High Fidelity Cables CT-1designed by Rick Schultz

Hi, Folks: I finally reached the end of this interminably long thread and wanted to throw in my own experiences with the HF Cables. For full disclosure: I have been on the Gon for about 13 years, contributed to and started many threads, bought and sold a lot of equipment and music (I have 10,000 LP's). I am a self-employed independent sales engineer selling components and assemblies to the medical device industry and have no affiliation whatsoever to HFC or any other audio manufacturer. You can go on Audioasylum under the name rlawry to see my system. Glad to get that out of the way.

I have a good, long-time friend who uses the name Powder 1 that has had many of the same equipment pieces as myself, including Essence and Intuitive Design gear. When he contacted me a year or so ago and recommended I try the HF Cables I looked at the prices and decided to hold off. I have had some very expensive and well-regarded cables in the past and always found them to make a difference but not on the same level as that from changing components, i.e. it required paying a lot of money for what I felt were relatively small sonic changes. My most recent cables used carbon bybee filters and I had them for some time.

So a month or so ago I finally I took the plunge and bought a used pair of entry-level CT-1 cables between my turntable and phono stage. I have a Lyra Titan I cartridge that outputs 0.5 mV and the DIN connector terminates in a pair of RCA outputs. Let me say that the cables were a miserable failure and I heard one weak channel of music, thinking that something had gone wrong with my system elsewhere, but it turned out to be the HF cables. Apparently their resistance is too high for these very weak signals.

Using them between my phono stage and preamp was an entirely different matter. I would term it as no exaggeration to say that it was the biggest change I have heard in 40 years in audio. I don't know if I need to reiterate what so many other posters here have described, but that my system had a whole new level of realism, immediacy, and speed. Adding another CT-1 between my preamp and power amp and a pair of CT-1 speaker cables added to this astounding effect, at least in my system. It is amazing to hear my system from a cold start transform from a small, flat, involving sound into one with the type of dimensionality I am hearing. I plan to move up the line and am currently taking bids for my gold fillings.

So you can slam me for paying ridiculous prices for these and I don't really care. I don't have time to research, design, and build my own cables as I finally did with my single-driver speakers, but perhaps one day I will when I pay off my mortgage and my remaining 2 boys (I have 4) complete college. Maybe then I will ask them for a loan.

Hope everyone is enjoying their music. It is going to take me a long time to re-listen to my 10,000 LP's but it will be fun.

I apologize for not making my phono system more clear. The cartridge terminations end in a DIN plug, which in tern connects to a block with RCA connectors. I used a pair of regular CT-1 interconnects between this termination block on my turntable and my Manley Steelhead phono stage. I could get no signal whatsoever from one channel and only a weak signal from the other. Swapping cables around had no effect. Rick told me that all of his cables used the same technology and that the only difference between the regular RCA interconnects and the phono cables with DIN connections were the connectors themselves. So apparently these cables cannot work in this application. It is a different matter completely with line level and speaker level signals.

Mapman, I am confused. I have followed this thread through the years and I cannot understand why you bother to in your attempts to bring these guys down. I am sure you have some great experiences to share here, not just the usual abject negativity. I for one have learned nothing from your posts. I also see nothing wrong with gushing repeatedly about the improvements in sound wrought by these cables. If not for these guys I would almost certainly would have missed out on what to me is the biggest improvement I have heard in 40 years of audio. Well, maybe next to a $500K mbl system in a big room at the Newport Beach Audio Show, but a close second and the biggest improvement I have heard in my own system.

Mapman, why don't you do what I did and try a pair of cables? I don't totally rely on what everyone else reports on products I have not heard, but it is at least a starting point. After you have tried them you can then report something useful on this thread, like the cables or not. If you don't like them I am certain you can re-sell them. I assure you I am not a shill, just a satisfied customer of HFC.

We audiophiles are guilty as charged. We do most anything for improved sound and are amazingly fickle, hence the quick price depreciation on HF Cables and pretty much everything else audiophile-related. I do like the fancy boxes as they are great for shipping cables and I worry a lot less about their being damaged. I once had a pair of monitor speakers with stands made from plaster and lead. The UPS brain trust managed to turn the stands into a box of dust with lead bars mixed randomly in.

