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A filtering power cable then. Good idea. But where is the filter? The cables do not carry a terminator box nor do the plugs hide something tiny inside. Yet somehow the noise that is introduced to the power line by electric motors, welders, switching power supplies of computers and all other appliances is supposed to be attenuated. Isn't it amazing how all of us land animals all partake from the same air -- else we would suffocate -- and that all electric equipment, like a separate species, is connected to the world-wide grid? Beside direct contact noise on your AC line, there's so called field-coupled noise. This comes from your radio station, your local radar and the like. Computers are sources of both since they are direct coupled and emit ultrasonic frequencies from their circuitry and, fully intentional, from their WiFi functionality. Besides these pollutants, noise can be in or out of phase with respect to ground. Differential and common mode noise are the terms professionals use for these types of noise. The first can be filtered with a small capacitor between hot and return. As the unwanted components increase in frequency, the capacitor shunts like a conductor and the out-of-phase noise cancels. To defeat in-phase noise, a capacitor is put between each line and ground so the unwanted signal components are dumped to ground. Of course there are more roads to Rome but this is the general and common way to handle AC noise. LessLoss thinks differently, perhaps innocently childlike. Everyone has heard of skin effect. This is the tendency of an electrical signal to propagate around a conductor such that its current density is greater at the surface than the core. The electric current wants to flow at the skin of the conductor. The skin effect is dependent on skin depth, a factor itself dependent on the conductor material. The skin depth is defined by where the current is reduced by 37% compared to its surface value. With skin depth, features of the conductor like electrical resistivity and magnetic permeability at a given frequency play their parts. |
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In order to improve conduction, which is the electrical current carrying the musical signal (or any signal that is), many cable manufacturers harness skin effect. Copper wires are silver plated to enhance transfer speed as the properties of silver in relation to the skin effect are better. Wikipedia provided the following table displaying frequency versus the skin depth figures for copper. Copper is relevant here because the core of the LessLoss cables is copper. |
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In Louis' mind, to invert skin effect was the ticket. If he could find a way to put something on top of his copper conductor, something with a very high resistance, the copper due to its skin effect parameters would 'push' the unwanted frequencies to the outer layer, effectively becoming a filter. Brilliant! All he had to do now was find the right material for what he calls FlowFlux technology. From the specifications of the DFPC, we learn that the copper core of each conductor has a surface of 4.72 mm2 or 2.25 mm Ø. LessLoss adds to a porous conducting material. No doubt that's the proprietary part. Nevertheless (could not resist a pun), we can speculate. The conductor dimensions are increased to a 'whopping' 6 mm2, or 2.76 mm Ø which means the porous conducting material is 0.255mm thick. For ordinary copper, that would work in the 100kHz region if we follow the above table .On their website, the Japanese company Taisei Kogyo explains nicely how a porous metal is made. It boils down to sintering out a form of carbon such that minute holes are left in the metal. Now the only feat left was finding the correct porous material with the necessary resistivity and correct skin depth. Then add the necessity to plate this mystery material atop copper wire and presto, we'd all know how to make our very own LessLoss dynamic filtering power cords. Aluminium? Nickel? Carbon perhaps? For our non-reverse-engineering purposes, it doesn't matter. The results do. |
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We did not give these cables any run-in at first. We simply swapped the power cords on the CDP, DAC, amp and both active woofers of our Duo Omega horns for LessLoss versions. Installing the cables straight into the wall via a home-grown extension was as easy as pie. The cables are very cooperative and the fit of the connectors is snug. Then the moment of truth arrived. Would the 'lesser losers' stand up against what we'd lived with satisfied for quite some time? Shock was the answer. After the very first tone, it was clear that something very special had occurred. With the cables literally fresh out of the bag, the sound image had made a step forward, giving more space to the stage depth. The backdrop there was a velvety matte black and any sounds on the stage proper began instantaneously. Now this might read as though we were transported into the venue but in fact just the opposite started to happen. The stage was transported into our room in all its glory. In our triple amp setup (main and internal woofer amps), the coherence between them was enhanced to the point of acting as a single entity. None of them appeared restricted in current nor delivery speed. The effectiveness of this filtering technology took us by surprise. Within the next few hours of listening, the calm extended further. After two weeks of casual listening, we thought the cables had settled in almost fully and the time came for the LessFun part, critical listening. So for a few hours, we abstained from emotional involvement and selected some music and a note pad. We started with a classic, the Naxos rendition of the collected Concerti Grossi opus 3 1 - 6 under Bradley Creswick. Louis, there's no coincidence. This might not be the best version but the rendition of the bassoons here is absolute worth your while. Never before had we heard the instrument so 'red' and 'wooden'. From Baroque to Renaud Garcia Fons was a small next step. His mighty 5-string upright revealed its wooden veins and Fons gave us a private concert right here on the 32nd floor downtown Rotterdam. A mix of classical and Oriental done right was found at Babel by Hughes de Courson. This is a compilation of Mozart l'Egyptian, Lambarene Bach to Africa, Songs of Innocence, O'stravaganze and Lux Obscura. It's a wonderful musical combination and now at last was played truly tightly. A smaller setting was the funny Musica Nuda CD 55/21. The first Blue Note issue by the Italian duo is again filled with vocal acrobatics on a steady bass foundation. Again Christina Pluhar brought with her L'Arpeggiata ensemble the fantastic voice of Marco Beasly along. Keeping dry eyes at "La Tarantella" was not easy. Did we quickly stop taking analytical notes? There was no use in trying to criticize the effects of the cables. Listening with full pleasure and without any 'negative feedback' from the system spoke volumes. We then listened for hours more to the Hadouk Trio, Natasha Atlas, Serge Lopez and they all sounded completely wonderful. |
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We also tried the LessLoss cable in a completely different setting - on a computer monitor. Our big wide screen Dell LCD screen benefited greatly from the cable swap (previously generic). When one sits behind a screen for hours on end, the eyes get greatly stressed as we do not shift focus enough. The distance between eyes and screen remains constant. You should really do focusing exercises but do we? Not enough for sure. With the LessLoss cable, the image on the screen was much more stable and less tiring. Whatever Louis Motek has discovered, it is unique as far as we know. For a very reasonable price, he delivers a product that is an absolute recommendation for every good system. Only a good system benefits from these cables. A good system by the way needn't mean expensive. A good system is simply a coherent match of various parts. When connected to the wall with LessLoss cables, those parts become the system. |
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Quality of packing: Well packed for the cause. |
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LessLoss website
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