Looking to build power cords.

Hi Dbaird, You might want to take up Kevppero up on his offer. I remember 10 12 years ago listening to Bob Crump's PCs and thought they were very good also.

14 Gauge copper tfe coated with individual shield on each conductor and an overall shield over the 3 and a tfe jacket.

I build cables based upon the Bob Crump Design using the Belden 19364. I have found that the biggest improvement comes from the connectors and correct assembly. Many people have had bad experience with DIY cables (and many good also) and I think it is mainly due to poor building technique and poor choice of components. Designing a cable is not as easy as clamping the components together. Most of the professional cables are based upon generous listening test and years of trial and error. If you want to build cables I would highly recommend picking a proven design and sticking to the design. If someone like Bob Crump who has 17 years of audio tweaking in his background has chosen a particular component, it is usually for a reason. If you want more details on assembling these cables check the Audio Asylum and feel free to contact me for more information. I've been selling these things assembled for $47.00 and the kits for $35.00. All the proceeds go to a charity for international adoptions. I hope this doesn't get nuked for blatently pandering our product but oh well...

The Audioasylum recipe uses Belden 19364, which you may find difficult to find in smaller quantities (say less than 100 feet). A division of Belden (Volex) makes a pre-terminated cord, the Volex 17604 (search for Volex on line-easy to find them and distributors) which comes in a couple of different lengths. The 17604 is the Belden 19364 cable, 14 guage, shielded. You can usually buy small quantities of these cords as opposed to the raw cable. You can buy a 10 footer, I believe, and cut it in two and reterminate-cost for two cords about $10-$12 plus your plugs. I use 3 of these terminated with a Hubbell 5266 male and a Bulgin iec and they are a major improvement over stock cords but not in the same league as the Cardas Golden or the Blue Circle BC 62 that I own, which cost about 15 to 20 times more.

try looking under the web site vacuum state electronics. i bought their super cables cook book. it showed you power cords and interconnects and speaker cable. my new 3$ speaker wires blow away the transparent xl something at 1500$ the power cables are on both my amps and cd....improvements but not huge...they were about 8$ to make. good luck...its all about the sound....not how much you can spend!

I'm in kindergarten on this topic, and am posting only to encourage you to do DIY power cords, since I did, at first using Romex 12 gauge house wire, then graduating to better wire, the best being silver-plated copper from Distech speaker cables--a defunct brand. I braided them, and the results were quite good--better than some old Classe and Cardas power cords I'd paid about $33 per foot for. You can do much better, I'm sure, so get info and go for it!

Go to www.audioasylum.com and do a search there for power chord recipies in the DIY section. Any recommendation by Jon Risch is usually excellent for cable selection. AndyL