Here is my experience with the HF Cables. I have tried a number of cables in my system over the years but it was not an obsession of mine as I found cable changes to evoke relatively minor changes such as tonal balance or level of detail. I tried many amps, speakers, and preamps as they always resulted in more major changes in sound quality. Currently I have some Essence solid-state electronics with a 30MHz bandwidth, although the preamp does have a pair of 12AX7 tubes. I use a pair of Audio Nirvana 12" single-driver speakers with cabinets built by a furniture maker, and have a JL Audio f113 subwoofer. I mostly listen to the 10,000 LP's I have on an SME turntable with Graham Phantom arm and Lyra Titan I cartridge. Major cable brands I have tried are Audioquest, Transparent, Straightwire, Expressive Technologies, Virtual Dynamics, Essential Sound Products, PS Audio, NBS (including some hyper-expensive ones), and most recently, Intuitive Design.

The first time I added a regular CT-1 interconnect between my Manley Steelhead Phono Stage and my preamp (trying them for 0.5mV phono signals did not work), I was stunned at the transformation of the sound. There was no doubt that the sound had changed, only whether you liked it. IMO, the change was radically better in my system and even greater than the changes in components I have tried. It wasn't just changes in tonal balance but a major improvement in the quality of the sound. Everything was more immediate and more present, an effect I like since it multiplies what I most like about single-driver speakers. It was easier to follow individual voices and instruments, like they sound in a live concert. Bass drum was quicker and separate from the thrum of bass guitars. In fact, everything was much quicker. Voices were more realistic and the treble was even better than that from some Acapella speakers I had with ion tweeters. You could more easily hear cymbal taps in their own space. And there was a coherence to the sound, an ease, and a big liquid soundstage. This was not the usual lean, hyper-detailed sound you hear at audio shows, but big and transparent.

I have since added another CT-1 between my amp and preamp, and a pair of CT-1 speaker cables. I would say it multiplies the effect previously mentioned as well as making the speakers disappear, but not as shockingly as when I added the first cable. Just yesterday I received a pair of CT-1 Ultimates and replaced the CT-1s between my phono stage and preamp. Again, from very limited use, I hear even more transparency, immediacy, and space. The bass is a little constipated and warmth and robustness are down, but if it follows what I usually hear during break-in, this will improve greatly over time.

This is what I hear in my system, which might be a little different with the single-driver speakers and very high-bandwidth electronics. I am planning to move up the line when my kids finally get out of college, but having fun.

Hope this helps.

I am not sure if HF cables behave similarly as some carbon nanotube Bybee filter cables I have, but have spoken to the designer about these.

I do know that for every current flow in a conductor there is an associated electric field and a magnetic field oriented at a right angle to the electric field. It is by manipulating either the electric field or magnetic field that current flow is altered. This phenomenon is well-known and it doesn't take much incredulity to believe that you can change current flow through the use of magnets. The trick that Rick has obviously found is through the orientation of the magnets to affect the current. Others have tried this effect with varying results, either by not affecting the current flow enough to produce a change in sound, or by magnetizing the cables over time to reduce the effect and the resultant sound improvement.

It is also well-known that electrons are normally found in pairs, each pair consisting of electrons having opposite spins, one of spin up and one of spin down. These packets of electrons are known as Cooper's Pairs of electrons. However, in current flow, some stray electrons are passed that are not in these packets. The designer of the Bybee Filter cables claims that the carbon nanotubes pass only Cooper's Pairs of electrons, thereby improving current flow. I suspect, but do not know of a surety, that manipulating the magnetic field would also reduce stray electrons and improve current flow. You can imagine that if you can manipulate and improve current flow that you could change the sound produced by a conductor.

Anyway, sorry for the technical lingo, but my attempt to explain what might be happening here on a quantum level. I wish I had stayed awake more in a quantum mechanics class I took in college. Whatever the explanation, I am quite taken by the sound of these cables once they have broken in.

