I don’t doubt that mains cables are anything other than a crucial part of any hi-fi system but I have never, in my many years in the industry, heard such a profound improvement from a power cable. It has to be said that our Dem Room system is hardly poorly wired. At the time it was sitting with a full Sarum Tuned ARAY loom in place and frankly it was pretty fabulous. Good enough to make concentrating on the more mundane aspects of my job slightly difficult, the temptation being to slip off into the Dem Room and check a few tracks out.

The new version of the Sarum power cable though – connect it to the source component and a layer of noise I never knew was there just disappeared. Quite extraordinary. So we put another one into the DAC and the same thing happened again. And then we put another one into the pre-amp and the same thing happened again. So of course finally, we needed to make one up for the power amp – and yes, pretty much the same effect. There’s a thing with power cables. Generally the first one you put in is seemingly the most impressive. With the new Sarum (not yet named Super ARAY) power cable though, every one you put in meant the same sort of step forward. That lack of noise really has to be experienced.

What so surprised us - and frankly six months on still does – is just how much lower the noise floor of a system really can be. You really don’t know just how much noise there is until it isn’t there anymore. More though is just how much that lack of noise adds to the music

Manufacturer site

• The Chord Company