Most detailed budget power cord under 150$ used?

Hi Zuio. My thoughts:

Audioquest nrg x3 - I once purchased a used audioquest silver digital coax cable for $150. I wasn’t really impressed. It was okay, but it certainly did not beat my $20 solid-core Beldin 1694A from Blue Jeans Cable. My view on Audioquest is that it’s an upper level "Monster Cable" type. They are okay, but I’d rather spend my money on other options. I have not tried any of their expensive stuff. Also, this NRG X3 is only 15awg.

Pangea 14se MKII - I really like the cable material here. All solid core and litz conductors (which in my experience are superior to stranded conductors), and you get one Cardas conductor. However, they have cheap low-end connectors.  And they are gold-plated, which is not what you want.

Wireworld Aurora - I have listened to a Wireworld copper interconnect in my system. I actually really liked it. It was very nice, had good texture, but was just a bit rolled off in the high frequencies (not bad at all really). I have looked at Wireworld products and I really like their design and construction. The connectors on this cable are really nice quality - copper alloy (which is probably a phosphor bronze like the Furutech). However, both the conductors and connectors on this cable are silver clad (which is not my personal preference). If you wanted to buy a ready made cable, this is the one I would pick from these 3 choices. This is also the largest of the 3 at 12awg.

If it were me, I would think about buying a really long Pangea cable and chopping it into sections and then use Furutech connectors. However, the Pangae uses Cardas type litz wire, which is a real hassle to work with. You need to strip the litz polymer coating off the individual copper strands if you do DIY. I’ve tried this before with Cardas and it hasn’t really worked effectively. You need a solder pot to melt the polymer off the wire. You can try it if you want.

Hmmmm, it’s a hard call between DIY and the Wireworld. I would contact TheCableCo.com and see if you get get the Wireworld from their lending library (it will cost you a fee 5% of the cable). You can try it out on your streamer and decide what you think about the sound. If you like it, you can just apply that 5% towards the cable and keep it. Otherwise, you can return it and try the DIY option.

And yes, the connector will influence the sound just as much as the type of wire conductors.

Second thought - the DIY option using the Neotech chassis wire will be superior to any of the 3 pre-made cables because you are using OCC copper (Ohno Continuous Cast), instead of the OFC copper in the pre-made cables, as well as using superior Furutech connectors. The closest option to this would be the Wire World Electra OCC ($450 at 1 meter, or $700 at 2 meter).

It’s more expensive and will push the cable over $150, but you could use Furutech FP-3TS20 power cord cable with the Furutech connectors for DIY. The FP-3TS20 is $96 per meter (or roughly $30 per foot) at Parts Connexion. It’s 14awg, but it uses OCC copper and it wrapped in a UL approved cable.

If you don’t need a 6 foot cable, you don’t need to make one. I have cables that are 2.5-3 feet and they are excellent.