... abit confused: how does a power cord affect the presentation of sound...

.... but a terrible thing to waste.

The brain is a wondrous machine.

You will hear it when you believe it.

Equating all perception with hallucinations and placebos is first, self defeating, and second, immature knowledge...

Think 5 seconds about that:  how do you explain a step by step incremental process of qualitative modifications translating in a better S. Q. ; a sustained hallucination in time ?

« We need brain with the ears but especially some consciousness »  -myself  

You will hear it when you believe it.

djones,
Thanks for the interesting article.

mahgister,
Fully agree with you.
Hearing is believing. Nothing can beat this.

Some violonist choose ancient instrument some other modern one, in these interesting tests, the choice tough is for each their own....

Thanks for this more than interesting article djones....

In an audio system the choices of components is not objective truth also....In some case cables whatever the price makes little differences, greater in other case....

At all times trust your ears for choosing something you will love, not for establishing objective truths....

« Truth hurt my ears, your voice do not » - Groucho Marx

Interesting about the Stradivarius. Read about a test they did with master violinists who picked the new violins as the best sounding over the Stradivarius when they didn’t know which one was playing. Trust your ears not your eyes.

https://www.livescience.com/44651-new-violins-beat-stradivarius.html

Ya. No music along the power cord but idea is the same. No?

No.

b4icu,
I have already said. Trust your ears. Measurements do not tell the whole story.
also...
please don’t get technical. I can’t help with that.

If a power filter is required (and it does!) buy a power filter.
It cost 1/5 of one of those fancy power cords, but filters much more than 5x a cable.

Any addition of an active electronic component, never mind how small, will add to the noise level... :) At least a cord add not a noise of his own being passive....Engineering is the art of trade-off...There is always a cost to pay if someone add an electronic component to the gear or to the system....What i say is about active filter, but passive filter is perhaps a good idea... I prefer my minerals and stones.... :)

Yes, i use passive minerals to filter my grid.... With success at peanuts costs...

I will not argue further because adult brain are opinionated and my goal was reach, hi-fi at low cost, and with only non orthodox homemade methods... I succeed... :)

If i had confidence only in measurements the cost to improve would have been way higher.... Happily i trust only my ears and play with the 3 dimensional embeddings of my audio system with my ears experiments guidance only... :)

« Dont ask if it is possible, create it» - Groucho Marx

« It dont take genius, it takes only time» -Harpo Marx

>Measurements do not tell the whole story. Play A note with a cheap >violin the meter will show 440Hz. Play the same note with a Stradivarius >the same meter will also show 440Hz.
>Verdict? Trust you ears.

The dominant frequency of both will be 440hz but the spectrum of frequencies will be totally different and absolutely measureable.

FYI, I’ve been comparing Anticables to my looms of very expensive MIT and Transparent stuff.  The Anticables speaker cables are stunningly good.  Transparent Gen 5 IC’s seem to deliver best source transfer and my MIT Magnum Digital cable is unbeatable for my BluOS Vault!  Their PC however is a tremendous bargain.

Mr. dave_b
No answer, could be of more ignorance. 
How many cables do I need to try?
How many $ do I need to spend?
This is the lowest argument of audiophiles. 

Mr. madcow
How much filtering can a cord provide?
If a power filter is required (and it does!) buy a power filter.
It cost 1/5 of one of those fancy power cords, but filters much more than 5x a cable.
More than that. If you call the issue by it's name: Filtering, than plese be kind to provide some Spec.:
How many dB it filters and in what spectrum?
than we could all compare apples to apples and get a good apple.

It really does not matter why...just try different cords and cables.  They will all sound somewhat different.  You decide which is best for you!

Measurements do not tell the whole story. Play A note with a cheap violin the meter will show 440Hz. Play the same note with a Stradivarius the same meter will also show 440Hz.
Verdict? Trust you ears.

Ya. No music along the power cord but idea is the same. No?

LOLZ noise floor -175dbz.   What do you think the noise floor is in your listening room (house) with everything off?

Make sense? No
This is about power cords music doesn't propagate down power cords.

You see the human wave at the stadium? Everyone is at their seat but the wave propagates forward. This is how music propagates down the wire. The electrons are not going anywhere but we hear music. At the stadium, there are big guys, small guys, thin guys fat guys, some standing and some walking. These are noises and that is why we never see a perfect human wave. In cables, the electrons are boxed in. Some electrons can move freer than others; some ran into obstacles (impurities) and some forced to move in different directions (external interferences). These are noises as well and that is why we don’t get perfect music. And that is why we get different sound using different cables.

