The Power Chord from The Chord Company has finally launched - after two years of development, testing, listening and safety approvals.
The Power Chord is a shielded mains cable suitable for components using IEC mains connectors that Chord claims the cable ‘brings a performance improvement that is not subtle’. According to Chord, the cable increases the overall resolving power of a system by reducing the overall perception of noise, with drum sounds and bass parts in particular benefiting from the improved dynamics. Chord also claims that owners can expect to hear fine details in their music that they’ve never heard before, while subtle nuances to playing and timing will become simple to hear and follow.
Power Chord follows on from the highly successful launches of the award winning Chord Signature loudspeaker cable and Signature interconnect cables. One of the factors critical to the performance of the Signature interconnect and speaker cable is the attention paid to the shielding: to achieve the high level of performance that these cables produce, it is vital that the shielding is effective to extremely high frequencies. Applying this to a mains cable was fairly straightforward, but Chord says that understanding how to configure the shield in relation to the conductors was an altogether more interesting challenge.
The final shielding system is similar to the one found on the Signature speaker cable. The three sets of stranded conductors are built using high quality copper and insulated to conform to the applicable BS standard. The outer jacket is PVC and designed to minimise mechanical noise. Surrounding this is the shielding system and around the shielding system a translucent orange PVC jacket, again applied to minimise mechanical noise.
Chord listened to a huge number of IEC plugs before settling on the one fitted to the Power Chord. The one chosen is a simple design, but one that Chord found to have excellent contacts. In fact, the contacts within the plug apparently turned out to be vitally important to the overall sound quality, with the screw type fittings found in most IEC plugs finally rejected in favour of directly soldered connections.
The three-pin mains plug was chosen in the same way, with Chord opting to fit an MK 13 amp plug.
Chord feels that its Power Chord design deals with one of the real issues with after market mains cables, with the geometry of the cable overcoming firstly system dependency and secondly local condition dependency. Both these factors can make the performance of mains cables extremely difficult to pre-judge.
The Power Chord is available now in 1 metre, 1.5 metre and 2 metre lengths (custom lengths to order).
Prices are: 1 metre: £130.00; 1.5 metre: £140.00; 2 metre: £150.00
Power Chord is also available fitted with a European Schuko mains plug, and is CE approved.
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