More on Mains Cables etc.

[Rocker]

I did not want to hijack the discussion on Mains Cables as my contribution is very left field but here goes:

Several years ago Andy Spencer built a set of silver wired mains cables for me. At that time I built a mains block which was cabled internally with silver wires. Proving anything subjective is difficult to impossible, my experiences with these cables is entirely positive. To my ears, their use in my system improves the sound - hard to say what element is improved but overall the sound is better and less edgy than when using the standard 'computer type' black mains cables.

Warning: you are now entering the dark world of extreme left field thinking.

As some of you already know, I am a qualified industrial electrician. The importance of proper earthing and earth bonding of metalwork was drummed into me from day one of my apprenticeship. It follows that domestic installations [houses] require proper care in earthing too. I have been away from the 'tools' for a long time and am not up to speed on the current electrical regulations but what I did when our house was built in the 1980s was accepted and passed by the ESB at that time.

The consensus arrived at by electricians was that earthing, the cable from the earth block in the consumer unit in the house to the earth rod driven into the ground (usually just outside the door], should be doubled in case one breaks or gets damaged. And that there was no harm in using heavy cable [6 mm square or larger] even if most installations used 2.5 mm square for the job. I went completely overboard by using six 2.5 mm square cables for the job.

I decided years later to get an electrician friend to install a spur from the consumer unit to a twin socket for the exclusive use of the hi-fi system. A quick trial using 6 mm square twin & earth cable did not bring any noticeable improvement but the addition of a single 6 mm square earth cable from the earth block in the consumer unit to the socket was the element that made the most improvement. To my ears, the system noise floor drops enough to be noticeable. In my case the total cost of this work would hardly be enough to buy a decent mains cable - my biggest task was explaining to my electrician friend exactly what I needed. Neither he nor I can explain why the extra earth cable affects the sound, in a positive way, as it does.

As I said at the outset, extreme left field thinking. A word of warning - mains electricity can kill or be the direct cause of a major fire in your house.
And only employ a RECI certified electrician to carry out any electrical work in your house.

[cbarone]

Interesting Rocker, thanks for the post.