Make sense?

Let's start at the beginning....... oh yeah,  the Power Cord.  Expect it to "probably" sound different.  If it's better, you win.  If it's worse, give it back, (if possible).  

Andy2 what's the impact  of the distortion spectrum on the relevant noise floor?

I guess Rob Watts know that....It is his job.... :)

But you can phone him in the case he dont know..... :)

Noise floor is meaningless without knowing the distortion spectrum.  

He is a great dac designer but he is sometimes very surprizing for me and i learned listening to him or reading him few years ago....Especially about noise. and what is audible by humans...But many things he say pass over my head.... :)

I bought a dac so good i never look back.... Then i read no more to understand this technology.... :)

That was a good YouTube by Rob Watts. Thanks for the link.

I know and i apologize....

My best to you....

I was talking to noname he's the one who brought up pseudoscience not you.

You are right djones.... Pseudosciences is not orthodox science, it is false or mad science or sometimes, but more rarely, not yet recognized future science.....

My affirmation after my own experiments that shungite+ copper work all along my electrical grid is not orthodox science, it is madness or simply an unrecognized fact for future science or engineering research....

:)

You can call me mad.... It is only my experience tough....And i was doing it for my S.Q. not for science for sure.... But how can a piece of shungite or quartz can have so opposite effect on an electrical field? Part of the answer is already  known science, perhaps something is lacking tough.... 

I don't think you understand the meaning of pseudoscience. Why don't you Google it Einstein.

«Science is not written in books it is written in nature only» - Anonymus geniuses in history, too many to be named....

« Our powerful ignorance is sometimes named technology»- Groucho Marx

Hi @mahgister:

You are 100% right! Nobody can change their beliefs. They will Google the s%#*^t out of Internet to find pseudoscience stuff to support their beliefs. Or is it religion? And forget about listening or trying. They would do nothing of that if it goes against their beliefs. Even if it were free.

.... I cannot change beliefs.... 

https://www.avsforum.com/forum/173-2-channel-audio/3061980-rob-watts-dac-design-other-audio-musings.html

It is an interesting video...

He speak about you can hear the difference between noise floor of -200dB vs -175dB.

Perhaps he knows his trade- off business.... :)

My own experince and experiments teach me that some pieces of minerals anywhere all along the electrical grid modify the sound coming from this modification of the noise floor... Discuss with him for brain resolving power in hearing .... :)

I put bags of beach peebles on the external electrical cable of my house and guess what that makes audible difference...

Rob Watts says that even adding a small electronic chips in a dac add noise that is audible by him.... He knows perhaps something....

I will let these arguments here.... I am absolutely not knowledgeable in engineering but i only want to speak about my simple experiments.... I use these experiments to improve my own audio system beyond all expectation.... Believe what you want.... I cannot change beliefs.... I am only interested in simple way too improve my system and it is working astoundingly at peanuts costs....All my controls methods are homemade and i had no scientific explanation for some.... 

:)

IM or intermodulation noise can be reduced below human hearing. Once the random noise floor reaches these levels of -160 dBFS  in a DAC noise from amps, speakers etc.. swamp it. It isn't audible to humans , dolphins maybe. 

The Benchmark DAC3 offers extremely low levels of harmonic distortion from all its outputs. Intermodulation distortion was similarly vanishingly low."

"No power-supply–related spuriae can be seen, and the random noise floor lies below –160 dBFS!"

"When the DAC3 decoded dithered 16-bit and 24-bit data representing a 1 kHz tone at -60 dBFS, the increase in bit depth dropped the noise floor by more than 30 dB, indicating that the Benchmark’s resolution is at least 21 bits."

Rob Watts the designer of dac even use noise floor modulation ( Noise modulation is the undesirable variation of the noise floor )to increase the power of resolution and naturalness of his dac :

« What does noise floor modulation sound like?

Noise floor modulation is extremely important subjectively - you perceive the slightest amount as a brightness or hardness to the sound. When it gets bad, you hear glare or grain in the treble.

Less noise floor modulation, smoother sound quality. The curious thing about this is that the brain is very sensitive to it, so you can easily hear it. Problem is that many listeners hear the brightness as more detail resolution, and so think it sounds better - but that’s another story.»

