Why would you need a shielded power cable in a non industrial environment? The power entering your home has traveled through tens of miles/kilometers of unshielded wire, shielding the last meter or two will do nothing.
In a home as long as the insulation has a voltage rating of 300V it doesn't matter the type of insulation. TPE has one advantage in that it's more flexible than than PVC. The other physical characteristics of TPE really don't come into play. TPE is appropriate in an industrial environment where chemical resistance, number of flex cycles, bend radius, etc are legitimate design concerns.
I already thought something like this would happen, but with your post I don't even know where to start.
Let's start with PVC.
- Vinyl chloride is proven to be carcinogenic (especially testicular cancer, liver cancer and brain tumors), mutagenic and can lead to disruption of the endocrine (hormone) system in humans.
- Non-biodegradable
- Toxic to the environment, animals and humans, PVC is one of the plastics that is harmful to health and the environment in every phase of its life cycle - from production to disposal.
- PVC causes copper to oxidize more quickly.
- Significantly poorer dielectric than other plastics.
- Significantly poorer mechanical properties than other plastics.
- Thicker and heavier cables with the same insulation voltage.
- Important point, it is super cheap, both material and manufacturing, that's why it is used, all other properties are inferior.
A thick bundle of PVC cables behind an audio cabinet or rack is particularly ideal, where heat builds up and these cables can evaporate well.
TPE and PP
- Better protection of copper against oxidation than PVC (keywords copper ions, oxidation, hydrocarbon).
- TPE and PP insulation in cables is significantly stiffer than PVC, but can be processed thinner due to the better insulation and mechanical resilience.
- TPE and PP are a significantly better dielectric than PVC, right after PTFE and PE.
- TPE and PP are significantly less hazardous to health and are recyclable.
And since you mentioned it, due to the requirements, test conditions and bending cycles, you get oxygen-free copper of the highest specification as a bonus, but you probably already know that.
Shielding
Shielding in power cables fulfills several tasks. I have never experienced a correctly connected shield (only connected on the mains side) having a disadvantage in terms of sound.
- Interference in small signal cables (e.g. RCA) is reduced.
- Interference in devices is reduced (plastic housing, devices without a ground connection).
- This can also reduce the potential interference with BT, WiFi and networks in audio devices.
- Interference with the power supply is very rarely caused by interference from outside, but rather by devices such as electric heaters, LED/energy-saving lamps, kitchen machines/appliances, cheap computers, air conditioning systems, etc.
- But a lot of interference comes from the audio components themselves, namely from poorly filtered switching power supplies, which transmit interference back into the power cables.
Depending on what kind of devices you have, how many devices you have and how close all the cables are to each other, shielded cables can be very useful. The entire small signal range and especially phono is very susceptible to such interference/interference.
And not everyone has just one combination device without additional cables for listening to music.
Dielectric is generally important in cables, but perhaps not so much in power cables. But I don't like PVC and my audio systems will never have cables with PVC as a dielectric or sheath.
And let's be honest, saving a few cents or euros on a system in the four or five-figure range to get something cheaper is a bit ridiculous. We're talking about €3-10 per meter and €1-4 per connector for high-quality material.
My experience in this area is based not only on over 35 years of audio, but also on my decades of experience in high-availability IT.
I can remember two incidents very well.
A closed network consisting of 6 servers in an operating room that sporadically crashed or restarted completely.
And a server room with several racks and high-performance servers where the same thing happened.
In both cases, it was massive interference in the power grid and the network cabling that led to crashes and restarts. And according to the monitoring devices used for the power grid, there was no overvoltage or undervoltage that led to the problems.
Locations were in the middle of large cities.
