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

Associated gear
Click to view my Virtual System

Similar products
Dream State Epic Gold, Veridical, Lucid and Dream Catcher
Stealth Dream power cords and Indra interconnects Silent Source Music Reference power cords and interconnects
Acapella interconnects
krell_man
I certainly didn't intend to disparage any other companies. Poor choice of words on my part.
I was simply trying to convey the idea that WE don't see much use in any metals other than what is the most conductive, the least resistive. In our research we tested just about anything that conducts, including carbon, controlling for all other factors. What we found is that what has been tried is true. The best performance came from the most conductive materials.

Not doing so fails to differentiate you from the many essentially DIY cable outfits that use seductive prose and witchcraft to try and sell things....
Before we officially launched CH Acoustic we designed a power cable for Running Springs Audio. They call it the HZ Crown Jewel. Running Springs Audio is an off shoot of a larger company formerly known as RTI. RTI is the OEM behind a vast number of specialty capacitors in the high end. RTI's engineers are well known, trusted, and relied upon by many of the best known high end equipment companies for services beyond capacitors.
The fact that RTI came to us for the design of their best power cable is something that I'm pretty sure separates us from not only the "DIY" cable outfits, but many of the better known ones as well.
Craig,

I want to apologize to you and all Audiogoners who actually enjoy our hobby and have the desire to delve into it a little deeper.

I have had my system page hijacked three times by a small number of deceitful people trying to push some product that has nothing to do with my system. It makes me sick that, for the third time now, I've had to wipe out all of the posts from legitimate Audiogoners simply trying to discuss different things in order to erase the crap.

Now I find that my simple review has been hijacked by one of them. Unfortunately, I can't erase it here, so we're stuck with it. But I wonder how a well known manufacturer like Stealth, Wadia, MBL, Esoteric, EMM, Wilson, etc. would respond to someone doing this?

I believe that they'd just laugh, especially when the person asking the questions is beating their chest and proclaiming their intelligence. It leads me to believe that they've missed the mark on their chest a few too many times and connected with their head, and they may not be able to distinguish the difference between important and impotent any longer.

I don't think that Mapman understood what was behind the latest dialogue being exchanged when he made his post. I understand his frustration and response, and I hope that others outside this crappy little loop aren't turned off or offended as it appears Mapman was.

Craig, to be completely clear here with you, this hasn't anything to do with you or your cables. If I were using cables from brand XYZ, the result would be the same for them.

It's not you or a brand that they're focusing on, it's me that they're coming after. Because I have a decent reputation on Audiogon, they're trying to exploit that for their own benefit. The problem is that I'm not afraid to protest against the exploitation, and that apparently bothers them quite a bit.

They could simply create their own system pages, post actual pictures of what they have, and then promote whatever they want from there. It kind of makes me wonder why they don't.

I'm sorry that you got dragged into this, and I'm sorry that a lot of good people have been subjected to this mud bath just trying to learn more about our hobby.

Chuck
Krell,

Your consideration is appreciated, but don't worry. My comment was more just a quick reaction to what I found to be a particularly ironic statement. That expensive wires please ANYBODY is something I find interesting. I would clearly agree that none will please everybody. Few things do, especially high end audio tweaks that are expensive and inherently controversial. It has nothing to do with any particular product/vendor, just a general observation that happened to come into my mind while reading this thread.

I guess we all have some axes to grind from time to time. As long as it is done in a civilized manner, I suppose all is good in the end.

You gotta have some thick skin to be a success in most worthwhile endeavors. High end audio is no exception I would say. IT is exceedingly hard to differentiate products and demonstrate unique value these days. Not an easy challenge.

The testimonial of a satisfied customer always says something, at least in my mind.
Chuck, no worries. I BELIEVE in cabling. The influence of well executed cabling on a system can be profound IMO. Gary likes the CH product, and he has heard and owned a LOT of cables. Craig, keep up the good work.
Hi guys,

Sorry about the delay, I've been having way too much fun listening.
First a big thanks to Craig Hampel for his generous trial period and his willingness to educate.
Long story short, i bought an x20 pc
for my Dimitri (no brainer) and another for my Dartzeel 108 amp. I need 4 more for the remaining front end components which I will purchase when I finalize my interconnect choices.

I spent about 5 months so far doing this shootout and will continue until I have my system cabled. I had over 50 k worthof kubala elation alone, Craig sent me 4 x20 pc, 2 x20 interconnects, and 2 pairs of x20 speaker cables, tara zero gold and Tara omega onyx were there as well.

The system is a dedicated treated room,powered by a dedicated 100amp service to controlled power co 15 kva isol transformer to isoclean zero ohm breaker panel with all in wall 10 g analysis plus oval, isoclean, shunyata, and oyaide outlets . This power feeds dartzeel 108 and 18ns
pre, connected by 5 m of Evolution acoustics bnc. I also have nat audio se2se 211 tube monoblock with military united tubes and rca's. Speakers are built in small numbers by a friend and basically truly time aligned, 1st order 5way crossover, dynamic driver, modular , 92 db sens, powered subs, vented midbassmodule , infinite baffle midrange. Front end is united home audio phase 10 modified tascam xb20 r2r, audio aero prestige sacd, amazon one turntable, tweaked shroder ref arm , allaertes mc2 finish cart, tron meteor phono preamp.

The x20 power cords handily stole my heart over kubala elation, shunyata anaconda, genesis absolute fidelity which I have on hand. From memory I have had jps aluminata and elrod gold statement pc's which were great performers but the x20 drew me in to the music, engaged me more and the money saved will go towards interconnect and speaker cable which from the looks of it won't be cheap.

CH x20 interconnect performed better on my audioaero and tape deck than Tara zero at almost 3timesthe price, and kubala elation at about 1.5x. The kubal elation cabling in my system fully cabled was very nice sounding but I became bored quickly, and surfed more music rather than listened at full length. I found that images were oversized and not true. I think in the right system kubala elation
can work, therevus also some personal taste involved. I did buy Kubala sosna elation digital interconnect which blew away too many cables to list here. Don't laugh but it does wonders on aN underwood hifi modified sonos 90 player feeding the audioaero prestige dac.

The ch x20 interconnect will be revisited soon along with the following jorma prime, stealth sakra, silent source music ref, united home audio Celtic silver pendragon, nordost Odin.

Regarding speaker cablebnot ready to comment yet.