Hey guys how are we all?
Just have a quick question on the effect that an upgrade power cable has on a system. I just wanna make sure that I don't come accross as doubting the benefits as I have never had the chance to hear an audio grade power cord I'm just wondering how the principal works. What I don't quite understand is how the external cabling being upgraded (eg. output of wall power point) can effect the quality of the power going to the equipment without the assistance of a power conditioner.

I understand that a power conditioner can get rid of the 'sharpness' or 'dirtyness' of the power coming out of the wall and then can be fed into the equipment without and degridation with the aid of an audio power cable but how is that these cables can clean up and enhance the sound of a standard pwer plug located on the wall (considering that this is run through heavy duty/low quality power cabling between there and the power station.) wouldnt the vastly un economical and unreasonable requirment be that all of the cabling between the wall and power station be upgraded to this standard or the benefits are simply lost.

Thanks in advanced.
Cheers
-jake

I am not going to tell you cable A sounds better than cable B but i can tell you that the AC cable can make a difference and the way i came to REALLY wake up to this is the following :

I was using a power staple gun to put some carpet treads on a staircase and none of the staples would penetrate the oak hardwood stairs.i had to take out my hammer and bang in the last 1/4 inch or so.This was getting on my last nerve because i knew this particular staple gun had power and power to spare at that !

Then it dawned on me (lightbulb over my head went off and my co-worker said "Rick ! What the h*ll is THAT !" and pointed over my head ) that i was starving the gun !

not enough juice was flowing to the staple gun so it was not puching in the staple with full power !

The simple fix was a heavier guage power extension cord.

Once I used a heavier guage cord the staples seated fully into the oak.The lighbulb goes off again over my head and i think "if it does that to a cheesy little staple gun,just what could the cord mean in the context of my system ?"

All my amplifiers received heavy duty power cords after that and as i felt like it right on through the system.Can i hear a difference ?

Can't say for sure but I don't stress the power connection any more !

Oh yeah.My DIY cables are three wire but use a two prong heavy duty plug at the wall end and have a separate ground wire spiral wrapped down the cord and terminated with a spade lug so i can choose if i want to have an eaarth ground or not and still be allowed to switch the "polarity" of my power cable to see which end is at the lowest ground potential for better overall system sound

but that is another subject for another thread........

Hey Rick thanks alot for the responce.
I understand the situation with the staple gun and it is quite a good comparison IMHO so thanks

What I still fail to see is what the need for the same kind of heavy duty power cable as used for this kind of purpose when using a Hi-Fi cd player or something simular. The device draws <.5 of an amp and a very low Watt/Hour rating compared to a single computer. And in running LAN's we have safely run a high powered UPS with 12 servers attached with now power problems to any of the computers and the power supplies feeding the computers with very stable 12V & 5V rail voltages...

I could understand perhaps the effect a very very low quality cable would have on the device but a standard or perhaps if required 'heavy duty' cable would according to physics provide it with the same power as any others.

This again is stretching my knowlegde and I am not here to start flame wars/prove the cables have no effect on a system (quite the opposite.. i'm sure they do). I just lack the knowledge of why this effect takes place.

cheers
-jake

some more of my thoughts: In your situation you replaced the cabling with higher quality heavy duty cable that was providing the device with sufficient power to opperate properly. This makes perfect sence to me but this was simply upgrading the cable to the standard that would have been used for the cabling within the buildings walls. Had this cabling been to weak for the task the replacing of the other cable would have little or no effect on the power of the staple gun, so in this situation would be considered a bottle neck.


cheers
-jake

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That is the nominal current draw. There can be peaks of current usage many times larger. By providing the capability of producing more current, dynamics improve. That's the same reason people use 100+W amps, on average you're really only using 1-2 watts of that power.

But the "smaller gauge wire provides more current" explanation only goes so far. A lot of people think improvements can be made to the sound quality by swapping cords of the same gauge. I've not messed around with this too much, but I have noticed results going from cheapie $10 cords to low-priced (in audiophile terms) specialty cords. That jump makes *much* more improvement than when I lived with a Virtual Dynamics Nite-II power cord with a retail of over $1000.

thanks for that. I understand the jump from the standard cables. But wouldnt that peak limit still be bottlenecked by the ~$2p/m internal wall cabling.

cheers
-jake

Time to get a power line conditioner that stores energy for peak use or a regenerator Or run a dedicated 20a or 30a line

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good questions,i will try to answer them.

First.I don't want to get into a flame war either but i need to state up front I am not one of these exotic cable guys.What i see with most anyway is the very same bulk cable mated to some pretty plugs then covered in a nice wrapper .This is then sold more for sex apeal and cool factor than for any sound qualities.
Yes cables DO sound different ,but only the ones using a different basic bulk cable can sound different from another no matter how it is wrapped up.

now that that is out of the way

like the analogy with the staple gun,the sudden surge of current when pulling the trigger and the failure to deliver the current,music is not a steady state medium.
In other words,it is always in flux,moving as music does,and this means the moment to moment current demands are different.
The device in question can be loafing along doing fine at say 100ma per channel and a sudden peak may ramp it up to say for argument,2 amps.
Now this two amps is well withing the range of even a cheasy lamp cord so the overall delivery of current is not in question,but what about the speed of the current being delivered ?
Maybe,just maybe this thin cord is allowing the full amount of current through but there is a small pause while it "pushes" its way through !
Ever pour water through an open bottom can and then pour the same amount of water through a funnel ?
The open can is instant,the funnel you wait for some to trickle out then you pour in more water and repeat the process until you have used up the water.
Any potential bottleneck will slow down the water so why not an audio signal ?

