What a kettle lead

[garycake]

Just had a catalogue from a Mr Russ Andrews just to see what cheap items he might have for tweaking, saw hes got a new kettle lead for your Hi-Fi just checked the price oh no never you just dont want to hear it, £3008 for 2 metre lead, is this guy real i guess there must be some illiterate nutters out there to pay these sort of prices, i thought i would phone him up and ask him what it would do for my CD player, i told him i was going to buy either this 3 k lead from your company or i may buy a £3000 SACD player instead, i asked him what would give me the best sound improovement and he said this lead would give a better improovement to sound on a normal CD player than a £3000 SACD player playing SACDs cobblers this not only does not make sense but it is an outright lie.i certainly wont be lining Russ s already fat wallet

[PinkFloyd]

The same man who tried to sell me "acoustically treated" sheeps wool back in the 1990's. I am surprised, no shocked, that people actually buy into all this utter crap. For Russ to say a £3K mains lead will improve your CDP performance and make it sound better than a £3K SACD player is total nonsense. Thing is, a lot of people actually follow this guy like he's an audio god with magical powers and no amount of money is too much to pay to buy into this bullshit they are being fed.


Places like that I avoid like the plague.

[leo]

I remember a friend who used to go on about those RA mains leads, he actually sent me one to loan which I plugged into one of my modified CDP's, can't remember what he paid for this lead but it was over a hundred quid.
I honestly thought it made my system sound worse, dynamics sounded almost constricted
I liked the Ebay LAPP which I was using before much better

[Nigel]

We need a new kettle, so actually I might be quite interested in the lead.

[dc]

yeah, makes your coffee taste better

darker blacks, stronger aroma and more "depth" to the coffee

[serverbaboon]

Hope it comes with the £40 Furatech Fuse at that price! Makes the coffee that much smoother.

cgi.ebay.co.uk/Furutech-T13A-Mains-Fuse_W0QQitemZ280152380686QQihZ018QQcategoryZ116852QQcmdZViewItem

[FritzS]

i told him i was going to buy either this 3 k lead from your company or i may buy a £3000 SACD player instead, i asked him what would give me the best sound improovement and he said this lead would give a better improovement to sound on a normal CD player than a £3000 SACD player playing SACDs cobblers this not only does not make sense but it is an outright lie.i certainly wont be lining Russ s already fat wallet

this is as I mean as "hifi voodoo" in another tread here

the kettel lead cannot add what the "normal" CD player lost

[Deleted]

Perhaps Mike should do a comparison between the Kettle lead and his shielded mains lead ? ;D

[serverbaboon]

I have just realised that the kettle lead costs more the than the combined cost of both my last cars!

[cyreg]

You don't need to spend much money to find out for yourself that there are big (relatively) audible differences in kettle leads.
Last year I have done a lot of comparisons between 6 freebee 230V leads on different equipment and every time I had different audible results. But copper is not copper than??

In the end I wanted to get some more repeatable results.
So now every time I only switched the leads on my Cyrus PSX-R, which provides voltage to the preampsection of the Cyrus8vs.
I could give each lead a different soundcharacteristic like: lifeless, sharp, warm, more detail, more realistic, upfront, laidback etc., (connected in the same phase every time of course).
And that soundchar more or less also repeated itself on the other audio equipment.
I think most of the readers here will find it bollocks, but it's worth to try it!!
But don't get frustrated!!
It'll cost you nothing but time and you'll be amased (or not?). :-*Han

[rowuk]

Hmm,
if the kettle leads make SOOO much difference, I would assume that the power supply is not doing its job. I would also assume that the house wiring must have some effect, so how in hell if the wiring is of sufficient diameter to prevent thermal problems can a relatively short piece of wire make so much difference? Termination? Of what? 50 or 60Hz? Can that £ 1,000 lead really work? My guess is only with sub standard power supplies. The rest has been electrically isolated, transformed, rectified, regulated, snubbed and stored for future use. If the kettle lead makes an audible difference - your unit is defective - get IT exchanged or your ears. I hear the grass growing somewhere............

[cyreg]

Hi rowuk, so you tried a few different freebee/cheap AC leads on some audioequipment at home and didn't hear any difference. Well that's good for you, than you've nothing to worry about. ;D Han

[rowuk]

cyreg said:

Hi rowuk, so you tried a few different freebee/cheap AC leads on some audioequipment at home and didn't hear any difference. Well that's good for you, than you've nothing to worry about. ;D Han

As a matter of fact I did, and did hear a difference. More with some units than others. That can mean the resolution of the equipment, the garbage getting through the power supply or any number of things. If Graham Slee can even get a switched PS wallwart to sound good that means there is hope - even without a 3 grand power cable.

