Customer Comments on van den Hul's The Mainsstream Hybrid

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	Eugene Hi-Fi Customer Comments on The Mainsstream Hybrid A/C Power Cord


	Anonymous Customer May, 2006 I'll tell you, this Mainsstream cord is almost psychedelic in my system. On my Levinson preamp for instance, no power cord in the past has made a very great difference. This is kind of the received wisdom on ML pre's anyway, supposedly due to how well engineered the power supply is (theory being that the more basic the p.s., the more sensitive a component will be to PC swaps), so almost all owners seem to use the stock cord. I experimented a lot anyway, on the suspicion that this default approach may have been equally due to the difficulty in getting any aftermarket PC to work with the 380S (or any 38 series) chassis, which is not only height limited by the receptacle's position on the underside, but also the unusual variety of 90 degree angle it presents (most standard right angle plugs will actually route a cord out the side of the unit rather than the rear, if they even fit at all). My solution for swapping has been to simply flip the preamp upsidedown and leave some space above it in the rack, and not worry about retrofitting strange plugs. Anyway, the vdH PC has blown the received wisdom and my own experience out of water. I've used cords by Shunyata (2 kinds), Harmonic Tech, Synergistic, and CPCC, as well as the fake vdH's, and none has made a sea change, only minor at best. True, none were top dollar cords, but most retailed in the neighborhood of the Mainsstream or maybe up to $100 less. Plus, I run this preamp off AC that is first voltage- and waveform-corrected by the ExactPower, then isolated and balanced by the Power Wedge Ultra. Despite all this prior evidence, the genuine Mainsstream renders the 380S like an entirely different, and entirely better, piece of gear, making more of an improvement than either PLC. I hate to use BS sounding language like this, but really, it's as if before the insertion of the Mainsstream, this preamp merely made sound, albeit good sound, and now it makes music.