First venture into the world of HiFi mains cables
Printed From: Graham Slee Hifi System Components
Category: And the rest
Forum Name: Audio System Set-Up
Forum Description: Discussions about getting the best from your system (Digital section now moved)
URL: https://www.hifisystemcomponents.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=4833
Printed Date: 27 Mar 2026 at 2:13am
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Topic: First venture into the world of HiFi mains cables
Posted By: Ernie
Subject: First venture into the world of HiFi mains cables
Date Posted: 29 Nov 2019 at 7:57pm
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I finally succumbed to trying a HiFi mains cable. It’s a marmite topic, people either seem to wax lyrical or flatly refuse to even contemplate such a notion. So I bought one from a UK supplier that’s build like a ships hawser. Very high quality build, high purity conductors, screening, ferrites both ends and connections that look and feel like they’d withstand a nuclear blast. So, very well build which you’d expect for the £250 it cost. Expensive but I had to finally find out for myself. To test it I left it plugged in to a source component for 6 weeks listening as usual to the system. After week 6 I swapped back to the “kettle lead” that came with the device. No difference, no difference what-so-ever. Nothing, zilch, zip, nowt for good or ill. I’ve approached this with an open mind and invested a decent amount of money in the experiment with a hope to hear a difference good or bad. I’m actually pleased because I finally scratched an itch and found I don’t need to make further investment in this area. More money for music and GS components. ------------- There are 10 kinds of people. Those who understand binary and those who don't. |
Replies:
Posted By: Cyreg
Date Posted: 30 Nov 2019 at 11:13am
Hi Ernie, just curieus but......you have experienced differences in sound between several interlinks and/or speakercables 
------------- TecnoDec/RB250/MP110>GramAmp2C/PSU1; Cyrus CD8SE; > Exposure 3010S2D INT > Harbeth C7ES-3 '35th Anniversary' cabling: IC 2x DNM V3; LScable Exposure DMF-two; Furu TP60 + MWaY and BlackCable pc's |
Posted By: BackinBlack
Date Posted: 30 Nov 2019 at 1:12pm
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It does defy logic that changing the last metre or so of 10s of kilometres of mains cabling, transformers, switches etc in the distribution network will bring any improvement to the sound. The fancy mains cable supplied with my old Audio Analogue Maestro CD player made no discernible difference and it was a pita to route due to it's bulk. I too remain a little more than sceptical of the benefit. ------------- Just listen, if it sounds good to you, enjoy it. |
Posted By: Ernie
Date Posted: 30 Nov 2019 at 6:47pm
Quite, but it was an itch I needed to scratch a what if scenario, am I missing out? Turns out that no I’m not. To answer Cyregs’ question, yes speaker cables and interconnects do make a difference in my experience. I remember changing my naca5 cables to nordost. Like night and day. ------------- There are 10 kinds of people. Those who understand binary and those who don't. |
BackinBlack wrote:Posted By: Aussie Mick
Date Posted: 01 Dec 2019 at 12:31am
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I’m a convert to mains cables in the right context. In my studio (detached from the house and it’s own power) I really can’t hear a difference. However, a friend who lives in an apartment complex has a system that clearly benefits. Is it because of noise rejection? Cables made a worthwhile difference for him, and when he added a regenerator it went to another level of quiet. Everything he owns plugs into the wall. Most things I own have an external power supply (PSU1 and Proprius external supplies). That would surely make a difference in noise rejection, yes? Mick. ------------- Rega RP8 - Apheta 2 - Accession MC Enigma PS -Solo ULDE (Focal Utopia) - PS Audio M700 - Fical Kanta No2 |
Posted By: Eargie Virgile
Date Posted: 28 Feb 2020 at 10:16am
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I can just paint my own experience with cables. Until about two years ago I qualified the discussion on cables as voodoo talk. It started to become very obvious to me when I compared different loudspeaker cables and interconnects in my home hifi environment. Meanwhile I am a strong believer that cables can make a huge difference.  When I also focused on mains cables I got in contact with a guy (retired engineer who worked many years in the hifi industry) who developed a mains cable with a power conditioner built in. He is a very picky perfectionist indeed who loves to work on getting the best out of a hifi system. He explained to me that this is not a filter but just a gear to ‚calm down‘ the power to a steady flow (you will notice that I am not a techy guy). When using them with my equipment it is uplifted to a different quality level indeed. A magic that I do not really understand but enjoy. There is no whiff of constraints that I contrariwise already experienced using power filters. It‘s just hand-made products and not produced big scale, so just available on very limited demand unfortunately. But it shows that there must be some differences with power supply. As I already read about the Lautus interconnects and GSP ls cables I will also want to try them out in comparison. Eargie
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Posted By: Robnpg
Date Posted: 06 Jun 2020 at 1:12pm
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I know cables are one of the most highly debated topics on the Net. When I see these cables costing thousands it makes me say there MUST be something to it?.? Anyhow, I’ll start off with just loaning some of the cables here :)
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Posted By: Ernie
Date Posted: 06 Jun 2020 at 7:45pm
The cables from Graham and team are really good quality, sound great and are good value for money. They are made with engineering principles not pseudo scientific pschobabble. You’ll notice they don’t do kettle leads. ------------- There are 10 kinds of people. Those who understand binary and those who don't. |
Posted By: Ash
Date Posted: 06 Jun 2020 at 8:03pm
Over here, we prefer the figure of 8 mains cable anyway. If we're not happy with the sound, we can rotate it 180 degrees and try again... 
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Posted By: Robnpg
Date Posted: 06 Jun 2020 at 8:17pm
| sweet. Can’t wait to audition. |