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I made a DIY power cable using Monosaudio copper connectors and Audioquest SLiP XTRM 14/4 star-quad cable, which is quite a bit more expensive than Audioquest regular SLip 14/4, but I was curious what the addition of "perfect surface copper" adds to the 14/4.
The end result was almost ridiculously "fast" and transparent cable with great extension on top and bottom. The problem was I lost midrange body and density relative to the old legend Black Sands Violet Z1 cord when powering linear power supply for my music server. This is one position I have not been able to find a better synergy with other cords over the years. However, DIY cable was superior everywhere else other than body.
In my experience, Violet's body sounded like an effect one gains with good shielding. However, I tend to dislike certain sound aspects of the usual foil and/or steel braided shields, i.e. excessive reduction of top-end air and sense of speed.
I used an oversized conductive carbon sleeve instead (not nylon braid), and this does seem to result in more body and density while not reducing the air and speed much. Normally, one would add the ground wire outside this carbon shield, but since I ground my components directly to a DIY Star-ground, I don't add ground wire to my DIY power cords. I also made this carbon shield telescoping freely on one end, to experiment with its effects by covering the cable fully vs. partially.
Follow Ups:
Glad to see the Monosaudio unplated copper AC connectors perform so well. Since unplated copper AC connectors have no influence of a plating that tends to provide an increased level of body (other than silver plating which tends to do the opposite), the speed and lack of additional tonal bloom tends to be perceived as less body/image weight, but tends to provide the benefit of increased speed and image size, soundstage dimensions, and well-articulated spatial cues of unplated copper AC connectors.
Use of a gold plated copper AC outlet, and gold plated IEC inlet can increase the sense of fullness without an issue of lushness when used with unplated copper AC connectors. Otherwise, the gold-plated Monosaudio AC connectors should better provide what you seek for the audio component, while using the power cord with the unplated copper version elsewhere for better synergy.
There is no need to ground a carbon content sleeve, since the material is a semi-conductive energy dissipator that has nothing to do with being connected to ground, which will provide no benefit. The energy travels slowly through the semi-conductive sleeve, which in effect dissipates the energy without being connected to ground. Think of it as an absorber rather than a conventional shield.
Cheers, Duster
I try to avoid gold plated plugs in general since my tastes run with clean, clear with just a bit more midrange density. I might try the Monosaudio Rhodium plug, at least on one end of the cable..
Very shiny...
Too bad the Rhodium version is more costly than others, but it did provide that Rhodium signature I was looking to add, a bit more density and edge-definition, although probably not as natural sounding as bare copper.
However, this freed up the bare copper Monosaudio plug, which I used on the old faithful, Black Sands Violet Z1 cord to nice effect.
Glad to know about your findings, Jon. Did you experience any need for the sound of the rhodium plating to develop after ample burn-in time, or did it sound good from the get-go? Any improvements after further burn-in time?
They sounded good from get-go. Can't A-B compare new vs. later, but even after good period of use, I can't say I notice any major improvements.
I'll need to re-evaluate the rhodium-plated Monosaudio M104R/F104R AC connectors I'll be using for a production run of power cords.
M100/F100 I used should sound the same as M104/M104, no?
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