Maze Audio is a family-owned company that states it hand-makes its cables in the US. There is a range of prices for power cables, but I was looking at this entry cable. I don’t see any mention of the metal used in the cables, but I don’t know if that is as crucial for power cables as for interconnects. I am interested in your opinions. Thanks.
I recommend you take a look at the least expensive offerings in power cords from Cullen and Audio Envy. Either of those is likely going to be better than this...
These abbreviations get me confused sometimes. I read “NOS tubes” and thought “NOS must make some fine tubes — so popular they are a rare find!” Then I see that meant “new, old tubes”. Not a company per se.
And when they write OFC, I wonder why a company doesn’t just spell it out for us newbies? Could it be their defense if found that their copper is not oxygen-free, “We never said it was. We said it was OFC . . ordinary factory cable!” 😳
I saw Maze’s woven cables also . . . $200+. They look fancy. Not sure I want to spend that much money on a PC (which I originally thought stood for “personal computer”). Audio Advisor advertises Pangea power cable for about $100, but reviews are mixed. Audioholics claims that beyond a basic level of quality, more expensive power cables are just hype and don’t matter. Then some say to “listen, then decide”, but some say the differences are due to the “placebo effect” and only real to my imprecise mind. Who knows?
I'll tell you this about the woven cables they make. They are good inexpensive, OFC cables. Double grounds, work well for floor noise issues. I use something very close, I DIY. I don't recommend it if you're not comfortable, or good at it..
They make a decent product, at a decent price. Get copper ends, the weave, you got a good product.
There is not a number of dollars you need to spend, MC was referring to a given budget. See the difference. TOTAL, before you buy any gear. After the fact..
NOT every aftermarket cable is better than factory. Krell, comes to mind, there are a few more..
BUT stock 16, 14, 12. No.. They will get you buy. BUT PC per say are pretty low on my list. It also depends where it's at, for the most part. Don't use junk on your amps, pre or source, that's for darn sure.
Once they are cooked and let settle for 1-200 hours, no cooker, 300 hours. Makes a difference...
The copper in your walls is 6 nines. 99.9999 pure copper. I've considered some aftermarket cords but only because the ones that come with components are sometimes a hassle to keep neat they're so long.
OFC in the description means "oxygen free copper". As far as "the best copper on the planet", etc, would you advertise the product that not many need and you ask substantial money for as "made of just an average material"?
To put things in the other perspective, I recently, a week or two ago, bought a few "aftermarket" power cords. Stock ones were just fine, but too long. Made a mess behind the equipment. I did try to compare. I am happy that I bought them as they are the right length now, but as far as sound goes, I would recommend you take some kid for ice-cream instead of spending money on power cords. Someone can talk about synergy, this, that, add a few more wise things, but ice-cream is a better deal, no matter how you look at it. It may even earn you a few karma points that power cords will not. Those power cords are from bona fide audio company and they were as cheap as aftermarket cables go, but still more expensive than what I already had.
If you decide to pursue cords, make sure you know in advance when you will stop. There are many "best coppers in the world" vying for your money and each one is more expensive than the previous one.
Thanks glupson for seeing that, but is that the really good copper? Some cables are described in more elaborate ways . . . can I remember? . . . “Oxygen free” . . . Something like “free strand” . . . “Cardas copper, the best quality copper on the planet!” I guess I should not just want copper but some form of super-copper?
Chuck, that is probably a good suggestion, to look for used cable for sale. I take it that cables don’t decline in performance with age? I recall your stating that cables are important and should be about 20% of the money spent on your entire system. I only have about $7,000 in my system, and only 5% of that was cables. To get to 20%, I would spend about $1600 on cables for a total system cost of about $8000 to get to that ratio. I could go the DIY route to save money, but I don’t trust myself to not screw it up somehow.
What I think is you are using the freebie rubber power cord that came in the box. Probably anything, literally anything, is better than that. But if you are talking about spending money, even only $60, then reading eBay ads is not the way to do it. Nor reading anyone else’s ads for that matter. Nor reading any engineering, materials, geometry, etc stories. Forget all that.
Instead what you do is buy only what you have tried and heard yourself, or read a lot of reviews or user comments, and like what they have to say about how it sounds. Because everything, every wire, power cord, interconnect, or speaker cable, it all totally affects sound quality. Not in some subtle hard to hear way either, but big and obvious, sometimes dramatically so. It depends a lot on what you have in the rest of your system. Not because the power cord needs to be "matched" either. This is BS. Whatever a power cord sounds like, it will sound like no matter what its plugged into. But it matters because you don’t want to spend $500 on a power cord to plug in to charge your iPad. Not because you won’t be able to hear what the $500 power cord can do either, but because at that level you can get a whole lot more with something else.
You probably won’t find many reviews on this particular power cord. What I would do, search around for used power cords by known long term makers like Synergistic Research. There will definitely be reviews, and some very good cords will be old enough you will be able to buy a lot more for your money for a lot less than they cost new. But even then do not buy based on price, but based on reviews. Listener impressions. Only way to go.
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