DIY AC Cable advice

I've used Belden 83808 Teflon insulated, double shielded, 12 gauge silver plated copper and wattgate connectors to make a very nice power cord. Stiff but good sounding. A little black tech flex over the red Teflon looks nice, too.

DVAVC - Apologies for the delay in responding
RE:...

Hello williewonka and thank you for your extensive insight on DIY power cables. Could you please be more specific as to which power cables you compared yours? Have you compared your cables to a Harmonix Studio Master or X-DC2? Also, am i understood you correctly that you preferred Sonar Quest Silver Plated Copper IEC/mains connectors to Wattgate and Furutech? Could you please be more specific as to what was better with SQ vs. Wattgate and Furutech? Tks, for your time. Appreciated

Here's a quick summary of what I have tried...

• My first power cord was 10 gauge Fututech bulk cable with gold plated copper IEC and Mains connectors from Vanguard
• Followed by DH Labs Power Plus (same connectors)
• I then tried various braided variants i.e. the three conductors were braided - I tried Romex, inexpensive Extension Cord and conductors from  DJ Labs Power Plus bulk cable
• At this time I discovered the Silver Plated Copper Sonar Quest connectors, which improved the performance of cables even further (see more details below)

• I thought I had reached the performance limit of DIY when I tried removing the conductors from the DH Labs Bulk cable and braided them - this resulted in improved dynamics, more clarity and larger image
• I then tried a Signal Cables Silver Resolution, but found the braided DH Labs to be better, so I sold it
• Around this time a friend brought round a couple of very expensive cables from Neotech

• While playing with power cables I also experimented with IC's and the very latest design of that has a helix neutral would around the signal wire.
• Since this worked so well I thought I'd try it out on a power cable in my previous post

Personally, I have tried (on loan) a very expensive silver power cable from China (cannot remember the name) and the Silver Revolution PC from Signal Cables.
A friend brought two expensive Neotech Power cables - one around $1500 CDN. 
At the time of these auditions, I had been using my braided Furutech cables, which I found outperformed each of the cables identified above.

I am now using yet another variant of the spiral power cable which can be seen here ... http://www.image99.net/blog/files/be8de0c383c5434907610d6b55049e69-75.html

This has improved on the performance of the braided Furutech cables and the older Spiral design above by a considerable margin.

IEC/MAINS connectors:
I have not tried Furutech connectors - just their bulk cable

I have tried Wattgate Connectors and did not like their cable clamping design. I also found them to lack the dynamics and imaging of the Silver Plated Copper from Sonar Quest

The Gold Plated Copper from Vanguard are a little more affordable, but again, the dynamics, Image and clarity of the Sonar Quest are better. However - even the Vanguard outperformed the Wattgate

If you have any more questions ask away :-)

Regards...



 

Thanks williewonka, appreciated. Will definitely try this soon. I bought Sonar Quest rhodium plated so far, was curious to try them Have you try those?

Dvavc - Based on cunductivity, silver being the best, I did not bother trying anything else.

Other metals may be harder and more durable, but I consider conductivity to be the most important asset of any metal used in audio applications.

Having removed the plugs from the outlet several times since they were installed, I was pleasantly surprised to find the silver plating had not worn through to the copper, so it must be quite thick, which is good  and considering skin effect, could mean the bulk of current transfer is via the silver plating.

Another factor is that when using some other metals as a plating finish requires a third metal to be used as a base on the copper before the final finish. The combination of three metals with differing conductivity introduces yet more barriers to the flow of current.

So I stuck with the simplest approach - silver on copper 👍

Regards

Williwonka- Great information and very timely for me. 

I have two questions, if you will. 

1. What stud size on the spades?
2. Do you have additional sourcing information? I can only find tin plated or really expensive spades, e.g. Cardas. 

Thank you.