Hi fi mumbo jumbo shocker!

£1,100 a metre for mains cable!

Electrical energy can have a long journey from power station to the plug socket in your home.  It starts out at 25,000 volts, is fed to a substation transformer to be 'stepped up' to 400,000 volts to reduce resistance heat losses ready for the journey through the national grid .  And then it passes through transformers at several more substations so it arrives at your home at an appliance-friendly 230 volts.  That’s miles and miles through different types of metal cables.

So how is it that hi fi enthusiasts think that it’s worth spending £1,000 or more (yes you heard me right) for a plug, socket and cable to take that energy from the mains socket to their amplifier?

Hi fi magazines, always an hilarious read, offer these descriptions:
‘crisp images’, ‘rhythmically confident, ‘sure-footed, ‘depth and scale,’ ‘excitement’, ‘added clarity’, ‘leaner’.

You couldn’t make it up!

Check it out for yourselves at the defiantly unscientific www.whathifi.com the next time you’re in need of a laugh.  But spare a thought for the man who spent £1,100 a metre on mains cable.  And a plug.  Don’t believe that price?  Check it out here:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Nordost-Valhalla-Reference-Mains-Cable/dp/B0013USE7W

Common sense from an engineer:
The music you listen to will probably have been created in a recording studio. Even if it hasn't -- it's a live performance perhaps -- by definition it will have been recorded using electrical equipment of some sort. This equipment will have been mains powered. Now, I've spent time in recording studios, and I can't say that I ever saw one that used `audiophile mains cable' to power its mixing and amplification equipment. In fact, I've seen mains leads scavenged from kettles and toasters to power the mixing desk. As a matter of principle, your sound reproduction can never be any more accurate than the original recording. So if you spend more on your cables (mains or otherwise) than the studio does, you're wasting your money.

Useful link here: wikipedia.org

PS: The Amnerican Advertising Standareds Authority has ruled against some of these wild mains cable claims.  But that doesn’t apply to journalists at What Hi Fi.

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