Fair enough... what I can say is the Furutech S55N and DPS-4 sound significantly different (and imo much better) vs past power cables I've tried, both of the Furutech brand and of the same general design made by lots of other manufacturers. And I did dismiss the original S55N as more of the same at first, but it isn't, so my previous beliefs about the standard power cable geometry and shielding need revision. The fact the S55N and DPS sound like they do is evidence this is true, and I'm sure they also sound nothing like the other VFD cables you've experimented with because there's significant and major differences in the one area that matters the most... the wire.
I agree you can make some judgments based on looks... some things are well known, like how much heat a 500W class A amp must dissipate and a small chassis would need to be fan or liquid cooled... but cables are not so obvious and you can't make the same kind of judgments with any certainty. Or you can, but be prepared to be proven wrong.
With so many people here in agreement who have actually used the cables in question why not just grab a couple meters of DPS-4 cable and try it yourself? Use your favorite connectors and give it shot. I bet you'll be just as surprised as I was at how it sounds.
A few points...
- A double shield functions just like a single shield with a better rejection ratio, so it can be seen as simply a better shield.
- Shielding is often a good idea with digital components and those with SMPS type power supplies as they can be noisy.
- The potential negative effects of shielding can be reduced by spacing the shield away from the conductors, and not by the winding technique. The new Furutech cables are fairly large diameter...
- The winding technique I was talking about has nothing to do with the twisting of the 3 wires together, it's how the individual strands of copper are arranged within the wire it's self. Instead of the individual wire strands being clustered together in parallel there are 3 groups of strands... an inner, middle and outer layer that counter-rotate. I believe this reduces the negative effects of typical stranded wire.
- The wire has teflon insulation, which is the best imo and a big part of why it's so good.
- The carbon/nano infused layer seems to reduce noise and distortion in the same way many have described with the NCF parts and results in particularly nice upper mids and highs.