Cable Dressing

[Peder]

Do your proposed sockets keep L and N defined when you connect a plug? The French style with an earth pin does this but not some other european sockets I think.

Yeti,…Both Oyaide and Furutech sockets have N and L marked.
This appears on the first two pictures.
The third picture is a bit worse,.so there is no visible N and L on the picture.

This above is a Furutech socket,.that my friend shall have eight pieces of in his powerstrip.
Here you can see N and L.

Here you see the back of the above Furutech sockets.

This is a Oyaide socket,.which I’ll have eight pieces of in my powerstrip.
Excuse the bad picture,.did not have time to take a new photo.

/Peder🌼

[Yeti]

Well my oblique point was that if using Naim do it the Naim way or don’t bother. The fora are full of people who have gone at it half arsed and got disillusioned. I know as that happened with my first Naim purchase, a Nait 5, which I plonked down on a home made stand made from an old fishing stool and then blamed Naim that it was fatiguing to listen to, there have been a few lessons learnt since.

[JimDog]

musicworks reflex ultra that my dealer leant me

How was it at home?

[Yeti]

I found it lost some of musical flow but increased clarity of the individual instruments, not a trade off I was happy with and much like an SL interconnect I tried (but couldn’t route clear of the floor). Both of these trials were with CDX2/555/282/250 a few of years ago so there might have been an update of the power block since then, my system has certainly changed.

[Henryski]

I have an Olsen hospital grade 8 way pdu and i took the top off for a little look. Well the cable wiring was simply stunning to behold. It was daisy chained with always 1 wire going in and 1 wire coming out of every socket apart from thr first one furthest away. All the cables were dressed exceptionally neatly with zip ties in strategic positions. It put to shame the wireworld matrix 2 one which looked absolutely crap in comparison. There are also 2 internally earth bonded points where cabling goes so it’s not a straightforward as this to do. I did want to eventually replace all the cabling with a much higher quality one but doing each socket completely star-wired individually will look terrible and will also take a huge amount of cable too maybe 2-3 metres in length so i’m thinking is it worth all the effort to do it radially connected like you say.
Even just connecting earth single from each point - What would or how do i connect all these 8 points up together at the end as there are the earth internal case bonding points to think about so it’s not that easy to do righ.
I shall post a picture of the internals when i have plenty of spare time and describe the problems with trying to rewire one too.
I was thinking of putting an Furutech NCF inlet to boost the performance even more!!
Henry

[frenchrooster]

Can anyone point me in the direction of articles and/or photographs of good examples of cable dressing, please? Are cable ties an absolute no-no from the sound perspective?

Tomser cables dressing

[Mike-B]

I know what the inside of an Olsen looks like & frankly I would not change it, very well made with good components. Rewiring to radial will only (maybe) eliminate a “best position” & that might be more in your head than for real. Rewiring itself will be difficult, an 8 (9) wire joint is not easy especially with 2.5mm wire. And changing sockets to Furutech will do nothing apart from lighten your wallet.

[Peder]

Furutech FI-09 NCF ®

This brief description below is from Furutech, this above is their best IEC-inlet.

•The Furutech FI-09 NCF Rhodium,.is a High-End inlet-socket for IEC connectors.
The design is actually identical to the FI-09,.but in the NCF-version it has added more attenuation of the contact body.

The contact’s body is made of fiberglass,reinforced nylon and it is muted with ceramic particles and powdered carbon in nanosize,.as well as an “active” damped material,.NCF.

I was thinking of putting an Furutech NCF inlet to boost the performance even more!!

@Henryski,…If I understand you correctly,is it such model as pictured above that you are considering.?

And changing sockets to Furutech will do nothing apart from lighten your wallet.

@Mike-B,…Furutech has several different sockets,.one you see at the picture above.

So I have to ask…
With such a statement,.have you tested various Furutech-sockets so that you know.
•And in that case…What models of Furutech-sockets have you tested.?

This is interesting to find out about,.because I’ve talked to High-End cable-manufacturers, distributors,dealers and independent people who have tried and tested connectors and sockets.

Everyone says,there is a difference between different contacts and sockets.
And that’s nothing special about it,.it’s a clear audible difference between Naim’s banana-contacts and Linn’s banana-contacts.

That is why we,.our group,are now testing this.

I’ve written about this test in my Cableoholic-thread,.if it wasn’t in my now deleted…
“Suggestion For Powerblocks”-thread.

/Peder🙂

[Mike-B]

Peder, like I’ve said before I prefer not to engage in these discussions, they go nowhere & prove nothing. You have your opinion, I have mine, lets just leave it at that. But yes I have tested & examined Fututech sockets as I’ve made & modified power boards with them for some friends. I can’t tell what model numbers but I don’t think its relevant to further my opinion.

