2. cables
  3. 989893773

Need silver power cord help

I am seeking help from anyone who can offer it to me.

Over the summer, I would like to construct a power cord. Actually, four of them. It would be based on the results I and others have come up with over the past year. My cord will be an all out assault on the state of the art. It will probably be 8 gauge. It will DEFINITELY be all silver. I may try an air dielectric approach. Not yet sure.

My problem is finding connectors which are all silver. Isn't that the way to do it? I mean, there are some awesome cables out there. But, virtually all of them seem to me to be limited by their connectors. Even the WattAGate is not up to snuff. I have found one company(Stage3Concepts) who is making power cords which are silver from stem to stern. Both the male plug and IEC connectors are solid silver. I remember previously that they would sell parts on their website. These days, that feature has disappeared. I ran into the owner at the NY Hifi Show, and inquired about the parts. He refused to sell them to me. Stating liability issues. He did say that he makes the connectors himself. The connections to the wire are made via both crimping and silver soldering.

I come before you all in search of ideas. Ideally, I would like to buy something off the shelf. Does anyone have any sources, or ideas? I approached AlphaCore Goertz, as they are now making both speaker and interconnect connectors of silver. Power cord parts are not in the works. Likewise, WBT has no interest. Seems as these two companies, as forward thinking as they try to be, have sort of missed the boat in the AC arena. I was thinking that AudioNote may potentially make these(but don't expect it), but have yet to check. Does anyone know of a source?

As a last resort(and I don't know if I would resort to this), I could approach a jeweler who specializes in findings/mountings/castings. Silver is very cheap, and the cost would probably be less than what we would expect. I believe the male end would be quite straightforward. The IEC end would be a different story, I am afraid. Again, just looking for answers. Thanks to all in advance.
trelja
bob_bundus
1,834 posts
 
Maybe you could buy a complete cord from Stage 3 & then re-use their parts to improve the design. That would tell you if you've re-invented the wheel, actually made any progress, or lost headway.
nemo
5 posts
 
If you use silver cables and silver plugs (which are no problem, BTW - very expensive and easy to bend) - then you need silver counterparts to these silver plugs, silver wires in the walls all the way to the "break box", etc. and the project becomes too expensive to justify :-)

Will such wiring sound good? Yes, most likely it will make a system sound better than the conventional wiring. Is the improvement worth the cost? It's possible, but not very probable :-)
trelja OP
3,223 posts
 
Thanks for both of your responses. Bob, I have considered buying a Stage3Concepts cord for parts, but that would remove the price advantage of making my own. Although, having the silver connectors(if they do offer a major improvement) might offset the higher price. Nemo, everything you say is correct. But, it does seem that we are able to ferret out nice gains with power cords, despite what is in our walls. It seems every little bit helps, but I can not doubt your assertion that there is no substitute for having good cable all the way back to the box. And no, I canot afford to run silver all the way back there.
More to discover