I’ve mentioned a few times about potentially swapping the male end of the US powerline as we get the cheapest Wattgate. So I’ve been thinking about converting them to FI-50 NCF as well. Recently I was thinking, I wonder if just swapping to a complete Furutech cable might be better still (such as S55N/FI-50 NCF combo). I can say the uplift from the other Furutech cords I’ve swapped were far greater then when I installed both my Powerlines but they were done in completely different room with different kit, so not a proper compairson.
For the EU version, I would be surprised if the swap didn’t bring improvements.
Whilst I am not planning to make any changes soon, after changing my system to one which needs balanced XLR cables, I have been doing a bit of research. One thing that strikes me is how much more expensive XLR cables would be from the likes of Chord, Ansuz and Vertere etc. versus the cost of Furutech DAS4.1 with their NCF XLR connectors (they also do a DIN version by the way).
These would still be expensive at circa £1k, but that is at least 40-50% less (and then some) compared to similar cables from the brands above…This is why I am very interested to know if anyone has any experience with them
For sure, while expensive, the top of the line models from Furutech still offer extremely high cost vs performance when you assemble the DIY parts yourself. Sure you can do better with some of the components but its going to cost you significantly more to do so. Certain parts of theirs are fairly commonly used in other companies flagship models, so that should tell you something.
In regards to connectors, I have also thought about swapping what came on my WH Morgana’s with the top of the line NCF connectors as well. It never ends…
So far, anytime I’ve replace a cord that had a plug with some sort of cheap metal, with the FI-50 NCF it removed a layer of harshness that you didn’t realize is there, till its gone. I’m thinking swapping the Wattgate plug might have that same effect.
Seems the powerline is more about vibration/isolation, so in the US we don’t get this on the male end, we do get this on the IEC end but the FI-50 NCF’s also have dampening properties, with the addition of the NCF material which cleans up the sound & a top notch copper connection. I wonder what the Powerline IEC metal is, probably some sort of brass/cheaper copper alloy? Then it just uses some very basic wire, not to say basic wire can’t sound good but it has me curious. I could pull one of my current cords off my phono & try it either on my SCDR or 300DR, so that may happen at some point.
I plan on doing it as well at some point. I may experiment on an older AVOptions cable I have that has the same Wattgate plug before modifying one of my PowerLines.
I haven’t looked but I would imagine you can do a straight swap on the PL without having to modify it at all, so if you wanted to swap the stock connector back in the future to say sell it, there would be no damage/modifications done to the wire.
At the moment I’m curious about trying a bunch of Stack Audios isolation products, so my Furutech tweaking is on pause currently
It is not difficult, but harder than you would think to do a professional job. I found after multiple attempts I got the hang of it; but then constantly questioned whether it was good enough and if my system was therefore sub-optimal…
The plugs are only a maximum of three connections, fairly straightforward. Nice thing about this style of plugs is that there is plenty of working room.
No issues here, I work with electronics as part of my job, have made more cables then I can remember, made/sold cables to others & am a perfectionist, so no question of quality concerns