Previously I reported on this thread that I bought a used 2 meter CT-1 cable to try for signals between my turntable with Lyra cartridge outputting 0.5 mV and my Manley Steelhead Phono Stage. When I replaced my previous carbon nanotube Bybee filter cables with the CT-1 I got no signal at all from one channel and a weak one from the other. Changing cables between channels showed the same results. I contacted HF cables and was told the cable connectors were probably contaminated with metallic debris, making for a bad connection, attenuating the weak phono signals. So I sent them back for cleaning and received them today. I tried the cables again after letting them settle for a few hours.

The results were completely different this time, and in a word, otherworldly. This is the biggest change yet, bigger than the CT-1s between other equipment down the line including speaker cables. The presence, immediacy, dynamics, bass, dimensionality, liquidity, treble, ease, you name it, was the best I have heard yet. I have single-driver speakers and love the coherence and immediacy, which these cables keep improving. I also have CT-1Us between my phono stage and preamp and these seem to be breaking in with more fullness, ease, dimensionality, and bass.

If you think your cables might need the contacts cleaned, HF Cables can send you some Silly Putty to glob onto the connectors to effectively remove the metallic debris. I also like bouncing Silly Putty balls around, so there is more than one way of having fun.

I believe the regular CT-1 interconnects have silver-colored female connectors and the enhanced versions have gold-plated female connectors. You can see them on the HFC website. Other than that, the other differences are internal.

Lak, I did move up from a regular CT-1 to a CT-1U between my phono stage and preamp, which made a big difference, although not as big as from CT-1 to CT-1U speaker cables. I was thinking more on the lines of upgrading from a CT-1 to CT-1U on phono level signals, which in my case are 0.5mV. Thank you for the response.

Has anyone tried upgrading HF Cables for phono signals, either with DIN or RCA connectors? I am using a CT-1 cable to send my 0.5mV cartridge output to my phono stage and wondering how much difference an E or U would make. Thank you. Roger

I also noticed a drop in output when I upgraded from CT-1 to CT-1U speaker cables, maybe a couple of dB. This might have been due to lower noise levels, i.e. blacker backgrounds. For me it wasn't an issue as I merely went from 9:00 to 9:30 on my preamp volume control. If you are maxed out on system gain it could possibly be a problem. My system did seem to recover a little of the gain back when I went from CT-1 to CT-1U interconnects, though.

Tsushima1: Thanks for your response. I may have an unusual situation with my analog system in which my Manley Steelhead Phono Stage is at the minimum gain (50dB) and my preamp has a maximum of 38 volts of gain. So my preamp volume control is at 9:00 and very small changes in position lead to large gain changes. I know another poster here on the HFC forum who had the same issue and had to buy an outboard phono stage for more gain when he went to HF speaker cables. I am not sure if the HF cables reduce gain or reduce noise as the music seems to come from a blacker background, similar to listening to 2 recordings in which one is recorded at a lower level but has more dynamic range.

Could we please get back to High Fidelity Cables and discussion of how they impact the sound of our music? Sheesh. I am reminded of what it is like in Congress, heaven forbid. Is there an emoticon that shows one's eyes rolling?

My experience with CT-1 and CT-1U cables are similar to the others' here. I found the CT-1s to have a slightly lower output than the cables I replaced but it then seemed the gain increased somewhat over time. Same issue with the CT-1Us I now have after replacing the CT-1s. I went from about a volume control position of about 9:00 to 9:30 but it now seems after a few weeks that I am back down to the original position, although my preamp has a lot of gain, something like 38V maximum. It is possible that if your phono stage or preamp has minimal gain that you could indeed be required to increase gain from 9 to 2, but I suspect a problem with the cables instead. The U is a big improvement over the regular CT-1 in the usual parameters, speed, detail, bass, dynamics, dimensionality, but still great liquidity and musicality.

John, since there seems to be a big difference in impedance between the two cables, have you tried measuring or at least listening to see if there are differences in volume between the two speakers, and then swapping R and L cable pairs to see if it changes the other way? I would think that you would also have an volume imbalance that you could hear, i.e. the soundstage would be skewed in one direction. I wonder what normal impedance the cables really have. BTW, you mentioned that one of the spades was locked in the end of the cable end. Is the high impendance cable this one? I still think there is a problem with the cables that is causing the big loss in gain (oxymoron?).

