I use a Hydra with Naim boxes. I did try using one leg for a Lingo 4, which was audibly bad - a hum through speakers plus general vagueness.
However, the vagueness can be recreated to a smaller degree by putting Lingo or Radikal on the same ring-main sockets or the same dedicated main spur as the Hydra that powers the Naim boxes. The issue may actually be simply that it is good to keep LP12 supply as far from Naim box supply as possible.
Have people found using a Hydra with 1 leg powering (say) a non-Naim CD player to be (a) fine or (b) a terrible idea?
OK I get that. What I find odd, and Iâm not saying you are one of them, is that some people have this attitude over cables, mains blocks, stands, etc. and yet will happily pay around ÂŁ10K for an amp or whatever. Their money, their call. It just seems inconsistent.
I get your point.
Same for peeps that have power & speaker cables costing not far off the same as the amp
I have a Furutech 13A plug, its expensive compared to normal domestic plugs, however its very well designed & made & I selected it in part to correctly dress & orientate the power cable.
My other 13A plugs that feed the various boxes are Permaplug HDPT13, you can buy these for less than ÂŁ2 ea from www vendors, OK mine are silver plated and cost ÂŁ8. These same plugs are used on Vertere Acoustics âRedlineâ power cables retailing for ÂŁ695. Go figure.
Wired up the Olson block this morning using a spare RA PowerMax cable I had knocking around in my spares box. Good quality build, 4mm2 internal wiring and every panel earth bonded.
Interesting. I see that the RA cable does not follow UK colour coding. My understanding is that this is known as a non-harmonised cable. I thought they were illegal in the UK, or at the very least heavily frowned upon.
Iâm a huge fan of the Grahamâs Hydra and also their mains blocks (I use both). Very nicely made, medical grade MK sockets, star earthed and they use Naim mains cable apparently in the Hydra.
I donât know why on a limited budget people buy anything else actually! Much less faff than making your own too.
My view is that yes, Powerlines and the Chord Epic mains cable that I use are certainly very expensive (to me at least) but I perceive very significant and worthwhile improvements from using them.
I also have a Chord S6 mains block which at ÂŁ1K is absurdly expensive and I donât see where that price comes from but it sounds fantastic.
On the other hand, I first tried a Nordost Mains block at ÂŁ1500 and some Nordost mains cables which are recommended for use with my electronics (Sim Audio Moon). I could perceive absolutely no worthwhile benefits over a cheap Olson block and the standard out-of-the-box equipment power cables. The Nordost block looked like a million dollars though! Needless to say I returned them.
Thatâs a good question. I doubt it as RA wouldnât have been able to sell them in the UK otherwise and they were sold as complete assemblies rather than cable off the reel.
It is illegal to use old and/or non-standard colours in installations,
Plus if an electrician finds an incorrect coloured cable he must either replace it or clearly mark it.
The problem is the regs donât say anything about cored flex cables that I can find.
Another concern I have is the voltage rating of a US cable, US domestic voltage is 115v, however close up on the photo, I see it has what looks like 600v printed on it, so probably OK.
Yes, there doesnât appear to be anything in the regs related to cable colours in flexible cables. Itâs the PK14 cable, with 14AWG conductors so just over 2mm2.
The use of stadard colour coding, as now harmonised across the EU and UK, was actually applied to flex before it was used on T&E for fixed wiring. The trouble is that the bewildering array of standards make it difficult to distinguish between whatâs a legal requirement and what isnât. Try reading everything you can find from CENELEC, the IEC, BS, EN, etc. etc. then figure out which parts still apply when youâre talking about extensions as opposed to in situ mains circuits, and what applies to domestic, not commercial use.
If you havenât lost the will to live by then, let us know the answer!
A simple little project, but enjoyable and it seems to do the trick and relatively cheap. 2.5mm OCC solid wire (reputedly). Futuretech C15 inlet plug on the end. The top AU/NZ plugs were not Futuretech and felt a bit cheap though and I might swap them out for better ones sometime.
I even made all the wires the same length (because I read it somewhere, not because I know it to be essential).
I had a quick search around and could find nothing obvious.
Whatever, I suspect that selling this cable off-the-reel could well be a bit dodgy. However, the RA cable in question was sold as a complete assembly. Meaning that the purchaser wouldnât need to know the colour coding and indeed would not even be aware of it unless the cable was dismantled in some way.
