Monstrous power cables

It’s been said that you’re entitled to your own opinion, but not your own science.  If a $1K power cable sounds better to you, than a quality standard power cord, so be it, but from a scientific standpoint, there is no difference. 

I say this as a licensed, professional electrical engineer, who has designed hundreds of power supplies over my 40+ year career, many for mission critical applications.  It doesn’t really matter what feeds the power supply of your amplifier, what matters is that the voltage coming out the supply is well regulated, clean direct current. In fact, this is the sole function of a power supply.  If the output of a power supply requires some exotic power cable to function properly, that doesn’t say much for the engineer(s) who designed it.  I’d be looking for a different amp with a higher quality design. 

@cleeds 

Well perhaps a person should look at who I called stupid or dumb…Not ! That  would be personal, I have not done that. Now calling a Gullible belief stupid or dumb that’s an opinion. Perhaps I should clarify what I mean by blind testing. A room full of people listening to A then B or B then A. Final decision better include a C that will be for.. there is no difference ! We can forget science or machines it’s all about hearing isn’t it ? Perhaps a few in that room will feel stupid and that’s also not on me Lol

Cheers

@jayheydt101 : +1 At last a sane response based in Reality! The belief that a meter or two of fancy wire will improve the sound of components belongs to fairy tales! Just as nuts as the belief that copper sounds warm and silver bright.

Unfortunately there's more to power cables than power.

Cables are not like pipes or water hoses.  Electrons don't flow thru them like a fluid.  Cable Geometry does matter.  The energy that is transferred is propagated thru the electromagnetic field.   

as prior have alluded to…much of this targets what I would call “mines is bigger and better than yours” male audio insecurity/vanity. I’ll choose two random power cable brands…Elrod and Electraglide. When you strip away all of the ornate decorative network boxes, heavy sheathing, and insulation and jackets, and individual cable path separations that then come back together at the termination…at the end of the day there are still only two ordinary wire metal conductors underneath, despite what perceived external visualizations might suggest….. sorry there just ain’t nuttin fancy happening as you grasp and marvel at that new stiff cord you just paid too much money for.

to add to my rant…why would anyone pay for audio anything labeled “Eros” or “Andros”…??? C’mon the subliminal targeting is anything but that…

I just purchased a couple of the Waudio cables from Amazon that mceljo recommend earlier in this thread. I installed the on my dac/preamp and amplifier yesterday. I had paused the song from MacBook, installed the new cables, and then pressed play again. Immediately it seemed to be louder and more bright. I cannot speak for other people's systems or what a $1000 cable can do but on my system with these cables over the stock ones, I did notice a difference. 

I've been told that the primary objective in cable design is to reduce resistance.

If you can’t put a sentence together, or your post is full of typo’s, spelling and/or grammatical errors, I tend to pretty much disregard anything you’re trying to say. Especially when you’ve never even tried the equipment or component in question.

It’s always the same "blow-hards" posting in here with zero experience screaming at the top of their lungs that something doesn’t or cannot work. Usually these people don’t have a system listed. Ever notice that?

If you can’t hear a difference in power cables, great.

Save your money and buy some better equipment.

A power cord can absolutely change the sound of a component. To say otherwise just shows complete ignorance and a lack of experience on the subject.

Winner winner chicken dinner, we have grammatical perfection side stepping his panties in a knot. Honesty prevailing quite likely buying better equipment.

Question:  How many of you have done a blind test to remove confirmation bias in reference to power cables?

The reason I ask is I was comparing DAC/streamers the other day.  In the past, I’d listen to one then swap out to listen to the other.  Doing it this way I heard a difference.  But it wasn’t a swapping back and forth type of a comparison.

I finally connected the two setups I wanted to compare (PS Audio Perfectwave with Bridge II vs Lumin U1 Mini into Benchmark DAC3) at the same time using the same brand of Ethernet cables and XLR cables to my preamp so that I could feed Roon to both streamers and swap back and forth using my preamp.

