how to buy power cords that fit my components (i.e tight and snug)

My most recent and best sounding cord for my amps have been AudioQuest Hurricane… exceptional power cords. If you look around the forum, they have been discovered by many. Clearly one of the design points is the tight fitting connectors. I have to hold my amps to prevent them from sliding when inserting or pulling out. I have more than one and I have no question that this was done on purpose.

If you wish a better cord, I have heard Dragon’s are great, or lower levels of the Storm series.

CARDAS ,,,,, depending on your budget = CLEAR BEYOND, CLEAR, CLEAR REFLECTION, or the prior flagship GOLDEN REFERENCE

just ensure that if you buy pre-owned, you insist on the Certificate Of Authenticity (COA). Josh at CARDAS informally commented to me that he roughly estimated that up to 20% - 25% of the ads for pre-owned units without COAs flogged on the audio forums are counterfeit fakes,

I saw an ad on REVERB from a dealer for an pre-owned CARDAS CLEAR pc. The attractive price was tempting , but with no COA, I was skeptical, so I requested Josh for any thoughts if they looked legit.

Short answer ,,.no…based on the pics, it was a bona fide POS inferior build fake, albeit a good looking inferior one.

He confirmed that the IEC and plug were just cheap build POS ones that were never used on any CLEAR. But without taking off the plugs to expose the wires and shielding, he was unable to conclusively confirm that the cable portion was OEM legit. Intuitively, who the hell would remove high-end CARDAS connectors with cheap POS ones on an OEM cable!

I then contacted the dealer with all the info ..,.crickets…nada response….and it was STILL NOT removed from the forum, The ad continued with no changes purporting to be an OEM unit,

My take:

Josh confirmed that it was not current authorized CARDAS dealer,

- This was no longer an innocent issue. Beware the Scum ball bottom feeder, ,,,,THEY DO WALK AMONG US. ….

- caveat emptor,,,, no COA means no deal.

I’ve found this to be hit and miss, depending on the connector they use and how it mates with your power inlet. A lot of folks wrap a piece of electrical tape around the plug, although I’ve never done it myself.