My DIY power cord plan

[dantwomey]

I'm just getting ready to try assembling my first DIY power cord and I wanted to post it so I could create some discussion. My two primary motivations behind making my own power cord are aesthetics, and the DIY drive to make something myself rather than buy it. My sole secondary motivation is to hopefully improve the sound of my system. All that aside, here is the list of parts I'm going to use.

The SOW cable and Hubbell connectors are conveniently available at a local industrial supplier a couple of miles from me.

For cable I'm going to use 12 /3 similar to the following:
12/3 SO cable

The Hubbell connectors I'm going to use are the 8115V and H320C as seen and available as well at Percy Audio .

And, for aesthetics I'm using the black polyester mesh braid also available from Percy Audio. As a final finishing touch I'm going to try and use some 1.25 to 1.5" heat shrink tubing to finish it off.


In the end I'm hoping to achieve something similar to the following: Virtual Dynamics Power One

And on a final note, if you have thoughts, ideas, suggestions you want to share. Go ahead!

Regards,
Dan

[Sparhawk]

I don't know about the choice of cable... These cable types (SOW, SJOW, etc) are great for heavy-duty extention cords that need to withstand a lot of abuse, but I don't think I'd use them for audio power cords. In my experience, the copper in these cables seems to corrode very quickly. I've always wondered if it has something to do with out-gassing from the rubber insulation. These cables certainly do a lot of that; they smell terrible when they are new.

If you're putting a braided sleeve over it, I would use three individual wires with some kind of insulation other than rubber. Something with teflon or PVC insulation, maybe.

[Peter Daniel]

If you want to make a really good cord use Kimber 4TC or 8TC speaker cable and insert solid core ground wire in between the braids. Someone told me this is makes a really good power cord.

[Wardsweb]

Mil-spec 14 awg telflon silver over copper makes for a very good cord. You can even see it see in the industrial or aviation sections of Ebay at times. Use three individual pieces and braid them, cover with Bentley Harris sleeving or the like, your pick of good connectors and your done.

[fdegrove]

Hi,

Sorry to jump in like this....but:

In continental Europe we have something like a 2.5mm radius solid core pair running in the unshielded conduits.

Does this differ much from what you have?

All my detachable powercords are solid core twisted + a smaller solid core as neutral braided inbetween those conductors and not shielded ( I plan to try this shielding out later)... there is simply no comparison to the multistrand jobs that come as standard.

You gain in coherence across the audio band and it's soo cheap to try.
Mind you, it's pretty stiff stuff very low in WAF...

To Peter Daniel:

The effect is similar to NOT decoupling electrolytes with filmcaps...everything sounds as if it's cut from one piece of cloth as opposed to stitched together pieces of various fabrics...
I'm sure you catch my drift...

While I'm at it, I do use multiple PSU caps in my gear but: all the same value and brand for the same rail...if you don't same occurs as above.

Cheers,

[Peter Daniel]

Originally posted by fdegrove

To Peter Daniel:

The effect is similar to NOT decoupling electrolytes with filmcaps...everything sounds as if it's cut from one piece of cloth as opposed to stitched together pieces of various fabrics...
I'm sure you catch my drift...

While I'm at it, I do use multiple PSU caps in my gear but: all the same value and brand for the same rail...if you don't same occurs as above.

Cheers,

Are you still talking about power cords or my other post in a different thread?

[fdegrove]

Hi,

Are you still talking about power cords or my other post in a different thread?

The latter but I wouldn't have mentioned it if there was no analogy.

I suppose you mentioned that in a reply to Jonathan Carr in the
" Not just another GC" thread.

Sorry if you feel it's off topic..it isn't to me,

[Peter Daniel]

That's what I thought.

My findings in this matter are confirmed by recent experiments with tweeter crossovers. I'm using main 3u series cap and was trying to add some 0.01 bypasses to spice the sound a bit (Hovland, RTX, silver foil caps). In this particular setting (Triangle T20 tweeter and Siemens MKV cap) it just doesn't work. Although bypass caps seem to add more resolution and detail, in a long run it sounds artificial and I really prefer a single cap as it is more natural sounding. The best bypasses were MITs, the silvers exaggerated everything and Hovlands added too much color.

To perceive this kind of differences and nuances may nat be possible in a regular setup, because previously, I also preffered the bypass, but this current system is very revealing, with silver interconnects and copper flat ribbon speaker cables, no preamp, simple amplification stage and non oversampling DAC. It can be clearly distinguished, what sounds better.

I had similar experience with GC filter caps. Using one 1000u cap in comparison to two, the same caps, one cap was always more 'pure' sounding, although not always as dynamic. But I will always trade smoothness and natural sound over dynamics. The bypass I tried was BG N 4.7u and it added exaggeration at high frequencies, like indeed it was "stitched together from pieces of various fabrics..." . Maybe our prefferences differ
The amount of detail and ambience I can extract from recording is simply astonishing.

I would rather compare it to looking at sound through the glass. With bypass cap, it's like looking through a magnifying glass, everything is more pronaunced, but can be annoying. Without bypass, it's like looking through the window. It's still the same view, although not real, because you can't touch it, ...if you know what I mean

[cowanrg]

my virtual dynamics power basic cord comes in tomrrow, ill let you know how it sounds :-) my cord i got from signal cable is great, and i couldnt built it cheaper than buying it! (same as the virtual dynamics one).

ive found that some cables are cheaper to buy then to build. the connectors alone are very expensive and stopped me from going into the project.

[mrfeedback]

Originally posted by dantwomey
I'm just getting ready to try assembling my first DIY power cord and I wanted to post it so I could create some discussion.
And on a final note, if you have thoughts, ideas, suggestions you want to share. Go ahead!
Regards,
Dan

Hi Dan, I concur with Frank that solid core wire gives a solidness and coherence that is not found in multi-stranded cables - this applies to speaker wire application also.
As Frank says the only bitch is stiffness of the cable ***'y.

Another cable worth trying is silicone insulated cable, often used in industrial applications, and available from electrical wholesalers.
I find that this imparts a very agreeable character in the sound, and although not as cheap as standard cables is not excessively expensive.

Eric.