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  Cable Products > Micro Lab Cable Micro Lab Cable More Info Starting at just $119.00!  There are so many reasons to upgrade the power cords in your system that it is difficult to list every one of them. Improved shielding, better connectivity and unrestricted current flow are chief among the compelling reasons to upgrade. Problem is: they can be expensive. A recent survey shows the average price of a High-End 6 foot power cord at $733.65 (109 models surveyed). It is easy to spend as much on upgrading the power cords in your system as you have invested in some of the system components themselves. Although both the Lab and Mini Lab cables are already priced well below the industry average, we are always looking for ways to answer our customers’ request for an even more affordable solution: one they can use as an affordable system wide solution for power delivery, or as an adjunct to the highest end power cords they already have. Introducing the Micro Lab Cable! Double shielded, 12 gauge, high purity copper and a hospital grade connector are the primary features of the Micro Lab, but pricing is perhaps the best feature of all. $119.95, and we’ll happily put this power cord up against most of the competition. It’s good? In fact, it’s really good! What’s inside? We start with the same 36 gauge finely stranded OFC copper that you find in the Micro’s bigger brothers the Lab and Mini Lab power cords.  The copper is then rope laid into 3 individual 12 gauge bundles, and a jacket extruded over each conductor.The use of finely stranded OFC copper provides increased surface area for electron flow, and the 12 gauge bundle provides enough copper mass for proper current density. The more copper inside the conductors, the less restriction we have on the sound in our systems. An off-the-shelf stock power cord has less then ½ of the copper as the Micro Lab and is almost never made of such finely stranded copper. Then we shield it Shielding is a critical element in a power cord. It is important to shield the power conductors from outside RF as well as shielding the noise coming down the power cord from the rest of our equipment. A few off the shelf stock power cords offer shielding, but it is always a single sheild and rarely even offers full coverage of the cable. This allows the RF noise to scoot right on through. And as sheilding dramatically increases the manufacturing cost of a cord, you will almost never see a sheild on a stock power cord. The Micro Lab is double shielded. First there is a foil shield that is wrapped around the three power conductors.  Then comes the copper braid. Using the same OFC copper as the conductors inside the Micro Lab, we weave a multi-strand outer copper braid around the entire assembly. Relying on the double shield technique found in the Micro Lab Cable, we can boast noise wide-bandwidth rejection of up to 70 dB from inside or outside noise. Lowering the noise floor is a critical element in both audio and video reproduction. In audio we hear a cleaner sound with a lower noise floor. In video we see blacker blacks and less grain in the picture. Why does shielding matter? We are asked this question all the time. If your home has hundreds of feet of unshielded wiring inside the walls, how can a 2-Meter shielded power cord make any improvement whatsoever? Great question. The answer is simple: if we don’t have the option of shielding the wires in our home’s walls from radiated noise, we can choose to shield the most blatant noise generating parts of our homes – our AV systems! You got it. One of the noisiest environments in our homes is the AV systems themselves. Digital products, video products, even power products all generate lots of noise and so it is critical to keep the umbilical power cords that feed these systems clean. Remember, radiated noise reduces intensity in an exponential fashion relative to distance. Even a few feet away from the noise source will dramatically lower the level of received noise. The wiring in our wall is typically a few feet away from these noise sources and so relatively unaffected (although it is affected by transmitting devices like cell phones). Relative that is, to the power cord that is sitting within an inch or  two of the noise generators.So, it is easy to see that shielding your power cords is extremely important to your system’s performance and double shielding gives us that extra edge and is considered the minimum level of shielding acceptable in a high-end system. Then we add the connectors Perhaps the next most important item on our list of features is the connectors themselves. It is important to choose a high quality male and female connector if you are going to take advantage of the power cord’s benefits. We went to our primary vendor and OEM partner for the Power Port, Hubbell, and asked if they had an affordable hospital grade AC male connector that would still meet our stringent requirements for our AC connectors. In fact, they do and it is manufactured by their sister company, Bryant. The Bryant hospital grade male AC connector is an exceptional value. It is fully UL listed as a Hospital Grade device and has all the qualities we would look for in a connector’s grip and connectivity. This made the Bryant connector a very nice fit and required very little alteration to acquire maximum Audio/Video performance. And of course, as we always do, the female end of the connector is a very high-grade IEC device that is extremely well made and also falls within PS Audio's very tight requirements for AC performance. Finally, the outer braid The last step in the building process of the Micro Lab Cable is the outer nylon braid. This lowers the static  charge of the cable and provides a scuff free outer protective mesh that is both attractive and functional. This increases the lifespan of the product and keeps it looking as good as it sounds for years.The Micro Lab’s a winner! We’ve tried and tested a lot of after-market power cords. None of them have come close to offering the features and benefits found in the Micro Lab Cable at anywhere near its price. This is one heck of a great power cord and if there are any stock cords in your AV system, we recommend that you replace them with the Micro Lab Cable. A minimum investment that is guaranteed to improve the performance of any product. Time to go for it! We think the Micro Lab is an extraordinarily priced and powerful way to outfit your system with one of the best values for a power cord on the market. The Micro Lab Cable. Would you like to audition one in your home? It's easy! Click here ro arrange an in-home audition, or click here to find the name of your nearest PS dealer. |
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