Can i prove this ?
No.
do i have evidence ?
No again.
But it is something that if you extrapolate the staple gun theory makes sense,at least to me,so why take chances when the fix is so simple ?

point 2-house wiring.

In truth i use standard 12/2 house wiring romex for my power cords.nothing fancy just hardware store house wiring.
There are camps out there that say you need a bigger guage from the wall plug to high power componants such as big power amps but something in the back of my head tells me this is foolish.Why go bigger when the "bottleneck" has already occured ?
Again i have no science to back this up,just common sense (I hope) and what i think is true.

I also try to keep the cables under three feet if possible.Not for any esoteric reasons but because this stuff is a real b*tch to work with man !
REALLY hard to strip out individual wires from the Romex sheathing,extremely stiff to "twist" into a hot/nuetral pair (more on that later), a real bear to strip unless you have the right stripper :an electricians stripper is a must just like a coax stripper is a must for coax.The proper tool for the job man.
And finally it is a pain to terminate.Not to mention a total lack of flexibility once it is in the system.
But use it i do.

A while back i read an article on how we have no clue how the power transformer in our audio gear is oriented as to lowest ground potential .From what i read,every AC connection to the power supply transformer has a kind of polarity where if every single tranny in the system was connected to the AC mains in the same manner the sytem noise and ground noise will be reduced in a noticeable manner and it requires a simple VOM measurement at the primary side of the transformer.

OK,I'll bite.I did it and it worked !

Some times a screwy notion actually has merit.There is not always science behind it simply because we do not yet know what to measure on some things but the proof as always is in the listening and my tired old ears noticed a difference,and not a small difference i had to squint and imagine.The low level background noise no longer seemed to follow (modulate with) the musical passages and where there was once and unoticeable noise there was now dead quite !

Dead quite can be scary and you find yourself reaching for the power switch.
"Is this on ? Did I break something?"

But this new "tweek" brought a new set of problems.In order to perform the test or to orient the plugs of the AC you really only have two options and both ssuck.

1-cut the ground pin off the AC plug so you can orient the plug either way

2-disconnect the power transformer internally and swap the leads.

what to do ?

I came across something interesting in one of my catalogs (can't remeber the name just now but it will come to me,a U.K. company).
They had AC cords with three wires but the plugs were only two wire plugs.Hot and Nuetral.
The ground was spiral wrapped on the outside of the cable jacket and terminated in a spade lug so you could if you need to attach it to the house ground through the screw on your outlet plate OR have a dedicated audio earth ground system .

COOL !

I went out and purchased big a** industrial AC plugs,the big yellow ones ,a spool of 12/2 romex ,some IEC connectors for the equipment end and proceeded to make my own power cables .

IEC three wire connection to a hot/nuetral wire twist which in turn is covered with a "fancy" jacket then on to the two wire AC plug.
The ground wire is then spiral wrapped down the cord and terminated in a spade lug.

Now i could spin my cable orientation at will !

what could be more cool ? More simple ? More of an improvement ? And so damn cheap !

This type of cable also allowed me to do a "ground lift" where necessary to get rid of system ground loops simply by not attaching the spade lug to earth ground.Again a simple and cool solution.
Not all audio componants need to be or even should be grounded.The only caveat in my system is the power amps.Them I always ground to earth with a heavy guage ground.This being the final stage and one where there is enough juice to take your behind and throw it across the room it is a good idea to have a safety ground connection here.
Again,not science just my opinion and how i feel about it.

So that is the how and why of my personal AC power cords.Nothing fancy,nothing I can really prove though I did explain my personal reasons behind the selections,but what works for me and makes me hapy

as always YMMV but i hope this helped a bit

Ricksta

**EDITED FOR SPELLING**

I really should read my own writing once in a while !

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Seriously, I think this is the number one most sought after answer in all of high-end audio. Maybe not so much about how it pertains to current, but "I have thousands of feet of crappy wire in my house, not to mention miles of it outside, how is 6 feet of magical cord going to make a difference?" They should offer an X-prize to anyone who can answer it thoroughly and accurately.

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actually the surprising thing is how good house wiring actually is man.
Unless you live in an older home that has sub standard (and dangerous) cloth insulted multistrand AC wiring the romex or BX (armoured cable for damp areas and underground runs) uses a pretty high purity solid conductor copper and this is insulated in a PTE dielectric.

The REAL bottleneck is your breaker box and only as much "service" your amperage is ,is what will enter your home without adding on another box or upping the service of the main box.

