New Wire for Power Purifiers and Power Cords

The Thicker Wire Has Arrived

Short version - it's good.

Like it's thinner brother, this wire is copper with Teflon insulation, rated at 600VAC. It's a 4mm2 wire, which is about 11 AWG (compared to 2.5mm2 for the thinner wire). The copper is tinned, which stops oxidation. I've compared tinned and untinned and they are hard to tell apart. Sure, this is not OCC or anything fancy, but for power cords I think the insulation is as important as the copper, if not more so.

When I first tried this wire in a Power Cord with PP++, I was struck by how similar it sounded to the thinner version. This is a good thing. When I did the same experiment with PVC insulated wire, the thinner wire sounded quite good, but the thicker one (4mm2, the same as this wire) sounded truly awful.

I've gone for the thinnest insulation, as the less dielectric the better when it comes to sound quality. Remember that these are high performance cables, and should be treated with care. It's not that they are fragile - in fact you can bend them all day long. Their weakness is 'cut damage' which means sharp things can cut through the insulation. In all out products, the wire is either covered by heatshrink, or by cotton sleeve. So it's protected. Just be sensible. And if you do damage it, we can replace the wire for you.

How does it sound? 

Compared to the the thinner copper/teflon wire, it shifts the balance down a touch - (ie, bit more bass, bit less treble, subjectively speaking) - at least on my system. I prefer the thicker wire as it gives a more accurate and realistic portrayal - again, on my system. I can easily believe that there are systems that will sound better with the thinner wire.

Compared to the "standard" wire - copper/PVC, it's noticeably ahead. There's just more information coming through, more resolution, a wider and deeper soundstage and more bass and treble extension.

Compared to the Kimber (which is about 14AWG) : the Kimber has a fuller, more meaty bass, which is strange as it's quite a bit thinner. I suspect that this might not be the case in the USA on 110/120VAC. 

Basically the copper/teflon wires are much closer to the Kimber than to the standard wires. But they are much cheaper - only an additional $30 for the thicker wire, and $20 for the thinner one. Note that we use the thinner wire for the earth lead. It takes about 5 meters of wire to make a 1.3 meter cord.

Which one should I choose?

For Power Amplifiers go with the thicker one. And if you use 110/120VAC, use the thicker one for everything.

For those on 220/240VAC you can use the thinner one for lower power amplifiers and other components. It's OK to mix thick and thin cords (eg use thick for power amp, thin for preamp)

Note that if you choose the thicker wire, you need to upgrade the IEC plug as the standard plug will not cope with the thicker wire. It's a good idea to upgrade this anyway, as the cost is quite low and the improvement is worth it.

This is called "Eating your own dog food"

Can I buy the wire on it's own?

Yes. I haven't set up prices or ordering yet, but it will cost $6 per meter for thicker one, $4 per meter for the thinner one. As well as making power cords, this wire would make great hookup wire for amplifiers, etc.

These wires are available now for Power Purifiers, both standalone with IEC plug/socket, and the Power Cord version. Also available for kits. Ordering page here.

Kegs

Kegs are barrel-shaped devices, made from two halves, called "smidgens". There is a copper washer in between the two smidgens, and this acts as an amplifier, making the effect stronger.

I first tried this approach when developing the Power Purifier - initially I used Mini Blackdiscus in a similar arrangement, but discovered that the smaller smidgens were more convenient.

They are used in Power Purifiers, with three or six Kegs being the difference between the baseline, plus and double-plus versions. Adding more Kegs gives more treble extension, among other things.

But, Kegs are not just limited to this use; they are great for the DIY Tweaker.

They are effective on many wires - some places where they have worked well include:

• Power wires, inside component cases
• High voltage tube power supply - so-called "B+" wires
• On wires leading to and from power transformers.
• Other power supply wires

In all these cases, one, two or even three Kegs can be put on both positive, negative and earth wires.

Some years ago, Bybeen Slipsream Purifiers became quite popular for similar kinds of uses. Although I have never had much luck with Bybees myself - they don't seem to do much on my system - others who swear by them tell me that Kegs work a lot better.

