MCRU Ultimate mains power lead

[realysm42]

A few months ago I took the plunge and upgraded my the power lead for my amp; I asked David what he recommended, he said to spend no more that £200 based on the level of amp I own (very honest of him) but I decided to make an investment (as I'm always planning to upgrade things) so I though I'd get something I'd hopefully never have to replace and bought one of these instead:

http://www.mains-cables-r-us.co.uk/m...ower-lead.html

(Except with the Furutech FI-50 IEC and Furutech Rhodium plug upgrades).

Service was quick and painless, got it quickly and in the quality of finish I've come to expect from David. I can give you a brief overview of the product, I'm no pro reviewer so please bare with me.

Initial impressions weren't as amazing as I'd predicted at the outset; David did tell me to wait about 100 hours before hearing the full impact. So I waited.

I've literally just swapped the Ultimate lead out with a generic kettle lead and the difference is very real. Playing Dry the River's "Animal skins" (a track I know well) was an interesting experience; gone was the texture of the instruments I'd grown used to, but it wasn't too bad. Atleast until the tune kicked in properly, I wish I could have seen my face; it sounded a mess!

Timing was off, depth was gone and the overall cohesion of the sound was lost. I mean, if you spend a lot on something, you expect better performance but I wasn't prepared for that! I've tried a few other tracks I know and love and the difference remains apparent.

The main strength of the Ultimate power lead is the togetherness of the sound it presents, treble sounds a lot more detailed and less harsh.

When my M-dac is fixed and back in the loop; I think I'll repeat this experiment again.

Given his recommendations on what I should have spent on the cable initially, I'm thinking that the difference in quality would be more appraent the more revealing my equipment becomes; something I'm looking to finding out in a few years when the upgrade comes

Thanks for the cable mate, I'll be back for more in the future no doubt

[jandl100]

Jeepers Creepers.

You went from a standard £2 kettle lead to a £500 item.

You should have stuck to Dave's advice and dipped your toe in the water first!

In all honesty, your money would have been better spent elsewhere.

... or have I been suckered in by a wind-up?

[realysm42]

No wind up and I have dipped my toes in the water, although I didn't make that clear above, so apologies for that; I got one of these for a few months before:

http://www.mains-cables-r-us.co.uk/m...ower-cord.html

Impressed by what I'd heard, I then upgraded to the above.

You're not the first to have told me as much with the way I buy things but I see it like this; the only upgrades I'll be making in future are my speakers and amp and they're most likely going to cost a lot more than I have available to me right now or for some time, so while I'm in this position, I see no harm in upgrading things that I'll never want to change (speaker cable, power leads, infrastructure if you like).

[jandl100]

Gosh.

Well ... I'm a bit at a loss for words here! ... we all spend our £££ as we wish.

You're happy? That's fine.

I see you have Tellurium Ultra speaker cable as well. I respect a guy who puts his money where his mouth (or keyboard finger!) is.

[Welder]

I don’t think it works like that.
If you are going to hear a difference between loudspeaker cables it will probably be because of changes to cable properties interacting with your amplifier and speakers.
What may work well with a particular combination may not sound so good when say the speakers or amplifier get changed. Some amplifiers tend to be less stable with high capacitance cables for example.
So, the idea that one can buy the best/most affordable cables and successfully swap kit around them is fallacious imo. Yer doing it wrong.

As for spending five hundred pounds on a mains lead

[Marco]

Hi Martin,

Congrats on your purchase of one of David's Ultimate mains leads, which I use to great effect throughout my system. I'm glad that you seem to like it. However, I wouldn't have recognised them from this description:

I've literally just swapped it out with a generic kettle lead and the difference is very real. Playing Dry the River's "Animal skins" (a track I know well) was an interesting experience.

Gone was the texture of the instruments I'd grown used to, but it wasn't too bad. Atleast until the tune kicked in properly, I wish I could have seen my face; it sounded a mess!

Timing was off, depth was gone and the overall cohesion of the sound was lost. I mean, if you spend a lot on something, you expect better performance but I wasn't prepared for that! I've tried a few other tracks I know and love and the difference remains apparent.

