There are several commercial products on the market that look very interesting...
- Nordost has some very good PC’s. They tend to be very expensive, but they do work - I have observed some good results from 2 of their top end PC’s.
- Anti Cables have an interesting braided design, but I’ve never tried one of their cables
- KLE Innovations probably has a couple of good performers, but that opinion is based on their other cables, which I know are top performers - they would not release a cable if it did not provide any benefit
- The new C-Marc from Less-Loss also looks like a very interesting cable geometry and their older DFPC cables use a braided geometry
As you can probably see - I gravitate towards cables that employ unusual conductor geometry, because from my own experiments with braiding and the Helix design, I find they actually provide some very real benefits which the bulk cables alone do not provide
I have tried (or borrowed) a couple of esoteric cables, one of which cost in excess of $1500 (employing solid silver conductors), but to be honest - they were no better than the cables I made by putting connectors on bulk cable from Furutech and DH Labs.
The best PC I have used to date is my own DIY Helix Design posted earlier.
My first Helix cable was simply made from Romex in order to prove that there was some benefit to that geometry - I was not expecting such an improvement.
I then tried some different combinations of conductors and settled on those posted on the link because they offered the best "VALUE"
One could use better quality conductors, but that would involve some very expensive silver conductors that would drive the cost up and I doubt would offer any significant benefit.
Cables are no different from components
- each offers a certain level of performance
- if one cable does not perform up to the abilities of the other cables (and components) in a system - it becomes the weakest link
- trying to determine which cable is the weakest can be very hard work
I was fortunate to be asked to review the products from KLE Innovations over the course of about 2-3 years, so all of the cables in my system were top performers.
This made the task of trying different power cables much easier, because the IC’s and speaker cables allowed me to hear the differences between PC’s.
I have since developed the Helix design for IC’s and Speaker Cables as well and find it provides exceptional performance and very good value
Unfortunately - not everyone is into DIY, so they must rely on commercially available products.
The list above are just some of the cables I have looked at over the years, but I must admit, many of the products out there are only marginally better than some of the better stock power cables that can come with a component
That does not mean third party PC’s are of no benefit - it just takes a lot of effort to home in on the good ones.
Hope that helps
- Nordost has some very good PC’s. They tend to be very expensive, but they do work - I have observed some good results from 2 of their top end PC’s.
- Anti Cables have an interesting braided design, but I’ve never tried one of their cables
- KLE Innovations probably has a couple of good performers, but that opinion is based on their other cables, which I know are top performers - they would not release a cable if it did not provide any benefit
- The new C-Marc from Less-Loss also looks like a very interesting cable geometry and their older DFPC cables use a braided geometry
As you can probably see - I gravitate towards cables that employ unusual conductor geometry, because from my own experiments with braiding and the Helix design, I find they actually provide some very real benefits which the bulk cables alone do not provide
I have tried (or borrowed) a couple of esoteric cables, one of which cost in excess of $1500 (employing solid silver conductors), but to be honest - they were no better than the cables I made by putting connectors on bulk cable from Furutech and DH Labs.
The best PC I have used to date is my own DIY Helix Design posted earlier.
My first Helix cable was simply made from Romex in order to prove that there was some benefit to that geometry - I was not expecting such an improvement.
I then tried some different combinations of conductors and settled on those posted on the link because they offered the best "VALUE"
One could use better quality conductors, but that would involve some very expensive silver conductors that would drive the cost up and I doubt would offer any significant benefit.
Cables are no different from components
- each offers a certain level of performance
- if one cable does not perform up to the abilities of the other cables (and components) in a system - it becomes the weakest link
- trying to determine which cable is the weakest can be very hard work
I was fortunate to be asked to review the products from KLE Innovations over the course of about 2-3 years, so all of the cables in my system were top performers.
This made the task of trying different power cables much easier, because the IC’s and speaker cables allowed me to hear the differences between PC’s.
I have since developed the Helix design for IC’s and Speaker Cables as well and find it provides exceptional performance and very good value
Unfortunately - not everyone is into DIY, so they must rely on commercially available products.
The list above are just some of the cables I have looked at over the years, but I must admit, many of the products out there are only marginally better than some of the better stock power cables that can come with a component
That does not mean third party PC’s are of no benefit - it just takes a lot of effort to home in on the good ones.
Hope that helps