[Chris-T]

Interesting. Thanks for that frenchrooster, and thanks for returning to my original question. We seem to have wandered away from it here.

[Mike-B]

Are cable ties an absolute no-no from the sound perspective?

I doubt cable ties affect sound provided they do not distort or crush the cable conformation, but I’m sure we have a few people who will disagree - such are audio forums.
Re cable ties, I have some Velcro type fasteners & at 20mm wide they do a good job without any danger of damaging the cable

[feeling_zen]

My experience with Furutech is that their pro-audio studio range, which is a fraction of the cost of their audiophile stuff, is by far the best. There’s no NCF or anything on the studio range. Just heavy guage, well constructed cables. I still prefer PowerLines, but a Furutech Empire into their bog standard distrubution block is the way to go. It was miles better than the cheap heavy duty unfused 15A extension block it replaced.

As for dressing, let anything that should hang free, hang free. For everything else, velcro strips. They’re easy to undo if cabling changes and quicker that anything else too.

[Chris-T]

Thanks, feeling_zen & Mike-B. After some other recommendations for them, I have been using velcro fasteners to good effect.

[Mike-B]

I know what the inside of an Olsen looks like & frankly I would not change it, very well made with good components. Rewiring to radial will only (maybe) eliminate a “best position” & that might be more in your head than for real. Rewiring itself will be difficult, an 8 (9) wire joint is not easy especially with 2.5mm wire.

Hi again Henry, if you do want to try a very simple modification to your Olsen 8 way, you could run L N & E wires from the 1st socket connections to the last in the chain & that will change the “daisy chain” socket circuit into a ring circuit. It should help or even eliminate the “best” socket issue

[Henryski]

Yes Peder that is the Furutech ncf iec i was thinking of installing simply because the input plug socket of this type will benefit ALL the 8 plugs in the pdu and not just one piece of equipment. Together with using an AMR fuse and much better OFC cabling maybe DH labs or Acrolink 7nines copper would add a substantial upgrade to all the AV and hi-fi connected to it. But this will be a winter project, maybe new year or so.

[Henryski]

Thanks Mike but i think this is impossible as the first earth point furthest away from the iec inlet goes to an earth bonding point which is next to the last socket And the last earth also goes to the same earth bonding point too. So the first and last socket would need three earth wires to be able to do what you are suggesting. Also the last live wire nearest the iec goes into the fuse and comes out to the iec so this too would need three wires in the last socket and the neutral wires to would need only two from the first socket. However i’m not too sure if this would make any noticeable difference .
Will using thicker cable like 4mm have any amperage increases and overpower the pdu needing a better fuse or not?
I was thinking of using the DH Labs red sonic or similar cable for this job and this is a top silver cable costing around 120 pounds per metre but i might get the cheaper tinned or maybe Belden cable. Don’t know about the hybrid Belden- It’s very stiff to work with but it’s a superb VFM power cable *6 solid copper strands which are tinned)
Henry

[Mike-B]

I don’t think you understand what I suggested. The earth circuit need not be a ring, ( if it’s that difficult ) the effect I had in mind would work with just L & N. 4mm cable is pointless, considering the fuse & the 10amp rating of the IEC plug/socket
Exotic cables are not my thing I’m afraid, somewhat pointless in part & ridiculous pricing for the most.

[TiberioMagadino]

DH Labs

You can get very good wires from companies like Doncaster Cables or Permanoid UK of Manchester at reasonable prices. Both companies are specialist cable manufacturers.

FWIW I think getting the mains to approach a pure sine wave is my preference over esoteric cables. Perhaps because the mains supply around here seems less than perfect.

[feeling_zen]

FWIW I think getting the mains to approach a pure sine wave is my preference over esoteric cables. Perhaps because the mains supply around here seems less than perfect.

Absolutely, and I think this is a critical point. If your mains is not causing any audible problems such as a humming transformer or clicks and pops when listening to music just because someone turned on a light or the compressor in the fridge fired up, then decent cables are probably the icing on the case.

While Naim recommend against any AC mains conditioning because it is detrimental to sound quality (and it is), this should be taken in correct context. The assumption being that your mains is actually functional to begin with. If it has major problems and getting them fixed is cost prohibitive or just down to bad luck in where you live, I very much doubt Naim are indicating people should suffer through major issues or move house. It is a matter of choosing the lesser of two evils. If my mains was audibly crap, a high end power conditioner would be a perfectly valid solution if other options were closed to me.

[Mike_S]

Yes, as you know, I have added an iso–tek filter power board to my system with great results. I’m not really with Naim in recommending against them, technology has moved on and there is more mains pollution. Plenty of forum folk use them with great results. I think they are a priority above separate power supplies.