Almarg, yes, you are probably correct. I did check the impedance of my Intuitive Design Cables and they deflect my multimeter needle a little. Obviously their impedance is well under 1 ohm. I cannot imagine the HF cable being a 6 ohm series impedance, so they must be defective or in need of cleaning.

I checked the DC resistance of my 2.5m CT-1U speaker cables and they barely deflected the multimeter needle, indicating a resistance of far under 1 ohm. This is more in line of what I would expect, not requiring a power amp to drive a large series resistance.

Almarg, I went back to confirm that I did the resistance measurement correctly and now I cannot get the needle to move at all from the left when holding the probes together. It does read the correct voltage when measuring household current but something seems to have changed. I guess I need a new DMM, after which I will re-measure the cable resistance. Not sure what happened.

Hi, Al: I came to the same conclusion and changed the battery, which fixed the problem. So I re-measured the cable resistance and it is right around 5 ohms, so apparently John's and Acman's cables are functioning properly, at least the resistance. I am surprised at these readings but perhaps the normal laws of standard electrical properties do not apply when currents are modified by magnetic fields. Sorry for the poor scientific method here but eventually I got it right.

Has anyone tried the $2K CT-1 power cord shown on the HFC website? I was not aware of this cord so perhaps it is new. Anyway, it might be a good chance to try an entry-level AC cord while avoiding what was a big barrier to entry since the previous entry-level AC cord was the Ultimate model at $6900 for a 1 meter cord. Thanks.

BTW, I now have 2 Ultimate IC's, Ultimate speaker cables, and a CT-1 that I am using for phono signals. This has made a jaw-dropping improvement in space, bass, speed, dynamics, immediacy, you name it. As I mentioned before, my unusual system uses single-driver speakers and electronics with a 30 MHz bandwidth. The HF Cables seem to be a great match.

I am old enough to remember when the only speaker cables and interconnects were the cheap, vinyl-coated lamp cord and I thought it was crazy to pay $1 per foot of thicker gauge Monster Cable. We have come a long way, baby :-).

Deweyiii: Did the CT-1 PC make an improvement in sonics on a similar level to that of other HF Cables such as interconnects or speaker cables? I am just wondering whether my next step is upgraded PC's or other cables. Thanks for posting your results here as I am sure many are interested in these new, entry-level PC's.

I have had the same experiences when adding CT-1 and/or CT-1U interconnects and speaker cables to my system. I now have 2 U interconnects, a U speaker cable, and regular CT-1 for phono signals. It seems the speed, treble extension, and detail are there from the beginning, but the immediacy, body, bass, warmth, and dimensionality take a while to develop. I also noted my system gain seems to improve upon break-in.

I have been somewhat reluctant to try HF power cables as I only have one place that can use an IEC connector: my Manley Steelhead phono stage. My amp and preamp use a special round military connector and I am now using some Intuitive Design Power Bridges that were a big improvement over other power cables I have tried. I also have a Power Bridge on the Steelhead. I thought about trying an HF power conditioner to plug all of my power cables into but these take the big bucks. I think at the moment that I am more inclined to keep upgrading the IC's and speaker cables.

It seems so far from what I have read on this thread that the PC's are somewhat of a mixed bag, some seeing little differences and some after an extended break-in, but I am wondering whether they are of the jaw-dropping improvements I have heard with IC's and speaker cables.

Just upgraded my phono cable from regular CT-1 to Ultimate and was shocked at how much better everything was. It seems as if phono signals are the most affected by magnetic technology although I have not heard the power cords. The biggest improvement was in the bass, a lot more tuneful, powerful, and extended. But that would be shortchanging the improvement in immediacy, texture, space, body. I can't wait until it breaks in. I now have all Ultimates in my system.

BTW, has anyone tried CT-1's for subwoofer cables? I thought about trying this but decided to sell them instead.

