best DIY power cord?

I recently lent over a half dozen different power cords to a local audio dealer to experiment with. He took them home and played with various combo's to see what the effects were. Out of various Cardas, TG Audio, LAT, Kimber, etc... the ones that he preferred most were DIY Chris Ven Haus designs. He said that the system took on very specific and rock solid imaging characeristics. While he was 99% sure that he was not "hearing things" i.e. "fooling himself" with the power cords, what really convinced him was how his cat reacted to the situation.

You see, his cat is blind. While playing a disc that contains mostly female vocals that he uses for reference purposes, the cat immediately came into the room and started "hunting" around right where "center stage" would have been. The female vocalist sounded like she was standing in the center of the room and the cat was literally trying to find the singer. The dealer was not only amazed by this, he was quite amused. The cat had never done anything like this before, let alone confused "stereo sound" for "real person" sound. He said that the cat kept trying to "brush up against" someone that wasn't there, which had to look pretty funny at the time.

In his own words, the difference with these cords in the system was that it now sounded "real" and "believable". Not only were the results quite pleasing to him, they were good enough to fool the ears of a cat with highly senstive hearing. Sean
>

I would suggest sticking closely to Chris' designs as there are valid reasons as to why he took the approaches that he did. These designs can be further refined, but these will get you close to what is optimum without anywhere near the hassle, effort and cost. This is not to say that other designs using similar components will not work or offer improvements over stock or even many aftermarket cords, it is simply to reinforce that there is more to making a "killer" or "fully optimized" product than simply using "good parts".

Keep in mind that this is strictly my opinion and should be considered as such. It is worth exactly what you paid for it - $0.00 and not a penny more. Sean
>