Effects Of Power Cords On Electrostatic Speakers

@jasonbourne71 

Indeed!  But what about the 400 yards of cable from the local 8kV transformer to your home?   And the 10 miles or whatever to the power station?

You can't change those.  Why these people think six feet of cable, or a wall outlet, or even a fuse, is going to change all that bad electricity is a mystery to me.  Maybe one day one of them will explain.

1.   My CLX Anniversaries came with pretty heavy trick expensive looking power cords.  They sound wonderful to my ears.  What I say is substitute them with regular 12 gauge and see if you hear any deterioration.

2.   OP says he substituted the trick cords and listened.  But the big capacitors in the speakers will have stored the 'low quality electricity' and it will last a while before being replaced with the 'high quality' stuff.  So if he heard an improvement immediately, he was still listening with electricity from the regular wire.  Must have been expectation bias.

3.   There is no scientific evidence that power cords can change the nature of electricity.

@jasonbourne71 

Hi Jason.

Re your first post, most of us keep our ESLs connected to power full-time.  So when OP switched cords the speakers were already fully powered with electricity supplied via the low quality cord.

The low quality electricity is what comes through the low quality wire. OK my tongue is a little way into my cheek. The high quality comes through the allegedly high quality wire.    LIke in your book, wire is wire in my book, when it comes to power cords.

The capacitor starts full of 'low quality' electricity because that is already in there via the low quality wire.  The high quality electricity arrives only after the high quality wire is connected and replaces the low quality electricity over a period of time, related to the capacitor's storage capacity.  This is quite large on the CLXs at least, demonstrable by disconnecting the power while the music is playing.  So at the start of his AB on the trick cord, OP was still listening mainly via the low quality juice and was tricked by expectation bias.

I'm just going out to buy a £3000 power cord to run my record player...  NOT.

But I might get one to power the lamp that lights the player.  It will surely sound better under better light.

@roxy54 

Don't mean to be condescending but you and some others perceive that it does.

The only way of being sure is a properly staged double blind listening test.  These are difficult but not impossible to arrange.  Just changing a power cord is not hard or slow, but with powered speakers is the residue of 'old' electricity remaining in the speakers' capacitors will not allow a clean quick changeover.

Just for the record, have you experienced sound differences from changing the power cord to a turntable motor?

@ricevs   Thank you for insulting me.  Of course I listen.

Listen, not imagine.