Power cord made a big difference - Page 3

I love the power cable debates! I am always gutted when they, inevitably, get closed down. Nothing wrong with a good old, irrational argument!

People wonder why electricity runs through hundreds of feet of wire and all of a sudden you expect your short 6 foot piece of cable between the wall socket and amp to make a difference!!!
Well really thats a logical question, and i can see where people would think that way. Ive thought that way myself before. But also, everything with sound has to do with resistance, capacitance, inductance, etc.
So......if the capacitance and inductance is in a certain ratio over 100's of feet of wire, but all of a sudden through the last 6 feet, it changes ; Wouldnt that make the power supply in said amplifier transform the power differently? And if the amplifier being powered by that supply is powered in a different way, it can also sound different.

Alot of an amps sound does come from its power supply, like adding external power supplies to an amp rather than using the stock wallwart.

Bob Carver (Carver Audio, Sunfire, etc) did alot of research and testing with power supplies on his amps, and was one of the pioneers of Class H topology, utilizing rail voltage supplies in his amplifiers rather than huge transformers coupled by large capacitors, which took up space, were heavy, and caused heat.
His amps were very quick and had alot of punch because of this, but were very "wall dependant" in that they needed good ac current sources to work, and DJs using his PRO amps would sometimes work a venue with crappy wall outlets and their sound would suffer.
Alot if Carver amps did only come with a thin permanantly attached 2 wire cord though.
His more expensive amps had a removeable 3 wire cord.

If you change the capacitance of the AC cord, then your power supply will see the power differently and it still uses the same formula to change it and feed your amp. It doesnt know that you changed any perameters because it was built a certain way.
You would have to use a digital computerized brain in the supply to read changes and make adjustments to keep everything the same so the ac line and power cords wouldnt affect it.

There still is no need to spend rediculous amounts on cables though, because its only a matter of trying different cheap cables until you find that magic capacitance that makes your system sing, but cable makers know this and they make their cheaper ones with certain capacitance values, and make their better ones with other capacitance values, knowing youll hear the difference and swear that $100,000 cable is much better quality and worth the price.

All you really need is good hospital grade wall plugs and wire of different gauges, and types and try them until you find the magic number.

Ok, throw eggs now.

it's funny that the only people who are absolutely positive that cables cannot make a difference are always those who have the least (or no) experience with them.

yeah, the cables stories always boil down between two sides....that are not willing to make any compromise on their views whatsoever.

1) I hear an improvement, try it!
2) you're a victim of placebo, go to hell

I've got some cables stories too(not power cables though, but headphones recabling/extensions cords...that change the sound a HELL lot)...but who cares, we're all free to believe what we want.

I also know some ppl of whom I trust the judgment who said that power cables do matter...maybe due to shielding and whatnot, not just 99.999999999999999% purity.

The pro side always come up with examples, the negative side rarely do. Has anyone on the negative side tried various cables and found no difference in any of them?

My experience so far is with ICs and speaker cable there is a difference, with power cords sometimes there is a difference and with USB no differences.

The power cord was a RA Yello and it made a difference to my Arcam CDP and no difference to my Rega Mira amp.

I've shared my own personal experiences, but most do not read into it.. I don't believe in power cord and I did a ABX testing with various situations, and none of them show any sign of improvements over the other, unless the cable I am comparing is darn ****ty $3 cable.

Those who voiced their opinion a lot, seems like they are winning the debate. But in reality, many who don't believe in this have done/experienced throughout. We are just tied of arguing the same thing repeatedly.

Like you said, who cares, we're all free to believe what we want.

those of us on the 'no' side just know enough theory to laugh at the very concept of a 'high end power cord'. its just that simple.

you don't have committees performing rigorous tests on bigfoot/yetti/lochness claims, either. some things you just don't need to waste time on. I would not spend a minute 'testing' for santa claus or the tooth fairy, either.

one specific counter-example: myself.

real funny, huh?

ssshhh!

don't confuse them with logic

actually, you CAN repair things, but not with passive cords. you want to fix bad power: get a sine-wave based UPS. those are proper devices that recreate power, so that whatever comes from the wall *does not matter*. if your power is so bad, do that.

This is the point - "capacitance" or another measurable phenomena is key. Even then, the measured difference has to be enough that it affects what we hear. Does the measurable capacitance or inductance difference then create a measurable change in the signal (out of a source unit I don't know, out of an amplifier would seem more of a possiblity as described above)? But again, we are talking about something measurable...

Well then, ignorance is bliss. This is absolutely ridiculous, all you want to is live in a bubble where everyone around you totally agrees, I think there’s surgery for this it’s called a Lobotomy.
There’s nothing wrong with a little spicy argument, it’s an important part of how the human race has evolved. Otherwise we’d still be using spears and clubs. Lol.

Feelings are an experience, that's what enjoying listening to music is about, not about whether one's enjoyment is scientifically correct. It's sad that one can't give one's impressions on these things any more without it turning into veiled personal attacks, which 90% of the posts in this thread are.

If you want to make yourself useful, instead of crapping this thread, and consequently trashing the forums, which you and others are doing, why don't you make a good device to measure line noise and capacitance, and do some experiments on the effects of filtering power with capacitors or power cords acting as capacitors? I'm amazed that I've not seen a single argument about this crap where someone has actually measured anything themselves, so why don't we do so?

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. Should I crosslink the posts with all the insults and personal attacks you made to me in the other thread for giving my impressions?

It's funny people don't want to settle these things at Mini-Meets. I made 3 different power cables just to play with at the meet next weekend.

YUP! I'm not going to waste my time and energy arguing with people who will refuse to ever try a cable that costs more than $10 because "electrons don't care", it "can't possibly" make a difference, etc. etc. etc. I've heard all the excuses, couldn't care less. If you want to run your Levison or Krell with a Home Depot extension cord, please be my guest, and enjoy the sound that will result. Yes, even the dirt cheapiest cord will actually produce sound. This seems to be the problem, because even the cheapest junk will still technically function at the intended task, it must be the best sound one could possibly get, right? No need to go any further.

You stick with your $5 stock cords, I'll stick with my Shunyatas and Telsas. Deal?