Kegs are available on our ordering page. They cost $69 for 3 or $119 for 6

Power Purifiers, Power Cords and Wires

We recently have released our Power Purifier with built-in Power Cord. This was the result of a request, as to whether we could supply a complete cord, instead of having the extra IEC connections.

This resulted in some mad development along with some interesting discoveries. For example, the effect of dielectrics in the outer sleeve of the cord could ruin the sound of the cord. Cotton was the best, or rather, the least bad. For best performance, you can remove this..

Another was that the low-cost plain copper wire I'd been using sounded pretty good with a very smooth and lush midrange. On the other hand, the Teflon/silver plate that sounded good in the short runs used in Power Purifier could not make a good power cord; there was horrible peakiness in the upper mids/lower highs with a sucked out mid bass. On the other hand, this wire did show that there was detail missing from the treble, and punch from the bass when compared to the normal wire.

I put this down to the silver plate - I'd never been a big fan, and I've used Teflon Kimber for years without this problem. So I started looking for wires that were copper and Teflon.

The first to arrive was some Kimber wire. This was meant to be 15 awg, but seemed somewhat larger, 14 awg at least. This sounds fantastic, with the extra detail of the silver-plate wire, but none of the harshness. This however is expensive - $160 upgrade price for a 1 meter power cord (compared to standard wire).

Around this time, I got some reports from people who had tried the Power Purifier and Power Cord in the USA, using 110/120V. The normal wire is not performing as well as it does in countries with 240/220 VAC. What I've found with wire is that generally it's best to use the thinnest wire you can get away with. Bigger wires mean more inductance, more dielectric effects and so on.

However it became apparent that this wire was not large enough for US voltage use. The problem was that I've tried the larger version of the same wire and it sucks. So I needed something else.

Then the second Teflon/copper cable arrived. This one was not designed for audio, and is much cheaper than the Kimber. Initial tests are very promising, but as this wire only arrived yesterday, there's a lot more testing to be done yet. The wire we have now is 13awg, and there is some 11awg on order, which I hope will be ideal for US Power Cords. I hope these will be available mid-April. Prices have not been finalized yet, but are likely to be $20-$40 range to upgrade a Power Cord.

Simple Power Purifier with Your Freebies

Several people wrote to us saying they did not notice any difference on their systems with the free samples we sent. That’s not surprising because BlackDiscus devices do not work on every system and we know that.

However, do not discount or throw away our free samples just yet – here’s why.

You can make a simple Power Purifier using your free samples.

Now that we have our amazing new Power Purifier, we wanted to find a way to show you how great they sound. Unfortunately it's not possible to send free samples of Power Purifier, but we've found a way to make something simple that demonstrates what effect they can have.

What You Need
 
Tools:

Screwdriver
Drill
Wire cutters

Materials:

Two BlackDiscus Samples
Short length of 3 core mains wire (say 8 inches)
IEC Plug and Socket (available from local electronic store)
Two washers, ideally copper (optional)
Sellotape

Skills:

If you can wire up a plug, you're good.

Instructions
 
Start by stripping the individual wires out of the mains cable.

Here are the parts laid out. As you can see, I've drilled two holes in the samples. I used a 4mm drill, but as long as the wire will fit through the hole it's not critical. I suggest that you drill two holes in one sample, then place the undrilled one face-to-face (ie the two rougher surfaces touching) and mark where the holes need to go on the second one.

Now thread the LIVE and NEUTRAL wires through one of the samples as shown below. Put one washer on each wire. Then put the second sample over the top with the two rough surfaces together.

 

And then you have something like this:

That's basically all. Put the IEC plug and socket on. Use some sticky tape to hold the two samples together and also hold the EARTH wire against the side of the sample as shown below.

Plug this into the back of your amplifier (or any other Audio or Video component) and enjoy. Allow 10 minutes for it to settle after turning on the power.

Effects

What the Mad Scientist finds with the Simple Purifier is that it produces beautiful treble extension and detail, similar to the real Power Purifier (but not as detailed). But that is about all. There is little enhancement below the high-mids (at least on our test systems).

With the full Power Purifier you get the same sort of enhancement throughout the frequency range, and it also produces thunderous and tuneful bass.

