Question: How can 1 metre of specialist high grade Oxygen Free Copper (OFC) mains power cable possibly make a difference to sound or picture quality after the effect of the several miles of high voltage low grade national grid mains cable and the several hundred metres of low grade mains cable from the substation to your house, let alone the standard 2.5mm² copper ring main in your walls?

Answer: Well it can't! We believe high grade OFC cables make little to no difference to sound or picture quality (apart from excessive Cost and Price). Additionally, we have tested silver plated mains plugs and have found them to offer little to the quality of the cable except again a huge price increase.

Our research has clearly shown 3 major areas that do make significant differences to cable quality:

1. The rejection and reduction of internal radio frequency interference (RFI) and noise already present on the mains line.
   
   
2. Immunity to and rejection of additional external RFI, EMI (Electro-Magnetic Interference) and noise.
   
   
3. Low impedance and high current capacity, so as not to current limit any equipment. (Particularly important in high end audio equipment, power amplifiers and high power LCD and Plasma TVs).

All of our cables are designed to achieve the above criteria. We do not use overly expensive OFC cables or silver plated mains plugs. We have focused the design and cost into the areas that really make a difference; noise reduction, noise rejection and current handling.

Our cables are primarily a high current filter. RFI and noise on the mains is reduced by the NRR triple filter system (see below) at the mains plug end.

Each conductor pole is shielded and double insulated to reduce additional RFI and noise pickup. Each individually screened cable is then braided to further reduce RFI and noise pickup. Finally an additional NRR triple filter system is fitted right before the IEC equipment connector, to further filter and reduce any residual RFI and noise. An additional X rated capacitor fitted in the IEC connector forms a second order filter with the NRR system and suppresses any noise and interference above 30kHz.


Each cable screen is only connected at the mains plug end and used to channel RFI and noise away from the sensitive equipment and straight to earth. Every single conductor is pure annealed copper, has a cross sectional area of 3mm² and a current rating of over 20A.

The BS1363 mains plugs used are standard high quality plugs with a current rating of over 13A and are fitted with 13A fuses. The IEC sockets used in the EPIC range are high specification Schurter sockets with a current rating of 15A (not 10A like most commercially available sockets).

The IEC connectors used in the EPIC-XL range are high quality Wattgate 320i connectors. The 320i connectors have a greater internal volume than the Schurter and therefore allow additional RF filtering to be employed.

Our connectors are high grade, high current rated products and perform equally well as most of the more expensive alternatives.

Elucidate Cables has developed a triple filter system that we call the Noise Reduction & Rejection filter (NRR). It consists of three separate high magnetic permeability toroids, combined to produce a low loss, high current, low pass filter. These filters are used to critically attenuate radio frequency interference (RFI) and high frequency noise present on the mains supply.

To ensure maximum performance, every cable is built with two separate NRR triple-filtered systems (one at each end of the cable) in addition to a suppression capacitor and bleed resistor in the IEC connector.