Wrapping power cords and interconnects with copper foil.
Ok..not sure other people have done what I tried recently but I’ve found a night and day difference in sound quality after I wrapped my tube power amp power cord (rogue Zeus) and my cheap audio quest interconnect cables with copper foil. I even wrapped by phono cable coming out of my turntable to phono pre-amp. The detail retrieval and pin drop silence after doing this has made by jaw drop. Cost was $40 worth of foil wrap. What do you audiophiles think? Have I changed the sound signature in a negative way somehow?
Shielded cables have been around for years and do not have to be expensive. Copper braid and/or foil are pretty standard. Most/all of them are grounded at both ends. The Iconoclast paper on shielding and grounding is interesting. Here are 10 bulk power cords by Furutech. Nine of them are grounded. I believe the ungrounded FP-Alpha-3 was intended for power amps. I have never heard a shielded cable degrade the sound of my system. |
That is actually how I have always done it. I have never constructed a cable, including interconnects, where the shield acted as the ground, although I have seen it done with some manufactured interconnects when configured as balanced cables. My practice has been to always use a separate ground wire (same size as the connector wires) attached at both ends but to attach the shield only at the source end. That has worked well for me. |
@jea48 - Are you assuming the shield is acting as the ground? In my power cords, I always use a ground wire that is "at least" as large as the neutral/load wires, regardless of whether or not there is also a shield. However, I have seen many balanced interconnect cables where the shield is used as the ground connection. |