I too just bought a URR power cord to place between my HFC power conditioner and my Manley Steelhead phono stage. After only a few hours' use I can hear the usual quantum leap in what HFC does so well at: immediacy, tactility, presence, quickness, dimensionality, detail but not edginess. What is so great is that even crappy recordings are now listenable, not just the usual audiophile-grade recordings. HFC seems to transport the musicians into my listening room.

I guess I am ambivalent about the new cables. Yes, it is great that we now have even more state-of-the-art cables that can further improve our systems. The downside is now knowing we no longer have the best at the previous levels and now have the quest of paying even more money while reading how much better the new cables are. It took me a long time to get to my Ultimate signal cables and URR power conditioner and cable, so I will just have to be happy where I am. I guess we all have to make our own decisions. Cheers to those that can afford the next level.

Since my equipment rack sits close to the front wall of my room, I simply hang my CT-1U signal cables from the diffuser panels on the wall. For my CT-1U speaker cables, I hang these low on the front wall using plastic cable ties. Dunno what I would do if my rack were farther into the room, probably do what the others do with some type of risers.

I finally have about 50 hours on my Ultimate signal cables and URR Power Cord and Power Conditioner. And I can hear pretty startling changes in soundstage depth, openness, immediacy, detail, texture. I am afraid to change any of the cables in the fear of losing this for a while until they break in again.

One recommendation for those who listen to LPS. I just bought a KL Audio ultrasonic record cleaner and it makes a big difference against the vacuum record cleaner I had previously, especially in midrange vividness.

One of the CT-1U IC's is new with only about 60 hours, the other three IC's/speaker cables have varying amounts of use, as do my URR Power Cords and Conditioners. I have had the full loom only about 50 hours totals, so I am not sure which components are still breaking in, perhaps mainly the newer U IC, but breaking in they are. If the others here are correct, I expect to continue to hear additional break-in for at least a while longer.

I still say the biggest difference I have heard was when I replaced one of my previous interconnects with a regular CT-1 interconnect. Apparently just getting one set of magnets changes the electron flow the most. I have moved up the line in signal cables, a mix of U and UR, and have a prototype helix PC and URR power cord to my phono stage, improving the sound with each step, but still think the biggest change was the first time I heard the sound affected by magnets. I doubt I will ever be able to afford Pro series cables but like the idea of using electromagnets.

The HF Cables have made the single largest improvement I have heard. Maybe it is the result of myriad improvements I have made over the years with single-driver speakers, electronics with 30MHz bandwidth, turntable upgrades, etc. In any case, I have never heard such a quantum change in sound in every considerable parameter: dynamics, dimensionality, immediacy, presence, bass, treble, detail, smoothness, and so on. I heard the leap on the first CT-1 I ran between my phono stage and preamp. Adding more has just increased the effect, but if you don't hear it with one cable alone, you will probably not hear it when adding more. Before I heard these cables, changing cables seemed to alter the tonal balance of my system but not an overall increase in the quality of the sound like the HF Cables.

Another note: Just listened to a vinyl pressing of Marti Jones Used Guitars. Great music, terrific sound as on almost all A&M titles. She never got the fame she deserved. Match Game is another great title.

Calvinj, I have an ambiguous answer to your question. There is no doubt that these cables result in music that is much faster, more dynamic, and easier to hear details such as finger plucks on guitars, voices, drums, hi-hats, etc. However, when my system warms up after a few minutes, music sounds so much more real and time seems to slow down. I find myself mesmerized by music, even when listening to crappy recordings, of which I listen frequently. I am not thrilled by great sound and lousy performances like that found on many "audiophile" recordings. Dunno if I answered your question but there it is.

I have a pair of Ultimate speaker cables that have the earlier black waveguide tubes capped with silver ends. I am not sure how these would perform against the later silver waveguides with black caps. All of my U and UR IC's have the later silver tubes with black ends.

I have often wondered how much difference using HFC IC's to my subwoofer would make but unwilling to pay big bucks for these cables to a subwoofer and still use some old NBS cables. Perhaps I should try a pair of the input adapters to see what changes are wrought.

