October 19, 2012

Power Wow Now! Supra LoRad 2.5 Power Cord.

The Supra Lorad 2.5 has a simple shielding scheme, utilising only a gold coated tin foil, wrapped around the conductor cores.

Just when you thought I had my fair share of power cord play, here's another one to consider! It's the Supra Lorad 2.5, available from A&L Audio Station as loose cuts from reel at RM$89/meter, which is very reasonably priced, considering the quality on offer. The chunky 13AWG, tin plated conductor core is shinny and rated to carry power loads of up to 16 amp, now that's more like a power cord for feeding power amps. The shielding method is rather simple, with only a gold coated tin foil wrap around the conductor cores, but if it's effective, then why not?

The Supra Lorad 2.5 power cord is directional, do take note when terminating.

I bought a meter of the Supra Lorad 2.5 home for trial(with hope that it works). Termination is much easier and faster due to it's simple internal design and layout. Like the Furutech FP-314AG power cord, I choose to use the same grades of China made generic gold plated IEC plugs on one end and the Indian made, BS standard, 13 amp fused MK Duraplug, the other end, again in the interest of keeping cost low. The termination work took less than 30 minutes. I then proceeded to plug the Supra Lorad 2.5 in between the wall socket and the Denon AVR-1612 surround receiver.

The finished cable.

From the very first movie, tittled Red Tails, the solid bass response tells me that I've found what I've been looking for. The Lucasfilm movie which script fictionalized around the all African American member squadron of Tuskegee Airman serving the USAF during the closing days of WWII, has plenty of heroic dogfights and combat tactical fighter vs bomber scenes between the USAF and Hitler's much feared Luftwaffe. The rumbling engines of the WWII bombers and fighters were weighty and there's enough low end grunt now to carry the big aircraft engine noises and loud dynamics of explosive scenes convincingly. I should mention that the CGI graphics on this movie is impressive too. I've never experienced any symptoms pointing to lack of power or the 5 x 120 watts rated Denon receiver running out of breath, at least not with the Supra Lorad 2.5 delivering the juices. All other aspects being equal, I couldn't detect other areas of performance improvements.

A comparison, Furutech FP-314AG(left) and Supra Lorad 2.5(light grey).

I do find the qualities of the Supra Lorad 2.5(when used to power AV receivers) rather complimentary to the Furutech FP-314AG(used to power front end, in my case the Pioneer BDP-140 Blu-ray player), when put together. The results of both these power cords in my AV system are highly commended for what is a small budget outlay, in the scheme of things.

Supra is sold at all A&L Audio Station outlets, contact Yap(Wah Chai) at 03-79582884.

2 comments:

HS said...

For better performance the minimum length of a power cord should be at least 1.5m. Try it ;)

Big E said...

HS,

I've heard about some some of that theory, but considered it urban audio myth.

However, I do remember that certain Van den Hul cables do come with only 0.75M length, because AJ VDH reckons that was the best sounding lenght for that particular cable product!

So it might be true after all?

Ha! Ha!