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Ideal power cord lengths?

A quick Google search suggests there is consensus that the ideal power cord length is 2m.  1m cords sound “harsher” and 3m cords sound “smoother”, with 2m being the sweet spot.  The PS Audio dude suggests that the reason is that the reason is that all cords have an impact on the power, and the greater the length, the greater the impact, good or bad.

I know many will say there is no difference between a 1m cord and a 3m cord.  But my question is, who here has tried like model power cords of different lengths, and what were the differences?  
 

Second question:  How does length factor into the equation when you have a cord feeding a conditioner, then other cords feeding components?  If 2m cords are in fact the ideal, would 1m cords be ideal when using conditioners?

I tend to believe those that say that power cord lengths matter.  While I’ve not been able to do this test myself, I’ve had these two experiences:

  • Testing Audioquest Diamond and Nordost Valhalla 2 USB cables, the cables shorter than 1.5m sounded TERRIBLE by comparison.  Especially the .75m Audioquest Diamond vs the 1.5m version.  But the 1m Valhalla 2 also sounded awful in comparison to the 2m version.  In general this opened my eyes to how much cable length matters, and counterintuitively in the case of digital cables. 
  • I have a 2019 2m AudioQuest Hurricane Source cable from back when AQ braided their cables, and I also have the newer non-braided Hurricane Source, but 3m in length.  The new Hurricane sounds vastly superior to my old 2m Hurricane.  In comparison the older cord compresses the soundstage depth.  I don’t know if the differences are due to the differences in length, or if it’s due to a design change by Audioquest.

Very interested in learning of others experiences with power cord lengths.

 

 

nyev

Showing 3 responses by dekay

dekay's avatar
dekay
5,413 posts
 

Soix:

That rings a bell (think it was <$40 new or used 20 years ago).

 

DeKay

dekay's avatar
dekay
5,413 posts
 

I tried different DIY digital cable lengths (single ended RCA  non-coaxial types) years ago with a Bel Canto DAC 1 and ended up preferring a 90" (total length of both wire runs combined).

It was made as follows ("" below are copied from a 20 year old post I made @ AA) with 47 Labs OTA 26 gauge wire and in addition the 60" run was "loosely" looped around the 30" run.

"With digital IC's I preferred 1.5 over 1.0 and .5. I eventually made a cable 90" long with the hot lead being 30" and the neutral lead being 60" (this sounded much better to me than the equal length leads in the 1.5, 1.0 and .5, so go figure)."

The design was given to my by Richard of Vantage Audio in the UK and I used 47 RCA connectors on the cable (their RCA's contain zero metal and the wire itself make the necessary electrical contacts).

The odd DIY cable sounded better than a $200+ Illuminate (Kimber?) and another popular/budget digital cable of the time that was an unusual purple/mauve color (forget the name).

I don't recall the length(s) of the 2 commercial cables noted above, but they were @ least 1 meter in length (the purple one may have been 1.5 - but not certain).

I later read that the length of the digital cable (making a difference) also had to do with the design of the DAC itself (some applied - like the Bel Canto and others did not, but I did not understand the explanations).

My power cords are 5' BMI's and Absolute's that I think are around 9' (both sound good to me, though I prefer the heavier gauge BMI's on source gear - so once again - go figure).

 

DeKay

dekay's avatar
dekay
5,413 posts
 

Did "we" come up with a preferred PC length?

My unused PC's are all tangled up with my Liberty of London Paisely Tie Collection, so I thought that I might simply buy some new (untangled) ones. 

 

DeKay

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