power cords with active shielding

I have a few which do not have active shielding. I have tried a few which did. Needless to say, results will vary, though I found no ostensive value to active shielding when it came to sonic improvements over those of most other power cords which did not use an energized network.

The aforementioned experiences occurred while I was using actively shielded IC as a main, and active shielded speaker wires. Presently I use but two sets of actively shielded cables, and both are speaker cables. Both are Synergistic Research but different models and lengths.

The active power cables I tried were as well, sR. this was some time back and the tech may have and likely has changed. Improved? Dunno.

The usual answer on these topics sits wsquarely on the Ops shoulders. They will have to give some a try to find out for themselves in their own system, location, etc. to be certain.

Best of luck

@james1969 - Active Sheilding is an interesting subject, but appears to be an expensive and overly complicated one.

My own belief is that most of the noise on a power cable is actually induced between the conductors within the shield itself.

Take a look at this link for my reasoning and build instructions

http://image99.net/blog/files/be8de0c383c5434907610d6b55049e69-75.html

I’ve experimented with different cable architectures/geometries for many years and settled on the helix design because I found it to be the most noise-free geometry I had tried.

As an example
- I built a cable using high quality Furutech bulk cable
- I then removed the internal conductors and braided them
- the improvements were immediately noticeble
- I then built the Helix design using the Furutech conductor as the live and the improvements were even greater

I have compared the Helix to power cables up to $1500 and the Helix proved to be better each time

The first Helix cable I made was to prove the theory and was built from Romex - It outperformed the braided Furutech cable - but since solid wire is not permitted by code, I now use the stranded conductors listed in the link.

I feel that the materials listed in the link provides a :"great value" option, but I encourage anyone trying them to experiment with different conductors suited to their own budget.

Hope that helps - Steve

Shielding adds capacitance and will have negligible benefit. A waste of time.

All of my cables have some form of active shielding and it is very effective but with some caveats. Battery powered shielding, such as DBS from AudioQuest is painless and easy to use but don’t disconnect the batteries as it will take 48-72 hours to fully reform the field and in the interim the cables will sound thin and edgy. I have all AQ interconnects and a number of AQ power cables (btw the new Dragon power cords are quite astounding). Mains powered shielding such as on older SR Cables is also very good but you need to be prepared to invest in the power supplies. There is an extensive thread (search Spallone) on the value in upgrading the wall warts that come with the SR active cables and I can attest to the impact - you get even better results with a dedicated supply such as the transporter. The newer SR cables drive the shield directly without need for external power but the introduce the need for a separate ground, which is another story and complication

in summary them active shielding works but it brings a level of cost and complexity along with it and you need to be prepared to tweak things to get the best out of it