When I did this, I knew which input was what and, using three tracks from three different artists, I heard a difference.  The Lumin rig offered more distinction around the instruments which made the sound stage appear both deeper and wider.  The PSA rig by comparison softened the images and blended the soundstage more.

I preferred the Lumin rig, but not by as much as I thought I would.  I really thought the newer rig would provide more of an improvement in sound since the PSA unit is probably 10+ years old.  But I did prefer the Lumin setup by a slight margin.

Then I thought I’d get my teen son involved in my testing.  I showed him how to play the tracks and how to swap them back and forth.  BTW, I had previously used a decibel meter to get the output volumes as close as possible.

On the first test track, I clearly heard the same differences.  So I knew which was the PSA rig and which was the Lumin rig.  Except I was wrong.

Surprised by this we went to test track two.  Again, I heard the same differences.  And again I was wrong.  I preferred the PSA rig on the first two blind tested tracks.

The third recording the rig I chose was the Lumin setup.

My son, sitting off to the side while performing his duties, said that on the first two tests the PSA unit offered a cleaner and more distinct sound in the higher frequencies.  I’m guessing he heard more of a difference with his 16 year old ears vs my 57 year old ones.  I didn’t ask him what he heard on the third test track.

So I’m a bit dumfounded by my experiment.  I came away from that brief test with the idea that the better sounding rig was recording dependent.  This now knocks my desire to upgrade my streaming device into a loop.  

The power cables used were different, however, and I might try this again using PC from the same manufacture.  

I've actually stopped even trying doing A/B comparisons and instead rely on my reaction to the music over time. My system is also not at the same level as many on this forum and I'm not a quest to continually be unhappy and wanting something more.

Everyone has a limited ability to remember exactly how something sounded.

I've read that cables always require time to settle/burn-in to sound their best so a quick comparison isn't possible.

With the level of "everything matters" that people experience on this forum doing an A/B comparison is virtually impossible.  Even with parallel setups using the same equipment, do we really believe that they are truly identical?  Are they plugged into the exact same plug?  They are using different inputs with slightly different signal paths.  The sources are not in exactly the same location, so their relative positions to acoustic fairy dust is different.

Then there's the fact that different doesn't always mean better or work, sometimes its just personal preference.

If you've ever seen an interview with Jason from Schiit Audio, you may be familiar with his comment that after a couple of beers it's really hard to tell a difference.

Some of what I'm saying is intended with humor, but if you take everything you read on this forum it's not that far off from what should be expected.

Your son's presence could have literally changed the acoustics in your room resulting in a change in preference for you.

I think anyone willing to be open to confirmation bias and placebo effect will come to a point where it's impossible to truly know which is better.  My standard is if I have to repeatedly A/B to form an opinion it must not matter that much.

OP,

Learning to listen takes time. It is a big challenge. Music is constantly changing… instruments, notes, timing, etc. one’s mind focus workes by concentrating on one thing at a time… but with music, that is constantly changing and our memories for sounds are not that good. So, this creates a difficult problem when comparing equipment. If the difference is big… not a problem, but if subtle it is much harder.

With experience, one learns the nomenclature of describing sound, and as you perceive and understand sound you can then be able to discern greater and greater subtlety.

Professional reviewers take notes because they are able to discriminate among dozens of variables. It’s like the number of terms Eskimo have for kinds of snow (true or not). Novices have a hard time discriminating and describing sound. What ever it takes to get your arms around different equipment is part of the learning experience. This relentless pursuit to understand sound reproduction is what allows you to master it. Keep at it, you are doing great.

For me. After a brief listen, which helps me identify any major different characteristics, I just listen to whatever it is for a week. Then switch, for a week. I know what my system sounds like. I listen to it 3 1/2 hours a day… every day. The more subtle characteristics come out over time.. they are processed by my subconscious… the more powerful side of your brain. A good way to look at your mind is the elephant and the rider… the elephant is your subconscious and the rider is you conscious mind (the dialog in your head).

