MY Sidewinder AC cord progress:

Carl I have just the opposite evaluation of SideWinder, no where close to bright in my system, in fact made CD output smoother with greater transparancy with fine details revealed. Bass output if anything was greater with SideWinder and 3D soundstaging enhanced. When analyzing AC cord you should first test on CD player (most sensitive to improved AC cable) then preamp, then amp last (if any money left, hehehe) If you have Krell gear you should be trying black mamba. I say no better AC cable available for $280! BTW I have Musical Fidelity X-Ray CD, MF preamp/amp

Carl, very informative post. To give us more perspective what are the retail prices of some other cables you are comparing Powersnakes Sidewinder to? synergistic master coupler, magnan signature, esp powerflow, and I believe you mentioned Proteus before. I know MIT Z cord is very affordable model, but this would give us an idea of performance vs cost, and whether it makes sense in our system, thanks.

Carl you've been busy, we need a scorecard to keep track of all the combinations, but very good post. As you know I have Powersnakes Sidewinder on my Musical Fidelity X-Ray CD player and was very pleased with improved sound. It is interesting how a AC cord can have different results depending what piece of equipment it is used for. For those who are interested, to give some perspective, here are some retail prices for cables Carl is testing, Powersnakes Sidewinder 5ft $280 & black mamba 6ft $695, MIT Z-cord 2 6ft $175, ESP essence 6ft $499, Synergistic ref 5ft $600, Purist Audio proteus 5ft $560, Tiffany ???? After a while it becomes too mind boggling between changing AC cords, interconnects, and speaker cables..... so many combinations

Carl out of curiosity how many AC cords do you keep in your home collection. I have known the dilema you are describing with different trade-offs, and personally have 3 sets of interconnects, 2 sets of speaker cables etc.....this is expensive habit but it is hard to find a cable that works in all situations, especially as your system changes over time.......if only it were that simple