Missing Link Silver Plated Mains Cable
Missing Link are a niche UK mail order company who sell through Ebay and have their own website which specialise in high-end audiophile quality cables and connectors. I have always been put off audiophile mains cables due to their cost but the DIY prices that Missing Link were advertising seemed to good to be true.
Missing Link have been gaining quite a reputation in the hi-fi press recently for their excellent range of Opus mains cables featuring silver plated cable, silver plated connectors and silver plated plugs which are a fraction of some other so called audiophile mains cables.
What I like about Missing Link is that they keep things simple, you order the goods and they arrive by recorded delivery within 48 hours nicely and well packed in a secure jiffy bag with everything in sealed plastic bags. I have read with some disbelief the comments that the ‘hi-fi press’ about the lack of quality packaging. As someone who has worked for a mail company in the past, gentlemen please get a life - the packaging is sensible and cost effective but in my opinion the most important thing is what is inside.
So my order was fairly simple three silver plated MK tough plugs (EPS-600 @£12 each), three metres of silver plated Opus Power cable at £8 per metre, two Silver plated Marinco Hospital Grade IEC 320 Kettle plug at £26, a six way silver plated wall sockets ( no ghastly leds or switches) and a six way silver plated block (£40) which gave me a total cost of mere £152 plus postage and packing to completely upgrade my audio power to the amplifier and CD player.
All I then had to do was plug in my solder iron, use some high quality silver solder and build the new silver plated cables and plumb them in which took about 40 minutes - a doddle.
I also had a bagful of ferrite cores handy to suppress any EMI and these were used to further enhance the performance. On powering up I was amazed and very impressed with improvement that I noticed straight away, it was like the musicans had for years been playing behind a curtain and somebody had finally decided to draw them. Every sound just seemed more defined and more musical, it really was quite noticable and for the money I forked out, money well spent.
If anyone is considering upgrading their mains cables then I would strongly recommend this company as they have a fantastic range of high quality products and they also cater for the DIY enthusiast like myself.
More information on The Missing Link can be found at Missing Link Audio
This entry was posted on Wednesday January 25th, 2006 at 7:59 PM and is filed under Accessories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response.
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5 Responses to Missing Link Silver Plated Mains Cable
Charlie Says:
January 26th, 2006 at 11:48 PM
Does silver really make that much difference, i just don't get it I thought gold plated was the answer
Administrator Says:
January 27th, 2006 at 12:06 AM
Charlie,
This is what Missing Link say "......RFI shielding plays a far more important roll with the low current draw. The inductance of the cable becomes a far less influencing characteristic and therefore a weave or twisted cable will have many benefits .... as used in the Opus ..... but this still only goes part way to solving the problems of mains-born interference and its many contributing factors. One of these being the high contact noise generated by low conductivity brass. This is why we only use Silver Contacts on all of our Mains Leads and Our EPS range of Distribution Bars and Connectors. Brass has a conductivity rating of 28 on the International Conductivity Standard Scale using fully annealed copper as a reference with a rating of 100 . The High Purity Hard Silver plating applied to our EPS range of connectors has an International Conductivity rating of 106 .... thus greatly reducing the contact noise generated. "
Our personal view is try and listen you will be amazed at the difference silver makes over brass and copper.
Ruhayat Says:
January 3rd, 2008 at 4:06 AM
Have you tried hooking up your hi-fi system to a computer UPS? I have a fairly higher end one that comes with RFI screening and surge protection, and it's tightened up the sound on my system noticeably (I'm running Primare D30 CDP with Densen DM-10 amp and Dynaudio Audience 50 speakers). Bass has become more solid as well. Because it has a battery inside I can even run without the mains, albeit for only about 30 minutes or so. Can't say the sound is necessarily better, though.
Zaff Says:
May 18th, 2008 at 2:21 PM
Read the review and thought I would try to order one - gave up after 2 months of repeated phonecalls and no movement on my order. You got yours in 48 hours but it owuld have been interesting to see the review changes if you got the service I did. I reckon they just do not care about other orders - really unprofessional. Missing Link is the right name for these cowboys.
Hi-fi insight Says:
May 20th, 2008 at 8:12 AM
Zaff, That does not sound like the Missing Link I have dealt with at all, very strange.