Dunno about the power cables, but in my experience with HFC signal cables, they don't seem to follow the same pattern as that of other cables in that a lower level cable will act as a "bottleneck."  By that I mean that adding a higher level cable to replace a lower level cable in a full loom of lower level cables will have minimal effect until you upgrade all of the lower level cables.  Kind of like adding a freeway lane that merely moves the bottleneck elsewhere and does little to alleviate traffic.  Conversely, I have found that HFC cables are additive--the more magnets the better and there doesn't seem to be the traditional bottleneck.  So if you have all regular CT-1s and add a UR cable, it would likely have more effect than upgrading all CT-1's to E's, since the effect seems to accelerate more the further one goes up the HFC line. 

Maybe others here can weigh in but this has been my upgrade experience.  I posted more details on my experience with HFC cables in an earlier post above.  IMO, the lower level of signal, the more magnets seem to influence the sound.

Kazuist, there may indeed be a viable competitor to the HFC power cables for similar money but I have not heard it.  Myself, I have had hugely expensive power cables from NBS and Intuitive Design, and they were decidedly inferior in most ways to the HFC products.  Since there really are no other cables using HFC magnet assemblies, I highly doubt there is another brand of cables that have the HFC characteristics of speed yet ease, detail yet smoothness, spaciousness, immediacy, frequency response, and presence.  I have never heard anything like these cables and would love to find far less expensive alternatives, but I don't think they exist. IMO, it will probably take some type of advanced technology to exceed the HFC line and they probably won't be inexpensive.

I see that the HFC website now shows the Pro series interconnects and speaker cables.  I am sure they take sonics to an entirely new level and come complete with a 30 year mortgage.  If you can afford these cables, best to you.  Wish I could.

Has anyone heard and/or could anyone post a review of the URH and Pro series cables?  Not that I could ever afford them but I still like knowing about the state of the art products.  I can't afford a Bugatti Veyron SS or Konigsegg car either but I still like to dream about them.  I have found that going up the line on HFC products makes ever-increasing improvements, the most so far when going from U to UR, and wondering how much difference going from UR to URH to Pro makes.  I still think the biggest change so far was when I added my first CT-1 interconnect, but all make a big improvement. 

I also wonder whether Rick might be going to electromagnets a la the electromagnets used on high end Focal speakers. 

Thank you.

Wow!  Something from HFC that won't send me to debtors' prison.  I just ordered one, will be here Friday.  I will report on my findings.  Thanks for the reports.

I received my MC-0.5 today and plugged it into an unused AC outlet on the dedicated AC line to my listening room in which my HFC URH power conditioner is plugged.  This conditioner powers my phono stage (with URH power cord), and my amp and preamp.  The amp and preamp use a custom round military AC connector on their power cords.

To say that using the MC-0.5 was an improvement would be a vast understatement.  I was shocked (pun intended) at the improvement using this little plug-in AC Magnetic Wave Guide, I mean SHOCKED.  I have previously stated that while each upward step on signal and AC cables has been impressive, none was more impressive than when merely adding the first CT-1 interconnect into my system.  I would now amend that statement to include the MC-0.5 as being the biggest improvements I have heard in 40 years of audio.  I was listening to a promo copy of Godley & Creme Freeze Frame LP and I have never heard my stereo sound like this.  It is always hard to explain the effects of magnetic conduction, but everything was astoundingly more vivid, immediate, dynamic, faster, and more dimensional with the music leaping from my speakers

Getting one of these in your AC system is a no-brainer.  I will probably order a couple more and see how they work on the AC outlets of the power conditioner.

Philipwu, I am not sure what you are asking.  I can confirm that in my system I heard a startling difference in sound.  Whether others will experience such a difference, I cannot guarantee that, obviously.  My guess is that most would hear a large improvement in sound, but you may or may not, or you might hear an improvement but think it to be not worth the money.  All I can say is that if you like the differences HFC cables make, you will love these.  And it will cost you only about $300 to find out.  If you don't like it you can almost surely sell it used on Audiogon and get much of your $300 back.  If you are completely happy with your system, great, don't buy one.