We can measure the amount of noise and distortion from that "ocean" and once those measurements show us it's not audible by humans then I don't really see the point of making it lower. From an engineering perspective I understand the desire for more and better but from a listener perspective it's not that important once you can't hear it. Unless you have very poor performing components the speakers will have the most distortion of anything else anyway.

Nobody hears the noise floor directly...

We hears a modification of the sound coming from some noise ocean floor so to speak....( the electrical grid of the house is an "ocean" of noise )

When engineer design the electronic component they do so trying also to decrease the noise floor of each electronic components composing an amplifier or a dac for example... It is always a trade off, because ANY new component will work but with a cost of his own in term of noise...It is a compensation business for the engineer to controls the effects of the noise....

Like you already know i am not a scientist, this is my experience and reading...

Once the noise floor is beyond a humans auditory perception does it really matter if it gets any lower?

:) my own ignorance ....

You are right for sure a fuse is not related directly to the working of the amplifier....

but that does not change the fact that anything that is in the audio system or in the electrical grid act on his own increasing or decreasing the noise floor...

Be it  even some passive minerals or an electronic component....

Electronic design on this perspective is an art of the trade-off....

Actually a fuse is not necessary for the amplifier to work it's a safety precaution. 

A fuse is necessary for the amplifier to work...
If the fuses modify the amplifier working and not only enables it,
Then the amplifier is broken,
Because the fuses cannot makes the amplifier works and modifying it at the same times....
But wait a minute, is the working and non working of an amplifier are not also a modification of the amplifier?

Your argument is not an argument sorry.....It is a mantra, a disguised opinion but definitively not an argument....

By the way i dont have any experience with the changes of fuses in a piece of audio....My opinion is that there must be differences, but my opinion is only that, my actual opinion, not an argument because i never try or experiment it....   

If a fuse modifies the ability of the amplifier to amplify the input then the amplifier is broken.

A fuse can modify the sound. A PC cord, a giant relative to the fuse, can do much more.

Opinions are only opinions....

Make an experiment to feel the effect of minerals on an amplifier electrical field...

Put a shungite piece over the transformer of the amplifier.... Feel the compression of the sound...

After that put a big Herkimer diamond and feel an expansion of the sound field...

This is no more opinion now, it is an experience....

Only experiment can give me S.Q. in my audio system...

Opinions has no value.... even mine....  :)

The few feet of power cord filters electricity about as good as your garden hose filters water. 

It does not matter how filthy the river is for as long as the water is cleaned before entering our bodies.

Very good remark....But,

i will only add that the electrical field of the house is one entity and anything put all along, even before "entering our bodies" will change it and affect the sound quality in a way or in another....

I know i experiment it and not with cables only....

It does not matter how filthy the river is for as long as the water is cleaned before entering our bodies. Similarly, it does not matter how noisy the signal is upstream of the wall outlets for as long as the signal is cleaned before entering the amp. This is where the power conditioner and better quality PC come in.

Ah yes, the voice of ignorance. Clearly a man who knows not of which he speaks. 

All the fuss is more of the sales guys wanting to sale, than us need the product.

That is just plain embarrassing. Too late enow to edit. Your only choice is remove it, or leave it there for the world to see. 

Let me understand:
The power cord is the last 1.5m of a power line way longer, as house power wiring, back to the power transformer etcw.
Those lines by nature are way longer than 1.5m (6ft.).
The thought that there is something wrong with the power cable, but the rest of the line is ok, or by having that last 1.5m would do, and the rest is of no importance, is naive.

Power. by nature, has a very low impedance, Audio is not a large consumer (A/C, oven or 3 phase power).
All the fuss is more of the sales guys wanting to sale, than us need the product.
There is really nothing in a power cord to justify spending the price asked.
A simple cable would do the same job.

It’s the quality of the juice entering the amp that counts and not the quantity. A right gauge cable can take care of the quantity.  But material purity, metallurgical structural and shield from external interferences define the sound. When I used the stock cable that came with the amp the sound was good except the highs were a little edgy. I switched it with Perfect Wave AC 10 and the edgy sound was gone but it took away too much high, so much so that the sound became dull and unlistenable. I got the same dull sound when I used the AC 10 with the streamer and power conditioner. But it worked just fine when I used it with the dac. So synergy between cables and equipment does matter.
Again my 2 cents.