Sort of like what I have planned, I found a similar box with 5 glands on it, for garden use I think, I’m going to shield the inside of it with copper tape my missus uses to shield her guitars and connect that to the shielding on the wires so the whole thing is as one. As well as the wire I ordered Martin Kaiser IEC plugs (silver plated, yeah I know!) and silver plated mains plugs.
I’m not entirely sure I’ll hear any difference, I’m a sceptic in this area but open minded all the same but I suspect any changes I hear might well be down to the wires being well organised and having no mass of spare cable
I would only undo the locking rings on the interconnect cable, it’s not worth risking damaging your HiFi system with playing around with the other cables…and in any case i’ll be damned if i can hear much of a difference…if you want a real improvement swap the lavender stock cable for a HiLine.
I spent the morning connecting up all the its for the DIY Hydra from Belden 19364 cable, the shielding connected at the plug to earth, then the junction box shielded with copper tape, all shielding wires soldered together and connected to the box shielding. My mate across the road PAT tested them for me so they are all good and 100% safe. Despite being super thick the cable is very pliable, far easier to work with that either the standard or Grahams Hydra cable but with all wires cut to length for each bit of kit on it’s own shelf the big gain is in plain old tidiness, all the mess and tangle of wires has gone, just 2 runs from the socket to the underside of the racks and the four leads within the rack all neat and in place. There is now loads of room to organise the other interconnects in a relatively tidy fashion, surely that must make a difference but how remains to be heard, I’ll report back when the amps are back in place and run in again
No, I thought DIY wasn’t really the done thing here, but basically it was a case of cutting to length and soldering the same colour wires together and insulating with heat shrink.
This is the junction box I used which was easy enough to shield and connect everything together. It did come with connectors but I preferred to solder them instead
Well… That did something, IMHO… How much…? Hard to quantify. Just installing the Hydra will have cleaned all the main connections. The Hydra is also new, so ‘cleaner’ - than c. 1985 leads.
I was already Star Earthed also, via a so-called ‘Multiway 4-in-1 Plug’ using my original Naim leads (which were different lengths and ages… - see here - Naim Standard Main Lead Length ).
But… IMO, something definitely happened - more ‘Naim-y-ness’ if that makes sense. No… Oh well. Lets just say the Grahams Hydra ( @Grahamhifi ) is a keeper…
There’s been no noticeable change in the sound over the last few days since getting the amps back last week so last night I changed over to the Grahams Hydras (2 x 4). Today the sound has changed, there’s a slight subduing of the high frequencies, like a loss of clarity for want of a better description, if there’s been any change to the mid or bass I can’t hear it. I’ll give it a couple of days listening and then change back to the DIY cut to length and shielded Hydras again and see what happens.
Moving from standard power cables to a Graham’s Hydra was one of those ‘Oh, my goodness’ moments. Big, big uplift in sound.
The only time I had a similar feeling was when I went from NAC42.5 to NAC72 donkey’s years back - that’s why the latter pre has stayed in my system till now
If some don’t experience such a ‘lift’ with the Hydra, then maybe their original cabling was already pretty well fettled, so to speak.
The DIY Hydra is back in and instantly the high frequencies opened up again, more noticeable this way around, similar to changing from the individual leads to a Hydra. I have no idea whether it’s the shielding on the Belden cable or the lack of yards of spare wire hanging around, I couldn’t begin to offer an explanation. The Graham’s duo will be going into the loft for a rainy day