PS Audio Power Cords

It’s what’s inside that counts
How do we create a new power cable that outperforms the xStream Statement SC? Well, to use a restaurant analogy, if you’re already serving gourmet food cooked by the world’s best chefs, then all that is left for improvement are the ingredients themselves.

The Premier power cable was sweated and worked over for a long, long time by PS Engineering. Concocted from a blend of the world’s finest conductors: – PCOCC single crystal copper and solid 99.9% pure silver solid core – it’s surrounded by multiple shields and encased in a luxurious cloth outer jacket. To top it all off, it’s then connected with our hand machined male and female connectors, resulting in the Premier SC – the new standard by which all others will be judged.

To build the Premier, we started with a solid silver, solid core 14 gauge power cable. This is the same gauge

power cable as most equipment comes with as standard.

We listened to the performance of this solid silver cable and while the top end and soundstaging were breathtaking, the midbass, body and bass response of the power cable were lacking.

To build up these areas of the sonic tapestry, we began to add pure, single crystal PCOCC copper in varying strand widths, from fine 36 gauge to heavier solid core until is sounded perfect.

What we wound up with is an overall wire gauge of 7, which is huge! 25% of the Premier is solid silver and the balance is PCOCC single crystal copper.

But performance is the key
We’re convinced that nothing has even come close to the performance levels of great equipment when it is plugged in with the Premier. From power amplifiers, to CD players, preamps and DAC’s, the Premier is the defining connection between the wall socket, Power Plant or power conditioner of any kind.

The Premier brings a new level of refined beauty, power and spacious performance to high-end, high-performance systems. It’s a breathtaking openness, with quick and lightning transients and a warmth and richness we’ve never experienced in any system. Those are just a few of the benefits of powering the system with the Premier.

Conductors are the key in the Premier
Any power cable is only as good as the conductors inside and the level of shielding and connectivity it possesses. The Premier uses the two best conductors in the world, solid pure silver and single crystal PCOCC copper.

Silver is the best conductor on the planet
When Samuel F. B. Morse tapped out, ‘What hath God wrought,’ on May 24, 1844, the contact points on his telegraph were silver. The high amperage required to push the signal over iron wires from Baltimore to Washington, D.C., demanded a high capacity, non-corroding make/break contact; only silver could do the job.

Silver is used in most expensive switch contacts, but because of its extremely high price, it’s rarely used as

a large electrical conductor for AC power. But that’s a shame, because silver has the lowest resistance and the best conducting properties of any material in the world! And it’s nearly perfect for AC power distribution.

In the Premier, we spared no expense to build the world’s best power cable.

Solid silver, while the best conductor, isn’t the only ingredient needed. We’ve found that for best AC power delivery, silver must be combined with pure copper in just the right amounts for the highest level of performance. Actually, it’s a bit like a chef refining his recipe.

That’s where PCOCC comes in.

Almost unobtainium
In 1985, a method for the extrusion of a grain free copper wire was developed by Professor Ohno in Japan. Known as The Ohno Continuous Casting Method, molten copper is forced out of the mold and very slowly draws the grain down the conductor’s length, creating a ‘single grain structure’.

Unfortunately, there’s only one machine in the world that creates single crystal copper. It’s owned by Furukawa metals in Japan. This one machine is so specialized that they can only run it every other day. The casting machine needs an entire day to cool down and be prepared for the next run.

This rare single crystal (SC) copper is nearly ten times more expensive than OFC copper and is the second best conductor in the world (next to silver). Not surprisingly, it is difficult to purchase. And, as you might imagine, there are relatively small quantities made at any one time.

PS Power has secured futures on this material for both the xStream SC Series of power cables as well as the Premier. So we can build our power and audio cables with only the finest of materials, directly cast out of this single machine in Japan.

Putting it together
The importance of the conductors cannot be understated. By combining both solid silver and PCOCC copper in just the right proportions, the Premier is able to lay claim to being the best power cable in the world.

But shielding these pure conductors from the outside world is important as well.

The Premier has multiple shields and each of the shields lowers noise. The individual shields make sure that

noise from within the power cable as well as noise from outside the power cable never see each other. The Premier is one of the quietest power cables in the world.

But shielding can only do so much. In the xStream and Premier cables, the AC gets cleaner as it passes through the power cable. The outer jacket of the Premier acts as a filter to actually clean the AC power as it is delivered to your equipment!

Ferrite, a magnetic material that acts as a noise filter, is impregnated in the Premier’s outer jacket. So the cable cleans as it delivers unrestricted power to your equipment.

Despite the heavy PCOCC and solid silver content, ferrite jacket and multiple shields, the Premier cable is still flexible enough to be used in any situation. So you can see why this is truly a state of the art power cable by anyone’s standards.