What innovative, unconventional cartridge designs can you recommend?

Possibly Australia has a similar requirement for a locally-usable and code-compliant power cord.

Actually it does, but "high end audio" seems to operate on a different planet.

Nobody complains until the insurance company refuses a claim from the fire or other incident on the basis of non compliance. Then of course it is the nasty insurance companies fault.

@dover 

Thanks for sorting out what LIAN DUNG means!

I am only making a bit of a drama because of all the fuss around power cords in the audiophile world!  My SoulNote distributor tells me all his clients use audiophile grade power cords.  At the same time, SoulNote say only use the supplied cable.  Catch 22.

The supplied cable is labelled 250-Volts 16-Amps.  There are only two Australian plugs in the market, one is rated for 10-Amps while the other has a wider earth prong for 15-Amps and is normally only used in caravan parks.  I just used a 10-Amp power cable I had lying around.  For goodness sake, the unit only draws 28-Watts although its toroidal transformer is rated for 10 times that.

Obviously I could cut the Japanese plug off and fit an Aussie one and I might dissect the cable to see if there really is something special - shielding, twist perhaps.

Aussie rules for electricity are really stupid compared with the ring main system now prevalent in the UK.  You can basically have a tree configuration with heaps of outlets, but you will trip the circuit breaker if just two full power appliances are switched on at the same time.

Yes, there is Consumer Law in Australia, which says goods must be suitable for the purpose sold.  It also provides statutory warranty which is the expectation a normal citizen has about how long a product should last based on its price and place in the market.  Worked really well for me with an OLED TV that failed over 3 years after the manufactuer's warranty expired.  Got what I paid back in full, and bought the replacement model which had halved in price, and pocketed three grand.

@richardbrand 

So the specs for the 250v 16A max cable from Lian Dung are 3 core with cross section of 0.75 (18awg ) -1.5mm2 ( 16awg ).

Typically for a power cable for an amplifier you would use 2.5mm2 - 14 awg - which will handle 25 amps - well in excess of most amps. Some of the audiophile jumbo cables run up to 5mm2 which can handle 30amps plus.

So you can see Soulnote have supplied a cable that may in fact outperform more expensive larger cross section cables regardless of cost because there are electrical downsides from having larger cables than necessary.

With regards to the distributor - of course they want to promote after market cables - it helps their bottom line. 

I've got power cables here up to $10k, and I can tell you after experimenting with 3x1.5mm2 power cable from Gotham Audio ( model number 85215 ) as well as no name cable for low demand sources I found it quite illuminating. I used to distribute quite a few cable brands, and over the years I have successfully improved some systems by replacing the audiophile power cables with customer kettle cords.

Always pays to try with an open mind - many audiophile cables are tuned for a specific sound, which may or may not suit a given system. 

@dover 

Power supply in Australia is very different from the North American experience.  Apart from the slower frequency, we need under half as much current to get the same power.  As you know, current is the real villain when it comes to cross-sections of conductors, and also switching noise.

Every suburban street has three phase power. Normally every third house is connected to one phase, but you can pay more and get all three phases.  My place has a 3-phase sauna and a 3-phase sander!

One experience of mine shows where a power cord made an absolutely repeatable, measurable difference.  My free-to-air terrestrial television reception is pretty marginal.  When a KEF subwoofer was powered up, it obliterated the TV signal.  The KEF has a built-in class D amplifier and it was pushing sufficient RFI down the mains cord to take out the TV signal.  A couple of $10 ferrite rings round the same power cord fixed the issue.

@richardbrand 

Yes - I am in New Zealand, so we have the same environment.

What I do know about digital is that it dumps a lot of noise into the earth as well.

I basically run all the signal amplification ( head amp, preamp, power amps ) through one line from the mains board, and run all other ( digital, turntable power supplies ) through a separate line. I like to keep all amplification on one line to minimise earth loop noise.

I had a bad experience from an Australian distributor, when I picked up some stock off him, we ended up with a blown amp because he had chopped the plug and installed a fancy Furutech with phase and neutral round the wrong way. Unbeknown to the distributor that particular American company uses black for phase, and he made a very expensive assumption. Shudder to think how many amps he’s blown up in OZ.