Recently I was talking with the designer/president of a prestigious cable manufacturing firm about his various AC cord offerings. Get this: even *he* doesn't completely understand why they do what they do for a sound system! No argument from me that they do work wonders; no question about that at all. Certainly the builder has his theories, but all the numbers still don't explain everything...
Case in point: based upon feature-set alone, about 18 months back I bought a fantastic famous-name $10K preamp sound-unheard. Initially I was not all that satisfied with the sonic performance, although very good, it just wasn't what I expected it to be. In fact in some respects it was less satisfactory than the $2K preamp that it replaced. Since I only change one thing at a time, after about a week allowing for some burn-in time I then decided to experiment. Shelving & footers accomplished some audible changes, but that wasn't the answer. I figured that the AC cord was fine because I had experimented extensively with different cords on the first preamp & had found a good combination. Finally I decided to change the AC cord again & I am still amazed at what happened; the new preamp completely came alive & sang just beautifully. I'm now very happy with it of course.
So use your ears & don't worry about the physics. And if you haven't done so already, burnish all of your AC cord prongs with at least an ink eraser, or better get some crocus cloth from a good hardward store & shine up those prongs bigtime. Follow with a quality contact cleaner. Your ears will thank you.
Case in point: based upon feature-set alone, about 18 months back I bought a fantastic famous-name $10K preamp sound-unheard. Initially I was not all that satisfied with the sonic performance, although very good, it just wasn't what I expected it to be. In fact in some respects it was less satisfactory than the $2K preamp that it replaced. Since I only change one thing at a time, after about a week allowing for some burn-in time I then decided to experiment. Shelving & footers accomplished some audible changes, but that wasn't the answer. I figured that the AC cord was fine because I had experimented extensively with different cords on the first preamp & had found a good combination. Finally I decided to change the AC cord again & I am still amazed at what happened; the new preamp completely came alive & sang just beautifully. I'm now very happy with it of course.
So use your ears & don't worry about the physics. And if you haven't done so already, burnish all of your AC cord prongs with at least an ink eraser, or better get some crocus cloth from a good hardward store & shine up those prongs bigtime. Follow with a quality contact cleaner. Your ears will thank you.