I have UR interconnects, U speaker cables, a URH power conditioner, and a URH power cord to the one piece of electronics that can use a standard 15 amp IEC cord.  I use a Furutech 20 amp power cord to feed the conditioner.  I use a high-end turntable, tubed phono stage, solid-state amp and preamp (they have a 30 MHz bandwidth), and single-driver speakers with a powered subwoofer. 

Hope this helps.

From my somewhat limited knowledge of electricity (I am a chemical and biomedical engineer and somehow survived EE class), 10 amps would translate to about 1200 watts.  From looking at the 3 pieces I power from my HFC URH power conditioner, it only draws a few amps at rest, and with the 93 dB/1 watt sensitivity of my speakers, I doubt my power amp is outputting more than a few watts.  So it seems as if 10 amps is quite a bit of current, but perhaps with inefficient speakers you could become current-limited.  Any more than this and you might trip your electrical panel beakers, which I have never done.  Is my thinking correct on this?

John, I agree on the current limiting.  I tried several conventional power conditioners and they all seemed to do the requisite audiophile thing:  better transparency and detail but sucked the life out of music and limited dynamics, perhaps through electrical phase changes.  My URH power conditioner was the first power conditioner that increased immediacy and dynamics.  I haven't heard the MC-6 but would imagine it to work in the same fashion.

knghifi, I would be pretty surprised if your equipment were using a 10 amp draw.  At 120V, that is 1200 watts, i.e. 1.2 kW.  Front-end equipment and preamps use little current.  Unless your amps are heavily biased into Class A (they run full-out and dissipate the current into heat, diverting more and more into signal as the volume is increased), I seriously doubt you would draw 10 amps, even if you are driving some inefficient speakers.  I once had some Fourier OTL tube amps that ran fully into Class A and they drew 5 amps each at idle, making the amps space heaters--they put out prodigious amounts of heat .  You might want to check with your equipment manufacturers to see how much current they draw, or maybe this is in their specifications.  Of course, you could just go to the Hemisphere as it probably sounds better anyway.  Just a thought.

I have found my one MC-0.5 to go through the same process as that described by others here.  Initially, plugged into an unused outlet on the same circuit feeding my HFC URH power conditioner, at first I heard an amazing improvement in speed, dimensionality, immediacy, and body of sound.  The next time I heard it, using a digitally-recorded LP of the same group, the sound had closed in and lost a lot of the midrange magic I originally heard.  I blamed part of this on the digital LP's, that in my system at least, often sound somewhat hard and flat.  However, a few days later I am hearing the sound open up and soundstage move forward to envelop me like never before.  Haven't tried the digital LP again and probably won't, but think most of this is the break-in cycle of these devices.  An amazing improvement for the money IMO.

I recently bought a new pair of CT-UR interconnects and when I replaced the U's I previously had, the right channel was down significantly.  So I called HFC and they recommended cleaning the cable connectors, which fixed the problem.  Using the Stabilant was easy and Rick said you cannot cause a short in the cables but over-applying it.  So if I can do it, so can anyone else, trust me.

According to HFC and on their website, the use of strong magnets in the RCA connectors often draws metallic debris, which causes electrical shorts and shunts part of the signal voltage to ground.  I have never experienced this in the past with other cables but it definitely occurs with HFC products and can easily be cured by following the website directions.

Straight.  Didn't even know about cutting it with alcohol.  I am not an alcoholic, see.

68pete:  I have added 3 of the MC-0.5s to my system.  The first was added to an unused AC outlet that also feeds my HFC URH power conditioner, i.e. it is added in parallel to the PC.  I then added 2 more MC-0.5s to unused outlets on the conditioner itself.  All three made a significant difference in the ways you, I, and others have described, mainly much more substantial sound.  That said, I found the first MC-0.5 plugged in parallel with the conditioner made more of a difference than adding 2 to the conditioner outlets.  Whether this was due to the first making the biggest difference in itself, or whether it was position-dependent, I don't know. I have not gone back to unplug the parallel MC-0.5 to then determine whether plugging the 2 waveguides into the conditioner outlets would have made the biggest difference.  I have just been enjoying the music too much to conduct an engineering design of experiments.