Has anyone tried home-made PCs offered on AudiogoN

I've just installed a Signal Cable AC cord. It's only been a few days but clearly the improvment in sound is surprising. This is my first foray with power cords and I was skeptical. I've read every review I could get my hands on and prowled the 'net to absorb all I could on AC cords. I decided to go with this one because of price ($59 6ft.),quality of construction, and risk free 30 day home trial.

It's my opinion that cables absolutely,positively make an enormous difference. The problem is the cable industry's insane pricing standards. Major companies like Kimber, Monster, Audioquest, and others have a 300% to 800% mark-up. To me, this is almost criminal. These companies play on audiophiles insecurities and reinforce the notion that big bucks are the only way to quality sound.

I also believe that there is a defacto pricing fixing standard. Ever notice that each major cable company offers a similiar performance in each price range? Why can't one of these giants produce a breakthrough cable in the low price catagories? How come small internet outfits can? Why don't audiophile rags like Stereophile and The Absolute Sound review these small entrepreneurs? Think about it.

Thank the heavens we have micro sized companies like HomeGrown Audio, Signal Cable, and others.

Wake up, fellow audiophiles, if we spend our cable dollars sensibly by rejecting the overpriced offerings we will see the big guys dropping their prices to realistic, fairly priced, levels.

A friend bought a "home made" power cord marketed on Audiogon. The maker's philosophy is lots of copper, no shielding, and a low price. The sound was absolutely horrible. My buddy gave the power cord to me for free because he didn't feel right selling it to another Audiogon member. I gave it back to him. Yet the maker claims to have sold hundreds, if not thousands of these things.

Having tried to get something for nothing and failed, we've now both moved on to PS Audio Lab and Mini Lab cables and feel they are the true value in power cords. They work incredibly well, yet they are still priced within reason (relatively speaking, at least).

I have had very good experiences with BMI Whale Elite by Brian Introcaso and Maximum AC Gold by John Pavone. I have had in my set up various well regarded PC's like Vans Evers, JPS, and Jena Labs, but the Whales bettered them all. These cables are pretty well known and very positively rated with the Shunyatas KC, FIM's, and Electaglide by several users. You can do a search of PC and will find a lot of very good opinions on them. However as good as this PC's are you should do yourself a favor and try the Maximum AC Gold. These babies are made from stranded 99.9% oxigen free silver plated GAUGE 0 cooper and completely outperformed my Whales. At around $300 a piece that is a real steal considering that the Whales which you can get in auctions for around $450 are a bargain themselves by being in the league of $1 - $2,000 PC's.
As I said, do yourselves a favor and check them out, call John and talk to him, I guarranty you will find its an outright pleasure to do it.
Hope this helps and as Brian says, enjoy the music!

Audioman, your analogy must be printed on a card somewhere because it is, nearly verbatim, what I have been told by a number of audio salesmen trying to sell me very expensive PC's. Up until the part about NOT passing along the "big" makers cost, that is! I agree that quality PC's DO make a difference. Though I have not tried your product, it is nice to see someone trying to produce a quality product at a price that resembles sanity. Good luck.

I am a seller of "home-made" power cords here on Audiogon..
The truth is that pc's do make a difference... Just think of a garden hose for example.. If you have a small restricted hose, you wont receive the water pressure you require.. On the other hand, if you have a nice free flowing water hose with a filter system and high quality components, you will have excellent water delivery and pressure, purified water, and piece of mind that you are getting every bit of performance that you are looking for..
Sorry for the long winded analogy. The cords I have decided to sell have been used in my personal systems and after numerous tests, my product for sale is the one that performs the best in 99 % of situations. They are safe and each one is tested... The best part of the cords I make is that I dont transfer the large cost of the "big" makers to the customers. I feel that audiophile types and fellow music lovers deserve a nice product that they dont have to pay a huge or overinflated price for. My philosophy is that if you try one of my cables on you system and it doesnt meet you needs or sonic demands, I will refund your money.. not a problem. Anyway, Happy listening!!

I just bought 2 PC (for Preamp and cd player) from Signal Cable and they fit perfectly in my system. We all know that it is a question of how well will they match with the components. If you don't like them there is a 30 days money back garantee. At that price, they sure are worth the try. I did and I am very happy about it.

Thanks for the responses. My question is aimed more at listings which are offering home-assembled Power Cords for sale.

I constructed a pc cord to Bob c's recipe and found it to be an improvement over stock. After that experience, I constructed one each of Chris VenHaus' power cords and found them better still. Home brew pcs are a great way to experiment with pcs and convince yourself that pcs do make a difference. Will.

Over at Audioasylum.com, you can search their archives for the "DIY Audio Asylum power cord," which is apparently based on an old design by Robert Crump of TG Audio and is supposed to sound very good. You should be able to build it yourself at very low cost.

There is also a lot of praise over there for the Bolder power cords, which are very economical and are supposed to sound very good.

Hope this help!