I’m not too concerned to be honest. I trust what you and others have said. Besides, even when it’s going through it’s ups and downs it still sounds better than before IME.
Does anyone have any experience of either The Astoria (copper connectors) or The Empire (gold connectors) power cables?
An interesting thread, over the years I have experimented a lot with mains installations and cables. I do find having a low impedance supply with ideally each plug wired into its own CU fuse (no ring main) makes for a good upgrade and you then don’t need to add a fuse to the wall plug.
I did a fair bit of A-B ing with cables and plugs a while back and did prefer the unplated items and have used Oyaide C-029 ever since, I also think that running in can make a notable difference which is annoying and confusing
Hand twisted twin and earth using solid core is actually okay and I use 6mm squared HF07 cable, that is cheap, low impedance and when run in very good. Occasionally I try another cable for certain units and realise how good the cable is. I also really like Oyaide connectors and personally think they are built better than most. 20 years ago Furutech was the cheap poor cousin to Oyaide.
The only reason I mention this is there are many, many different cables and connectors and this is a very high margin business, the audiophile versions. Belden do some good cables as most know. I do think mains cable can and does make a difference but its is also frustratingly inconsistent and to a certain degree system dependent. If I had more time and money I would experiment further, but it can become expensive quickly if you have an AV system !
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Agreed, and it’s not only with mains cables but interconnects and speaker cables as well. I’m more or less done with mains cables but am just starting on interconnects. Similarly, I don’t have much money left to experiment further as most of the cables I’m looking at are not exactly cheap. I’ve to admit that I’m a cable junkie and often go overboard with regard to spending on costly cables.
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I have experimented with passive parallel mains filters that reduce differential mode noise and do a little cleaning locally of mains noise. These work very well (They are just a cascade of high quality X, Y rated or equivalent caps, going from 10nf to 30uf). How much noise they suppress I don’t know but film caps are high quality with low ESR and more importantly ESL have a good high frequency ‘short’ and they do work without having any compromise of dynamics, in fact they seem to improve dynamics. It reminds me how much of the system performance starts before it reaches the unit.
I also found that different makes and quality of caps in a mains you can hear which boggles my mind, I did several blind A-B’s and actually recognised each of my three similar units !
Shame there aren’t more significantly detailed blind testing of cables, leads, plugs etc as some get to be very expensive. I guess dealers will have a good amount of experience ?
Not sure how sensitive an issue this is but as noted earlier in the thread there are a lot of Chinese counterfeit Furutech cables on various sites for a fraction of the official product cost.
The thing is, in a lot of cases these appear indistinguishable either visually or sonically to the Japanese products.
Audiogon has multiple threads on the topic and many purchasers have reported positive results.
Given the cost of some of these cables I’m not surprised some have chosen to ‘take a flyer’ on these Chinese alternatives.
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It’s always tempting but I’d rather buy the real thing so stay away from eBay etc for Furutech gear.
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Who knows.
If people enjoy the sound let them get on with it.
Maybe it’s everyone else who is getting ripped off?
I’m quite sure I didn’t suggest others shouldn’t buy them.
What I said was, “I’d rather buy the real thing so stay away from eBay etc”.
Anyway, the main thing to watch out for is whether any copies follow the same quality control and cover off the required regs. If they do then there is no risk. If they don’t, then of course fire risk / insurance etc come into play. You’ll get something that looks like the real thing but whether it has the same materials and specifications would be open to doubt. That’s one of the reasons why they’re cheaper.
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Very impressive mains distribution installation.
I wondered if you had thought about unswitched sockets instead. 
People are free to buy as they choose. In some cases counterfeit products are made possible because someone gets hold of old fabrication moulds and other equipment from the real factory. However, even if 100% idendical, I’d choose to not line the pockets of criminals. I’d not want someone ripping off my software either (which has happened).
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I don’t see why the same materials wouldn’t be used - let’s be clear even a company like Audioquest which purports to sell American made products has the parts sourced from China. So the parts are there for the Chinese to create a clone if they wish.
My main question would be around the level of markup that the likes of an Audioquest or Furutech engage in and whether or not say an ‘official’ Furutech Nanoflux mains cable could legitimately be being sold at 20x production cost.
I suspect they are.
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Yes that’s a good point, I would probably have no switches if I did it again
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I have not followed anything on performance of Furutech knock offs, but in general while many knocks off’s can look quite similar to the original product, many times they spend all their effort on the external appearance & massively cheap out on what matters, the internals. For all the NCF products, do they actually try to copy this as well? While a knock off might sound okay, that doesn’t mean it necessarily sounds anything like the authentic product.
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You’d have to think that someone buying a counterfeit cable would be able to make a comparison against if not against the exact same real Furutech then at least against a similarly priced equivalent - and it would become common knowledge that these knockoffs aren’t to be touched if the outcomes weren’t good.
As I’ve said the reports on audiogon suggest positive results when comparing like for like.
As said I haven’t followed this at all & have no idea what has been compared. Is a guy who is willing to buy say a DPS-4.1/FI-50 NCF (R) knock off, also willing to buy the real thing, as I would assume there is a rather large price difference. As someone who has bought the real thing, I have no desire in buying a knock off, that likely doesn’t have any authentic safety rating, that could potentially burn my home down.
There are all kinds of posts about the inferior materials different knock offs use, eg Siltech uses silver & gold wire, the knocks offs might use silver plated copper (if your lucky, have read about, think it was silver plated steel as well). Could these knock offs sound good?, potentially. Do they sound like the actual cable, probably not.
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Hi 
…
Here on the left,.as a non-original contact looks like…
Whether it’s Furutech or Oyaide.
On the right you see how an original contact looks like internally.
The non-original connector may on the IEC-side have the better connection.
BUT,.on the schuko plug,the connection always looks like the picture on the left.
Pure rubbish,.and if you measure an original contact against a non-original one, there is a frighteningly large difference.
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I only buy from Furutech dealer. The used Furutech DPS4.1 is also from the Furutech dealer.
I’ve read about counterfeit Furutech but didn’t bother about it too much. I will only consider quality and original cables for all my components. Having said that I did get a mains power cable that’s made in China for my subwoofer last year since I require 3m length but haven’t tried it yet. It’s still in the box.
There was a fake Furutech Nanoflux power cable for sale on a well known auction site last week, RRP - £5,500.00 - there was three bids and someone paid £420.00 for it.
If the adage “if it sounds too good to be true then it probably is” ever applied more than in this case.
When you compare it (pic bellow) with an original Furutech Nonoflux Power Cable you can see that the markings on the sheath are different.
If you search for Ali Express you see that the fake is the same.
The Original has two thin broken parallel white lines and the fake has thick white lines.
There’s loads of fakes out there, particularly (Furutech Alpha PS 950) and (Furutech Nanoflux) so be careful. If you want to be sure then buy from a reputable dealer.
Original:
Fake:
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