Pierre made one of the only HDMI cables that is noticeably better than stock. The Vivlink HDMI is now up to v3 and I highly recommend it to audio and videophiles.
But I have posted about that before, let me tell you my experience of the Mapleshade power cables. Yes they performed best without the plastic bag covers (they were just there for some kind of piece of mind liability protection, as Pierre admitted to me).
The Mapleshade was the best power cable I ever used and tested, against many others. It actually performed best with the wires criss crossing against each other, so there was no magentic coupling at all. This looping mess of wires would then be surrounded by 2 large external ground wires (different to the normal ground).
So imagine a gigantic birds nest of wire (5 solid core wires per power cable) behind a single component running to the power distributor, all raw wire and only laminated for protection. And I had 2 of them.
It was totally hair-shirt stuff, no consideration for practicality, and it looked utterly awful. But it killed the competition performance wise, at least in the $300-$800 price category I was comparing cables to.
But there came a time I had to look after my young niece and nephew a few times a week. So while I was willing to risk the danger of this setup for myself, and I went to great efforts to have all this wire off the ground, and minimize potential fire hazards, I was never willing to risk it with my family, so the 2 power cables have been wound up and put in a bag ever since.
I still have them and don't want to try them again, because I am sure they will be better than my current power cables, and I may be tempted to set these big birds nests up again.