I just believe in fixing the problem and not looking for a $3K bandaid. Isolation belongs in the power supply as far as I am concerned. Maybe we need a high fidelity UPS that would "recreate" a perfect 50 or 60 cycle mains. Probably wouldn't cost $3K and offers protection when lightning strikes!

When I buy something else "high end" like a Ferrari, I need tires based on the job to get done, slicks, all-weather, snow tires - why? Because I have no control over mother nature and the various types of asphalt that I will be driving on.

HiFi has a better, more closely designed and defined interface. Granted, the engineer can make his or her input/output stage influencable. That helps to create a need for expensive interconnects. The same most likely applies to a power supply. Exempting active elements like transistors in the kettle leads, I have capacitance, resistance, reactance and inductance. If any or all of those things make my hi fi sound better, why didn't the engineer build them into the box? Why is the power supply so soft that there can possibly be that much difference? Why do we accept such a product. Do we identify ourselves with the ability to hear the grass grow?

I do not argue that cable can change the sonic footprint. Why accept such engineering? What is the real problem here? What gets through THE POWER SUPPLY to make the sound "open" or "restricted"? Does the same DAC built into a headphone amplifier sound worse than separate boxes with expensive interface cables? Is such an "interface" better than direct connection over a PCB? Graham, can you offer some insite?

[Nigel]

If you look at the kettle lead in question on the Russ Andrews website,

The Silver Signature Powerkord.

I love the customer comment from Mr Chu of Hong Kong.

However, what if you spend your hard earned on the kettle lead & find the mains lead on your own equipment isn't easily removed? Never fear, advice is given,

<What if I can’t remove my mains lead?
Cut off the mains cable about 3 inches (7.5cm) from where it enters your equipment and wire on a male IEC plug as shown.>

Ah well, that's okay then.

[Deleted]

"What is the real problem here? What gets through THE POWER SUPPLY to make the sound "open" or "restricted"? "

rowuk
If you have been following Mike's thread about the new Little Pinkie with a higher quality transformer, and the extremely favourable reviews it has been getting, you will already have some of the answers.
SandyK.

[rowuk]

Hi Alex,
that is kind of my point. The $3K kettle lead can only work if something is wrong elsewhere. Fixing THAT is probably cheaper than the lead, with the advantage of improved overall performance. It is the power supplies JOB to isolate.

[toad]

I wonder if my kettle would sound better when it boils with one of these powering it. You know...

Your bubbles will have a brighter pop as they burst at the top of their travels and their passage up the kettle will be smoother. Large bubbles will rumble up the kettle with improved bass and overall the whole kettle will feel much warmer.

Don't take my word on it.

Here's what Mister Buyscrud from Suckermein had to say.

"My Kettle is much improved... Sometimes if I close my eyes it's like I have Harry Potters Cauldron in front of me instead of a £20 Argos special. On cooling, condensation details were amazing with drips running down the outside of the kettle in a delightful manner. I only wish I'd taken advantage of your cable burn in service so I could have experienced the full effect of the lead earlier."

[bozzy]

Have to say that I regard power cables as a valid system tuning opportunity - I have power conditioning and good power cables, but have not gone to the lengths of rewiring back to the consumer unit. The sound changes significantly if I take the conditioning out of circuit, or if I change a power cable or several. Although the differences are subtle, they are audible, and significant - though not as significant as the effects of changes to interconnects IMO.

How much is it worth paying ? I guess that depends on whether you can live without the improvement or not. My most expensive cable is the Stealth digital interconnect between my CD Transport and DAC. It cost £1,200 2 years ago, and I bought and resold 2 others befrore I got it, to try to avoid spending that much. Trouble is, if the alternatives do not let the good stuff out, all the other cash you've spent is performing short of potential. Like most people I'd like to save money but so far I have found no way to avoid bringing all components of the system to a similar perceived standard of performance, and sometimes that is expensive.

BTW you could also make the same argument about my Silent Running Audio plinths - but again, they make a significant improvement in the sound, so in my opinion, they are justified. On the other hand, I have a system which pleases me, and which to my ears is up there with systems which have cost a great deal more, and in some cases I think it sounds "better". Just my opinion.

The £3,000 kettle lead would make an interesting comparison against the ZuCable Mother power cords which I use. These actually cost LESS than the Stealth power cables which I had previously, but to my ears, in that system, they sound better. I have never heard anything from Russ Andrews - mainly Kimber, I'll admit, that I thought was as good as the alternatives, and given that I'd need 5 such cables, the idea of £15,000 for power cables would need considerable justification !

[Deleted]

Bozzy
I think I will settle for fine tuning my amplifier !
SandyK

[rowuk]

I agree with SandyK.
I will choose components with properly designed power supplies (or add what is necessary inside the box) that are not dependent on external capacitance, resistance or reactance to do their jobs properly. This is something that a designer could EASILY add INSIDE the amp - unless inconsistent performance is a design parameter! 3 grand buys a lot of music!