Computer power cable and desktop audio

As near as I've been able to figure, good power delivery has a HUGE impact on computer audio - in fact, larger I believe than with hifi audio and THAT'S at least one part that the majority of audiophiles, as I see it, have so far been comparatively a bit slow to uncover. The potential for performance gains here are much more than most would venture to guess, although I can see that beginning to change at some point...especially in view of all the powercord proliferation there is these days. I know a guy online (Alan Maher Designs - facebook) whom I trust that manufactures power cords especially for this purpose that top the $1k mark and he says they blow the lid off computer audio performance (I've bought a lot of other hifi-oriented power conditioning gear from him with great success and find it easy to believe him). He also makes stuff for computers like electrical isolation platforms, cat-7 cables for streaming and downloading specially designed and made by him and other gizmo's that increase the isolation between the computer and the rest of everything else in your home (and vice-versa since the isolation works in both directions). Such a fully tricked out setup like that might run at least, say, 2 or 3 grand and, while that's certainly pricey, I have no doubt it would be worth it...to the point, for example that you need not focus on obtaining (or chasing) the latest and greatest in computer audio technology and in that sense I could see it saving rather a lot of cash. But, his ideas are still new and largely as yet undiscovered by both the audio AND the computer camps. But, I expect that will change. At any rate, I hope you can see that all this sort of thing may well end up being the future of computer audio - in the end it may just be a matter of how far you're willing to take it, application-wise and money-wise. But, experimenting is always in order and you may come across some excellent-for-the-money solutions of your own, if you're just willing to give it a shot. At the very least, beg borrow or steal some other kinds of pc's and see what happens or look into some rudimentary power conditioning, new or used. Hopefully, others with more experience in this arena may want to chip in here. In general though noise does dissipate with distance and the farther apart all your interference sources are (components, computers, appliances, cellphone chargers...in short, anything that is plugged into your home that is either on all the time or has a sleep mode at all), the less liable they are to interfere with each other's performance. The problem is, noise travels freely through the inwall wiring on the all 3 legs: hot, neutral and ground. Also, all electrical noise travels to the circuit breaker box where it's then redistributed all over the house (This is why sometimes dedicated lines can subjectively help a great deal with hifi system performance and sometimes not so much - they simply end up increasing the distance between the system and the rest of the other noise sources in the home (physical isolation), but since noise travels on all 3 legs, dedicated lines don't otherwise reduce noise or filter it out (electrical isolation). Two-way noise filtering scattered around the home (including at the circuit breaker box) is a smart way to go, if you're interested in all that, but Alan is the best one to talk to, you just have find him on facebook (Alan P Maher) and friend him to do that. Hope some of this helps. John

So do you know from experience whether or not the sound quality of a computer mains cord has an effect, or much of one, on desktop speakers run off a DAC?

A friend of mine has a small desktop setup with DAC and we tried 3 different pc's (over about a 4-week period) and although the cords were not especially costly or anything, they each did have their own decidedly characteristic sound to them and 2 of the wires had a bigger impact than the PS Audio pc (forget which one...think it was lower down in their line up) being used on the DAC (as compared to the DAC's stock wire). Or at least that was the conclusion of my friend since I wasn't there at the time he had actually upgraded to the PS Audio pc. But, I would think for changes among the pc's like what we heard you should be able to hear it with anything but the worst of speakers...better bass, soundstaging, highs, air...lots things, really.

I put furutech power cables on my a/v system, which has a computer for streaming and pvr function - the difference was clearly audible.

Having played also with my dacmagic and replacing it's power supply I can say with certainty that good power cables are very beneficial to all components including digital sources.

The one that really turned my head was replacing the power cord on my apple TV. Since its power supply was so imbedded I was not expecting the improvements attained.

One other thing that improved the sound immensely was a DH Labs toslink cable for both the apple TV and the a/v system

Hope this helps

Thanks. I noticed a big sound improvement on my Samsung LCD TV, along with my computer, when I switched to Pangea AC-14 power cords. Same when I went from a Monoprice "premium" Toslink to a Silflex glass. The improvements didn't surprise me so much as their magnitude. Got me wondering how far away from the end point cable sound character matters.