When I read Marvin's comment about making some Western Electric WE16GA power cords I was intrigued, and I remembered I had some Furutech AC connectors that I had gotten for a DIY power cord project that I had never got around to.

Well, better late than never I suppose, so I grabbed the Furutech AC connectors and the 1-meter Western Electric WE16GA RCA interconnects I made up a while back as an experiment.

The voicing of the Western Electric WE16GA as interconnects wasn't as complimentary to my system as the Belden 8402 microphone cable interconnects were (or my reference Sablon Audio Panatelas).

Given the WE16GA interconnects were just the right length to repurpose as an AC cord, I snipped the RCAs off the ends and set to work.

Making AC power cords is really easy with the Furutech connectors, you just insert your wires into the L and N connectors and screw down the contacts on them. That's it.

I wired up my Furutech AC connectors as 2-prong connections, but you may want to wire yours up as 3-prongs with a ground wire.

Then all you do is slide on the body and screw it down.

Then do the same thing on the other side and you're all done!

Making up an AC power cord with the Western Electric WE16GA and Furutech connectors is as easy as 1-2-3 and will take you all of 10-15 minutes.

After I finished up my WE16GA power cord I plugged it into my Mhdt Havana DAC for a test run streaming the excellent Jazz24 station out of Seattle.

The Havana is warming up now and sounding pretty nice playing Jazz24. I'll report back after I get a little time in on the WE16GA AC cord and let you know how it comes together musically & sonically.

Sunday Evening Update: 

All I can say is, "Thank you, Marvin, for suggesting the Western Electric WE16GA as a power cable!"

As with the Western Electric WE16GA when used as speaker cables, it takes a while for it settle down and smooth out and get 'on song' when used as a power cord.

The WE16GA power cord is sounding really good right now, although it probably still has a ways to go before it's completely settled in, based on my experience with the WE16GA in other parts of my system (speaker wiring, crossover wiring, speaker cables).

What does WE16GA sound like as a power cord? It sounds a lot like it does when used as speaker cables. To quote from an earlier post: "I thought their sound was rich, musical, detailed, dynamic, and with a very good sense of timing, tempo, melody, that makes music sound very artistic, engaging, and dramatic. They are also very, very, natural and organic sounding, and lend a certain sense of beauty to the music that I haven’t quite yet come to grips with verbalizing."

The WE16GA power cord is sounding impressive enough that my next step is to replace the hard-wired generic power cords on my vintage McIntosh MC30 monaural amplifiers with Western Electric WE16GA terminated with Furutech FI-11M (G) AC plugs ($70 USD/each from Parts ConneXion). I already had one Furutech FI-11M (G) for the aforementioned DIY project that I never got around to, and I just ordered another from Parts ConneXion. Oyaide AC plugs would be a great choice too. (I'm really impressed with the Oyaide AC wall receptacles, and if you haven't upgraded your outlets yet with Oyaide receptacles, you're in for a relatively inexpensive treat!)

With a little luck some hardwired WE16GA power cords on my MC30s will be my project for next weekend.

Thanks for stopping by!