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Review: CH Technologies X15 power cord Power cord

Category: Cables

CH Technologies is owned by Craig Hampel in Champaign, Illinois. I've known Craig for about four years. At the time, Craig was working for Geoff Poor in Geoff's audio shop. Geoff is a partner in BAT (Balanced Audio Technology).

I hadn't seen Craig for about a year when I sold my Wadia 581se CD Player to an Audiogoner also living in Champaign, Illinois. He told me that Craig had perfected his cable line and was now selling them. Dale's system sounded really good and Dale suggested that I try them. I was pretty busy and never got around to giving Craig a call.

Then about four months later, I sold my HRS SX rack to another Audiogoner in Champaign, Illinois. Tom has a Wadia 781i CD Player like I have, and he said that he was also using CH Technologies cables. He told me that I should call Craig and give them a try. This time I did.

Craig sent me two X15 power cords and one set of X10 interconnects and one set of X20 interconnects. They took me completely by surprise! After all of the power cords and interconnects I've had ranging from $1,500.00 to $5,000.00, none do what Craig's power cords and interconnects do in my system.

The CH Technologies power cords and interconnects are the closest cables I've ever heard that don't have a sound at all. I heard more of music than I've ever heard coming out of my system, and it flows in the most natural state I've ever heard. I hear more minute details because it's so quiet. Along with this, those details seem to make every instrument sound more authentic than I've ever heard it in my system.

If you're looking to get closer to your music than you ever have before, I'd strongly recommend sendng Craig an email. Here's the email address of CH Technologies: c.hampel@comcast.net


Chuck

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krell_man
chacoustic's avatar
chacoustic
11 posts
 
Correction:
We've gone ahead and posted the first five essays.
They are on the website and may be downloaded right away.
They are PDF files.

Thanks!! Happy reading and Joyful Listening!

CH Acoustics Team
agear
1,362 posts
 
And that's the other reason for the sparse nature of the website. It's designed to encourage those who are truly curious to engage by contacting us directly.

I am curious. Now humor me. I come from a long line of scientists, have 20 years of education under my belt (medicine), including 4 years of research slanted towards the material science side of things, patented something during medical school, etc. I appreciate good science and innovation when it is there. Time and phase alignment seems important in audio. How did you measure time and phase accuracy in your cable?
chacoustic's avatar
chacoustic
11 posts
 
Good question, Sir.
First, and for the most part, when it comes to measurements Time is directly linked to Phase. It's just more impressive to say Time AND Phase. But it's mostly just the actual time aspect that we are measuring.

Now, as to HOW we measure, that gets a little more complicated. And, to be honest, too great of an explanation could potentially reveal proprietary information. So let me handle it this way. To prove that there is efficacy in measuring the time domain in cables, let me point you towards an already published paper on the matter. Nordost has done the audio community a great service in publishing a PDF at their website titled "New Approaches To Audio Measurement". It's near the middle of their "downloads" page. It's a great paper. Everyone should read it.

What they demonstrate is a method to measure aggregate time distortions in audio equipment, including cables. What we've done is identify the individual aspects that lead to these aggregate time distortions and figured out ways to measure each individually. Basically, anything that stores energy has a time component associated with both the build-up and the release of that energy. Cables have more than one means of storing energy when exposed to alternating current. We've done our best to address each one individually. The end result is a significant reduction overall.
agear
1,362 posts
 
I am familiar with the Nordost piece. They have co-developed software that looks at changes in jitter (time error) with insertion of cabling, conditioners, etc.

As you have stated, very little in cable land can be classified as "proprietary." Other than your novel weave that rejects RFI/EMI without shielding, what is unique here that promotes time and phase alignment?
chacoustic's avatar
chacoustic
11 posts
 
"They have co-developed software that looks at changes in jitter (time error)"

What they measure is not jitter. It IS time errors. But it is not jitter. There is a distinct and important difference.

Also, you misread my post. I did not say that very little in cable land can be classified as "proprietary". I made the distinction that to claim anything regarding materials is proprietary is a canard. Which is so say, there are no meaningful materials that could be exclusively used by one company.
Sure, some company could go to the effort of coming up with some unique alloy that has never been used as a conductor before. But it wouldn't be meaningful. And I would call into question the validity of that claim anyway. It's incredibly expensive to manufacture new alloys. No small time cable company is going to be able to afford that type of research. And in the grand scheme of things, ALL audio cable companies (except Monster, of course) are small!
But this theoretical company might convince a segment of audiophiles that it's "special alloy" somehow sounded better. But it wouldn't.
Science has already solved what conducts best. That was established a very long time ago.

Same goes for insulating materials. Someone could buy the most expensive silk known to man, soak it with a super secret mineral oil that they concocted in their kitchen and call it proprietary. I guess that would be somewhat proprietary. But even if somehow it was, it still wouldn't be meaningful. Again, because science proved a long time ago what insulators were meaningful.
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