Anyway, I know a number of very experienced audiophiles. We can very quickly identify differences between components with complete accuracy in minutes… blindfolded or not, since most of us close our eyes when we listen anyway. There are people that can hear, identify, and characterize I will never hear or understand. The more you try the better you get. 

Pfffttt, listen to the music not your gear, period.

@audiodwebe , the power cords on your dacs are supposed to be different, meaning if you have already choosen the ones that are best sounding for the gear you are using.

More often than not, the ’wrong’ power cord will change the way some piece of gear sounds and even more if  that piece of gear is new to you, it may lead you to ’wrong’ conclusion.

I guess the best advice how to try something new, is to leave it in your system for some time and than after some period to change it with piece of gear you wish to compare it with (cord, or dac, or whatever)

It happened to me more than once, A-B changes,sometimes I could not tell the difference, or it was very subtle.Lets say, after a week (or two weeks for both things I wished to try) of listening, I could decide without a doubt which piece of gear fits more to my perceived reference of sound reproduction.

If you are honest with yourself (and why you should not be) the blind is not important, imho.

Recently read a good thought about blind testing written by Mike Lavigne, as he challenged anyone to assemble great sounding system by picking components by blind listening, vs his way with ’open eyes’....it was a joke, but he has a point

Thanks for all your suggestions.  I do appreciate them all.

Normally (like 95% of the time), when I compare a new component I’ll put it into my system for an extended period of time.  The only times it’ll come out quickly is if it bothers me and makes listening to music not enjoyable.  Those instances are pretty rare, however.  
 

With the recent comparisons, I wanted to be able to do a quick side by side test.  The reason:  I’d recently picked up three different streamers and DACs to test out and, as I don’t want to keep them all, wanted to figure out which one to let go.

First, I listened to the Stack streamer with the Denafrips Aries II combo for many weeks.  I thought the rig sounded great.

I then swapped to the Lumin U1 Mini with Benchmark DAC3.  I was, and still am, having trouble getting the Lumin to play nicely with Roon.  It keeps either stopping or getting jammed to the point I have to restart it.  Kind of a PITA.  It plays fine with the Lumin app but I haven’t figured out how to inport my ripped library which is also a pain.

The sound, though, has been quite impressive.  I enjoy this combo better than the previous one, though not by much.  This rig seems to extract a bit more info from the recordings.  And I had been listening to this rig for a couple of weeks, as well.

The reason I put the PSA back into my setup to directly compare the two was because I had finished taking fotos of the PSA unit, got the box from the crawl space, and was going to list it for sale.  But just for fun, and before bidding adieu, I thought I do the direct comparison.

And now I’m not so sure which I prefer.  Since I’m in no hurry I’ll probably listen to the two for a while.

For a fairly recent A/B experience, I have a Maverick Audio TubeMagic D2 DAC that has parallel solid state and tube buffer outputs.  I had listened to both regularly and formed a strong enough preference for the solid state output that I didn't even both having interconnects hooked up to the tube buffer output.  In the process of upgrading, I purchased a Schiit Modi Multibit DAC and found it quite enjoyable.  After several weeks of listening I had the idea to compare it to the tube buffer output on my MA DAC and oddly enough found them indistinguishable to my ear.  I can only attribute temporary preference for the Schiit Modi Multibit DAC to confirmation bias/placebo.  I also have a Pioneer Elite SACD player that was indistinguishable from the solid state output on my MA DAC.  I found some information on upgrading the MA DAC, so upgraded the tube (Western Electric 396A) and three op amps (Sparkos Labs) and now strongly prefer the tube buffer output and find it far superior to my SACD player.  Now that I have an upgraded interconnect on my DAC I don't even bother using the SACD player anymore as it's simply disappointing in a way that makes any A/B comparison a waste of time.