If the Simple Purifier works well for you, then it's very likely that the Power Purifier will work even better.

Testimonial

This is an excerpt from one of our customers’ email about this simple Power Purifier:

“…I'm generally pretty tweako-sceptic - it took a respected audio designer on one of the forums to convince me even to try making fancy power cables; I certainly wasn't going to spend silly money on them.

So I didn't pay much heed to reports of the MSA discs until a friend who used to design RF electronics for a living tried your freebies and told me to do the same. As noted, I found they made no difference wherever I tried them and I forgot about them until you suggested the "mains filter" config.

I still cannot believe the difference they make used in that way. OK, I was hoping for one of those perhaps/perhaps not, try-for-a-week-then-remove-to-see differences but the improvement I'm getting is very marked. If I'd obtained the same improvement from spending $ 1,500 or so on a new amplifier, I'd have been delighted…..”

So what are you waiting for? Try making one and hearing the difference yourself today.

Product Recap

You thought we were forgetting about our blog, didn’t you?  That’s what Frank Underwood would say to the camera in House of Cards. The answer is no, we didn’t. In the past 3 months so many things have happened at Mad Scientist Audio. The Mad Scientist himself cooked up some more very good products and sort of locked himself up in our lab.

You might remember that by the end of 2013, we have launched 5 BlackDiscus products:
•    Minis
•    CanOpeners
•    CupCakes
•    BlackSticks and
•    Smidgens

The last ones were not for sale to start with but to be given away to our customers as a token of appreciation (we still do give them away with purchase). However, Smidgens turned out to be very good with some applications as Stu at Audio Direction found out here.

We then did numerous experiments with them and destroyed a number of moulds along the way and we end up with the beautiful Kegs that are made of double smidgens and copper core.

Along came the Power Purifiers. And when you marry the two together as in Power Purifier+ and Power Purifier ++, the results are astonishing. Then the Mad Scientist’s wife was away for her family business in early February and as lonely as he was, the Mad Scientist has come up with the newest application of Power Purifier – the Power Purifier Mains Leads (Power Cords) to be launched soon. So far the new products available to purchase include:

•    Power Purifier Kits
•    Power Purifier Ready Built Units – with or without Kegs

The requests for free samples keep coming in - thanks to Will Wright of Positive Feedback for reviewing BlackDiscus products in March here. The new samples are bigger and better than the ones we sent out last year and they are in Blue (they are nicer in blue). We also have the instruction for the DIYers to make simple Power Purifier out of these free samples.

So guys we will keep you posted about the Mad Scientist and his products on this blog – stay tuned.

Christmas Post

Christmas Shipping Alert

New Zealand Post Christmas mailing date guidelines for 2013 are as follows:

Australia :  parcels and letters must be posted before Monday, 9^th December.

South Pacific, East Asia, North America, UK & Europe : parcels and letters must be posted before Wednesday, 4^th December.

Rest of the world : parcels and letters must be posted before Monday, 2^th December

For those who need their BlackDiscus by Christmas kindly should place order 2 days before the above dates. We can also arrange shipping via courier post with tracking  this will be faster but more expensive.

If you intend to buy them as a gift, we can also wrap them in a festive colour tissue paper. Just let us know and we will instruct our packing slave to do so.

Things to try with BlackDiscus

Right Side Up?

I normally recommend that you place all your BlackDiscus devices with the rough side up.
But you should treat this as a starting place rather than an iron-clad rule.

So I suggest that you try turning all of your BlackDiscus upside down and see the difference. In the past I've tried upside down and was not so impressed. But last night I was testing some new prototypes and was surprised to note that they sounded superior upside down.

One thing I would suggest - keep all your BlackDiscus the same way up - so either all upside down, or all right way up

10 Minute Warm-up?

Some users have noticed that BlackDiscus devices can sound better 10 minutes after being positioned in a particular location. I'd not noticed this, but now it's been pointed out I think I can hear what is meant.

To my ears at least it's not a major effect, but it is noticeable. This is not "burn in" as it seems to occur every time you move the devices to a different location. My opinion is that it's most likely to be the system stabilizing and potentially even literally warming up.

It's just something to bear in mind if you are performing serious testing.