... abit confused: how does a power cord affect the presentation of sound...
I am electrical engineer . Auburn University (War Eagle). Can't really see advantage of "super" power cables. That being said, I did buybuy: https://www.pangeaaudio.com/Pangea-Audio-AC-14-Power-Cable Because they look cool. That's it, the look cool. |
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Hello i didn’t read everyone’s post but I would agree with starting with clean power : independent power aka home runs if possible with good quality wall outlets ( I use the porter ports ) CABLES make a difference BUT that doesn’t automatically mean that the sound will be better or and more importantly that you will enjoy the sound better. Some experimentation is needed ! I approach a cable from the perspective of not wanting it... So in it goes and then I’ll listen with music that I’m very familiar with and usually I can tell immediately if it’s something I might want. I will give it a chance and let my ears adjust but again I hoping I won’t like and then won’t need to buy it... If you are struggling to hear a difference then effectively there’s no difference. And sometimes a cable will effect the sound that makes somethings better and some things worse - like more detail at the expense of some musicality etc. It always boils down to what YOU Like. BUT Then every once in a while you try something and your jaw drops...Those OMG Moments when the improvement is so significant that you won’t want to take the cable out. Having said all that I wouldn’t expect cabling to be as significant as a component change. You mentioned using a HT Receiver as a power amp with a separate pre Receiver’s are amazing in all they accomplish in one box BUT there not really designed to be used that way. And it’s very difficult to get a HT system to be as good as a separate 2 channel system for music. But that is a different discussion... Bottom line Cables make a difference / Trust your ears and your taste !! Don’t fall into the trap of using cables to correct a mismatch or something like that. Experiment !! And hopefully get to a place where you won’t feel the need to experiment............... at least for a while lol |
It seems crazy that after spending a few thousand on a component that comes with a stock power cord that spending another thousand on 5 or 6 feet of power cord can make the component that much better but it does. Unfortunately my experience is that the more you spend on power cords the more you get back. I have been using Wywires Platinum cords and am amazed at how much better the music sounds. I have their digital cords for my DAC and Music Server and they make a difference over their regular power cords for those components. They have 40 % off sales several times a year at CableCo or direct online. If you are going to start with one component start with a source or at least the pre-amp. The amplifier can't sound any better than the signal it is getting. |
Andy2, my deepest apologies, I got it wrong and I was in error, I feel bad! I now see that your not trolling any one, you never did! You are one of the good guys and an asset to this community This is what I have to say: djones51, it is you that is trolling!, there is nothing in my original post that suggest that I've deliberately provoked any one. but you have in your last post! |
A lot of what is said is mostly true about not needing a 6k power cord with an exception of a couple of things. This is my take from competing in Car Audio Competition and from speaking to my best friend who works for Entergy as an engineer. The longer the cable run, the better the gauge needs to be. The only issue related to that is that our power lines every 50' or 100' utilize amplifiers to boost the power. This is why we have a major in-flux of power and AC noise. Hence why people utilize some type of power conditioners. Unfortunately when you use a longer standard cable with your amplifiers, you're asking the power supply in the amplifier to work harder and create more heat which is typically the enemy of sound quality. Shorter cable from the wall is better to reduce that. I'm my Roush Mustang, I use 2 gauge for my power cable to my fuse block to 4 gauge to my amplifier and for the ground, I use two gauge but only a foot of cable for my McIntosh car audio sound system. In a perfect world a lot of what he said makes sense but unfortunately we don't live in a perfect world. I'd rather support the system in my home VS having to send them off to a repair shop due to power loss which hurts the power supply. You don’t have to spend a lot of money to get a good power cord to help protect your system. It all depends on the length you will need. In another words, how fare your amplifier is from the socket. Most standard power cords are 6 feet long. |
To add to discussion on power cables: no comments on audio quality - it is in the "ear of beholder," but just to point out how the cables heat up. We burn in 100% of our AC EMI filters and we take FLIR images in near-infrared spectrum - if you are interested, here are couple of them that I put on our web site:
https://www.onfilter.com/cable-temperature They get pretty toasty. Whether this heating affects audio quality is a subject to a separate discussion. The objective notes are that whenever you see higher-than-desirable temperature, there is an insertion resistance affecting output impedance of power line and, perhaps, some fluctuation of supply voltage with the load current on the receptacle. The cables we use are industrial grade; if you are using thinner cables and/or consumer-grade plugs/outlets, the thermal effect is likely to be much higher. If you are interested to repeat these experiments, we use FLIR' One Pro (https://www.flir.com/products/flir-one-pro-lt?model=435-0013-03) - no endorsements, this is just what we use. Fluke also offers similar products. |
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. |
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 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. |
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.... |
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.... :) |
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.... |
:) 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.... |
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... |
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. |
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.» |
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." |
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.... :) |
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.... |
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.... |
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.... :) |
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? |
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. |
