor the Yellow Spots are shielded.  Or at least they don't claim to be, I haven't cut any of them up which is what I would need to do to be absolutely certain.

[ray4410]

16 minutes ago, Cafad said:

So far the only shielded cables are the EGMs and the Little Blue Penguins.  Neither the Orange Chicks nor the Yellow Spots are shielded.  Or at least they don't claim to be, I haven't cut any of them up which is what I would need to do to be absolutely certain.

you should be able to see if there's any shielding on the cable by undoing either of the wall or iec plugs. 

[Cafad]

7 minutes ago, ray4410 said:

you should be able to see if there's any shielding on the cable by undoing either of the wall or iec plugs. 

Yep, and I have done that on the cables that allow it but the Yellow Spots and the Orange Chicks are all pre-molded so I can't take them apart to check without getting destructive.

[Cafad]

Next up, the Zebras (since they came from China I'm sort of regretting not calling them Pandas but the striping really got to me early on so Zebras they will just have to remain).   

 

So how does thick copper with floating shielding sound?  Let's see.

 

I listened to Freya and was quite impressed.  Her voice shone through as it should and both the soft and strong piano was pretty much as I was on the EGM cables.  As to with Alan, the high pitched ringing at the start was spot on and his voice and the acoustic guitar were damn near exactly the way I remembered them from the EGM listening I had done just minutes before.  I felt like the bass on Jennifer's Bird on a Wire might not have been quite right but I was at a bit of a loss as to what it was that was different.  Def Leppard too was very much the same.  Tonally the Zebras are a very close match with the EGMs.

 

So I had to move further afield.  I dialed up some more of Jennifer's songs, Way Down Deep and I Can't Hide, and while the first didn't get me anywhere I was starting to get an inkling by the second as to what might be going on.  There was less "tap, slap and snap" to be heard.  Less leading edge on small drums and stick taps to be more precise (for some reason I can barely notice it on cymbals).  So, over to one of my favourite drum test tracks, Guns and Roses version of You Could be Mine.  Yep, no machine gun smack, smack, smack more a sort of a "smuck, smuck, smuck" instead.

 

When I pulled out the Zebras and put the EGM cables back in and fired up the same tracks I not only got the "ack" back but I noticed a slight increase in volume and an increase in clarity too.  These last two weren't large but I'm glad they were there as they really helped me separate out the sound of the Zebras from the EGMs.  

 

So the long and the short of it, the Zebras are very tonally similar to the EGMs but a little duller and not as snappy.

 

Getting there, just the Viborgs to go.

[muon*]

Not wanting to add controversy, but have all these leads had at least 100hrs run time previous to these tests?

Personally I have no idea if it makes a difference with power cables.

Just curious

Edited December 1, 2024 by muon*
typo