If time and money were no object, I have have two identical pieces of everything so that I could always compare A/B with only a single piece of gear changing.  I'd confirm that I couldn't tell any difference with the dual setup and then swap a single item and compare and see if I could distinguish a difference.  It would be fun, but totally impractical.

I read on a forum somewhere a great quote that if an audiophile can see a difference they will hear a difference and I think there's some truth to that though I don't discount that with enough time and effort some people will be able to distinguish things that are far more subtle than most of us can.

I am waiting for my Shunyata Everest 8000 power conditioner to arrive and I must say that it was the third most expensive component in my system.  Additionally, each  power cable cost as much as my phono preamp, a Sutherland 20/20 with LPS.  My sales associate has been spot on with his advice, so I ordered these, but knowing that I have 60 days to return everything.  So far, adding subwoofers and acoustically treating my mid sized listening room have made for the largest improvement to date.  Today, a Shunyata Sigma NR cable arrive, so I replaced my McIntosh MA12000's power cable and plugged the Sigma into the wall.  I am totally at a loss to explain how the music sounded like a veil was removed.  It was at the level of treating the room.  I previously believed that power cables contributed little to the systems presentation and that the power amps were the last place to upgrade power cords.  I was wrong.

@jasonbourne52  you have absolutely no clue, sorry. You're just assuming things and obviously have zero actual experience in the matter. There are numerous articles explaining that a component isn't "at the end of hundreds of meters of Romex". As many have stated above, it's not water in a hose. That's not how electricity works. And if you would have TRIED a good power cord, you would know, because the right power cord for a given component will give more readily audible improvement than ANY interconnect or speaker cable swap. 

@jerryg123 there's merit in what you wrote but this is an audiophile forum, hence we are mostly hear to discuss sound and components, aren't we? 

OMG!
 

So I finally decided to take the tape off of the monstrous cable to see if I could find the maker.  In so doing, I discovered that this cable, which is about the thickness of the center of a toilet paper roll, is wrapped in the following:

Outer nylon mesh for looks; black velvet material around the cable; plumber’s tape (yep, you read me correctly) in about a third of an inch thickness; then under that a fine steel mesh wrapped around the cable; then I think the next level going in toward the cable themselves is another layer of plumber’s tape.  I haven’t gotten there yet in the unraveling of this thing.

Needless to say, i was absolutely shocked that the majority of the girth is made up by an enormous amount of plumber’s tape.  One of the plugs is made by Hubbell and I didn’t see a name on the other end.

To think the original owner paid over $1K for this thing is…well, crazy had he been able to look underneath the pretty wrapping.  

I don’t think I’m inserting this back into my system mainly because I got tired of the thickness.  And the location of the plug made it almost impossible to move some speakers around closer to the wall behind the speakers because the thing literally stuck out damn near a foot from the wall!

I wish I could post photos here.  You would not believe it.  It looks hand-made.

Crazy!

FWIW, I doubt it was 'steel" mesh. Probably tinned copper to reduce EMI. Also, teflon "tape" (if that is what it is) isn't a bad thing in cables. But, regardless of all that, if you don't like how it sounds, don't use it. 

All the best

audiodwebe

Another way to look at this is that if you want a great sounding cable, you can experiment with different builds for little money invested.  In a previous life, I built interconnect, speaker and power cables.  It was fun and educational.

@rolox some are here to discuss snake oil’s too. My opinions are my opinions and not those of this forum. Also I am free to post those opinions regardless of your opinions. So enjoy the day. 

@audiodwebe 

You can easily post photos under your UserID… virtual systems. Just create one called power cord.

I attempted to put some photos in virtual system.

BTW, it is Teflon tape.  The bulk is what I don’t like.  It’s out of the lineup and has been replaced by a generic cable costing much, much less.

The model is 1000 from Sunny Cable Technologies and retails for $2700.

I was going to tear it down to see what was underneath but I think I’ll stop and retake the damn thing.  Crazy price!