The test is running an appliance and when it cycles do your lights dim momentarily ?

Another seldom looked at point : the actual runs back to the panel.For every daisy chained outlet/switch/light in a room you are sharing power with whatever happens to be on that particular line.I occasionally still do house wiring and when i do i always suggest a separate line,a" home run" for both a dedicated audio/video AC source and one for the computer AC source.

This eliminates a cause of interference on the AV line,nothoing but pure copper back to the panel,plus actually aids in keeping glitches out of your computer.

And NEVER put audio equipment on a GFI ! NEVER NEVER EVER !

not disagreeing guys,just adding some from my experience with house wiring over the years in the trades.

I had to comment here. I used to be a total skeptic about wires in general (even interconnects) but at the same time I had more invested in my audio gear than I did in my cars (and we're talking about $45k in autos). A friend brought over a silver coated copper, single conducter, "medium" quality interconnect one evening. We did "blind" A/B testing with each other for a couple of hours using the cables between the CD player and the preamp. Well, not sure if it was the beer or the weed but I swear to God we both could hear a definite positive difference with the silver wire.

Ever since that night, I have been a believer in upgraded wires... at least for interconnects. I am a fan of DH Labs and have built my own cables for some time now. I still have difficulty paying much over $40 for a pair of wires. I have been a regular on usedcable.com and still search for good buys on used stuff. The most I ever paid for wire was about $200 for Kimber 8TC (terminated by me of course) I bought at handmade.com for my Dynaudios.

OK... so then I bought a couple of power conditioners for two of my three systems... mostly for surge protection but again... I swear I could hear a positive difference with the conditioners (PS Audio). Blacker background and wider, deeper soundstage were quite apparent.

Now to the point. I recently bought some relatively cheap ($20) replacement power cords from Quail (not part of the group buy on here) that have shielding and ferrites attached, along with being a heavier gauge... If they're good for my computer, why not my audio components? I can't hear any difference at all.... but you know what? I don't care. They make me feel good and that's worth something.

The AC power cord is the one place I have the most difficulty understanding any possible reason why it could make any difference at all (assuming of course the present wires are of a sufficient size and have good contacts). I want to believe but I just can't. I hope I'm not going to hell. Perhaps believing is the biggest part of hearing a difference?

Have some fun and make your own. Make 'em pretty. Make 'em big. I'm pretty sure they'll make you feel good inside even if you can't hear any difference. Ever notice how your car seems to run better after it's just been detailed???

The law of diminishing returns definitely applies to wire more than any other audio component in my book.

for the ten bucks or so per cable I am spending I sleep better knowing I eliminated one more potential problem area.
and for me personally with all the crap in my AV multi-room satv + outdoor antenna system having total control over all the ground connections is essential for avoiding ground loops.even then it is a pain.

As far as power cables go, my main concern is construction. I want my cable to fit in the AC outlet and IEC inlet well and not have it be a potential fire hazard (you hear sometimes about things like power cables and extension cords being used with really thin wire that overheats). I don't think you need to spend a whole lot to get a good solid mechanical connection, really, but I'm looking forward to experimenting with the Quail cord I'm getting from the group buy. (I keep seeing them at a hospital I'm doing some work at, and it's getting me very curious about the audible difference it might make.)

First of all thanks every1 for giving me some of your own impressions on the question and your experience, and a HUGE thanks to rick who really has built upon my very small knowledge I had on current and power draws of equipment (up to now was limited to what i learnt in class this year...).

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That is pretty much all I can think that would cause this difference in sound, as many people percieve the difference as 'impact' and 'dynamics' both of which are related to the speed of delivery in my experiences. Another question here to clarify this for myself, the current traveling through the wall will stay constant and will not peak with the current draw from the device attached? If this is the case then wouldnt it be the major exception to a bottleneck of the power quality due to the cabling found in our walls?

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You really lost me there mate... I can't claim to understand much when it comes to grounding components and 'ground loops' which was a major park of the switch box argument that I couldnt grasp. How is it that ground can influence the sound of your equipment?

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Done! got my dad to do a direct line from my wall socket to the mains and then compaired to the other socket running in my room and noticed a change in the background noise and micro dynamics (prob only due to the lack of interference), this is what actually opened me up to the effect power has on a hi-fi system.


Thanks again for the feedback guys.
Have a good day
cheers
-jake

Tuberoller may kick my butt, but I'll use an auto analogy here to explain what I think may be happening with upgraded power cords.

Nearly the first upgrade a car nut will make is to get an aftermarket air intake system. These usually run around $250 or so IIRC. They all seem to increase horsepower at the rear wheels by about 5% to 15%, as long as there are no other huge bottlenecks in the system. Not a big difference, but an increase none the less.

Now one could ask, "But there is air everywhere around your car, why would the last few feet into your engine matter?" But matter it does, because the aftermarket air cleaner cleans up the turbulance, and often provides a cooler (and therefore more dense) air charge. Maybe the last few feet of high quality power cord does the same thing? Unfortunately, you can't measure the increased performance on a dyno.

At least this is my theory, as I can definetly hear the difference between at least some power cords.