How can power cords make a difference?


I am trying to understand why power cords can make a difference.

It makes sense to me that interconnects and speaker cables make a difference. They are dealing with a complex signal that contains numerous frequencies at various phases and amplitudes. Any change in these parameters should affect the sound.

A power cord is ideally dealing with only a single frequency. If the explanation is RF rejection, then an AC regeneration device like PS Audio’s should make these cords unnecessary. I suppose it could be the capacitance of these cables offering some power factor correction since the transformer is an inductive load.

The purpose of my post is not to start a war between the “I hear what I hear so it must be so” camp and the “you’re crazy and wasting your money,” advocates. I am looking for reasons. I am hoping that someone can offer some valid scientific explanations or point me toward sources of this information. Thanks.
bruce1483

Showing 16 responses by dekay

Trelja: I have the HT IEC adapter on it's way for my Pioneer CD burner. I will try upgrading the power cord for the analog to digital copies that I will be making. Upgraded PC's have worked on everything so far with the exception of my tube amp (which seems to be impartial) and we'll see if it improves the quality of the copies. I will also check to see if it makes a difference on digital to digital copies as well.
Stevemj: I don't beleive that measured distortion has a lot to do with hearing the differences (in my setup anyway). I use a 300B tube SET amp which must rate rather high on the distortion scale and almost every piece of cable that I have tried has a different sonic signature. I have tried many commercial 12 gage and 14 gage extension cords (as you are about to do) in my setup and they all suck by adding a harshness to the sound (a 50 footer actually made the images smaller and the sound stage had less height. If you have used the cords as I do (outside with power tools) be sure and clean the contacts well (mine were filthy).
Steven: I cannot see that it does with my setup. I do not have the spec's for my amp, but have to guess that the distortion is fairly high considering the output tubes used and the sensativity of the speakers. With the right tubes the 300B amp also offers more detail (except in the bass) than my Musical Fidelity amp which is solid state. This again seems to go against the grain. The distortion spec's on the Musical Fidelity amp are outstanding as far as spec's go.
Yes RedKiwi: It is a shame that none of the power supplies have been properly designed in your otherwise stellar system.
Oh no: Were you being sarcastic as well? The lines are becoming very gray to me at this point.
JC, just make hard connections to Bruce's outlet and the component (skip the plug and IEC), I'm certain that he won't mind (unless there is a thunder storm).
Other than room reflections, etc. if you like the sound of the L-100's why not try and find a single one for the center channel and then have all three refurbished at once? I don't do HT myself but have listened to some otherwise nice setups in which the center channel did not match on vocals very well.
It's probably not 702's fingers on the keyboard, just some auto reply device that he has devised, to take the thought out of not thinking, let alone hearing.
I do them all the time, it's my new life. Where have you been? I don't do judge and jury anymore (just make obvious observations on my own) so, you will have to answer the other questions on your lonesome.
Hi Bruce: No, I am afraid of burning the home front down with any DIY PC that I would attempt (regardless of what wire was used). I also gave most of my extra cable to a friend to use as speaker wire and just have enough left for additional IC's (never did do the second system). I think that the next experiment will be bi-passing the RCA's (on one end of the IC's) with a direct soldered connection. I just purchased a used TDS Audiophile and thought that I would try it on this. I would also like to try this with my speakers (bi-pass the binding posts), but have not built up the nerve yet. Maybe JC will want to try making up a PC, he certainly has the know how?
Lawyer: I will be doing the very same test that you just performed, in the near future, when I set up a new CDR to record tape (old cassette collection) to digital. I need to know which IC is best for the recording process which may be completely different than their playback ability. Now I regret selling some of my extra IC's as one of them may have been a clear winner for this application.
Good info to have as it will encourage me to play around with it even more. I suspect that the HT Truthlinks, that I sold, would have been nice for the job. Too late now.