...especially when upgrading from a bog-standard kettle lead! What you've written above is completely alien to my experience of the Ultimates.

In my system, upgrading from MG DSP 2.5s (fitted with the same Furutech connectors as on the Ultimates, therefore it was simply an upgrade of the wire used inside the power lead itself), the Ultimates produced a much bigger, bolder, sound, with significantly better detail retrieval, due to a subjectively perceivable lower noise-floor and less distortion.

Bass became tighter, more extended and more tuneful, and the top-end sweeter sounding and more expressive, making the DSP 2.5s sound somewhat dynamically restricted in comparison. The latter are by no means 'sonic slouches'; indeed I used them happily for some time before upgrading them to the Ultimates, but the Ultimates take sonic performance to an altogether higher level, simply by making music sound more 'right'.

For me, there is definitely something in the 'Ohno Continuous Casting' process, used to produce the Furukawa PCOCC-A soild-core copper wire, as featured in the Ultimates, which makes them perfrom as the closest thing to hard-wiring your equipment directly to the mains supply.

I've long believed that the purity of the conductor material (whether copper or silver) makes a huge difference to the performance of both mains and signal cables, more so than the actual material the conductor is made from, and you can't get much purer than copper Furukawa use. Here's an interesting article on the subject of the Furukawa OCC process:

http://www.kosmic.us/pcocc-a-by-furukawa.html

You can see that there are some pretty good reasons there why the Furukawa copper wire used is rather special!

Martin, I notice that you bought the lead to use on your amp. Can you try it on your main source component instead, and see what happens?

When upgrading mains cables, you should always start at the source first, and then work through the rest of your system, as you'll realise bigger improvements that way. Furthermore, you'll find that the Ultimates will take around a week of continuous use to fully burn-in.

Therefore, try the Ultimate lead on your main source component, and then switch back to your kettle lead, after a week, and then see what happens!

Marco.

[realysm42]

Main source as in my pc? That's the only thing that I play music through/from.

Also, you're not the first person to be puzzled by what I've written, so perhaps it's my mistake; in the part you've quoted, I meant that when putting the generic kettle lead back in (after allowing a lot more that 100 hours burn in time on the ultimate) all of the goodness I'd become accustommed to suddenly vanished, have I not made that clear?

I'm on a course of steroids right now and not been thinking so straight so please let me know, I'll ammend it if it's the case; I meant to illustrate how GOOD the Ultimate lead is, not the other way around lol.

[Marco]

Main source as in my pc? That's the only thing that I play music through/from.

Ok, try it on your M-DAC, instead, and see what happens! I presume that the M-DAC has a standard IEC inlet?

Also, you're not the first person to be puzzled by what I've written, so perhaps it's my mistake; in the part you've quoted, I meant that when putting the generic kettle lead back in (after allowing a lot more that 100 hours burn in time on the ultimate) all of the goodness I'd become accustommed to suddenly vanished, have I not made that clear?

Lol... No! By saying "all of the goodness I'd become accustommed to suddenly vanished", makes it sound like the Ultimate is WORSE!

I'm not quite sure what you actually meant, though - only you will know that!

I'm on a course of steroids right now and not been thinking so straight so please let me know, I'll ammend it if it's the case; I meant to illustrate how GOOD the Ultimate lead is, not the other way around lol.

Lol, well in that case, what you've written needs to be put somewhat differently!

Marco.

[Marco]

Also, what are you powering your kit from? A mains block, or directly into sockets on the wall, and if it's the latter, are they double or single sockets, switched or un-switched?

Marco.

[realysm42]

No - my M-dac has an unusual connector and therefore I can only use the vanilla power solution for now (there is a new power unit being developed by Mr. Westlake, the M-pax and I'll be having a word with David about new cables for that once it's acquired).

Thanks for the clarification Marco, I'll get it sorted shortly, perhaps when I'm not so high lol

Welder, thanks for your opinion. You may or may not be wrong and I guess the proof is in the pudding; I'll have to wait a while to find out.