Power cable dilemma

Well @jrimer if you are not keeping it, then someone else could see if it is also bad in their systems.

How much do you want for it?

Other than a resistance measurement…

But if you put the good looking cable back in, and it does the same thing again… then we know it was not the amp running in some semi protection state… (If that is even possible?)

If that power cord was a bottleneck, then I would assume it would be heating up?

Even an 18ga wire should flow enough current to trip a breaker… or enough to melt it if the load wants that amount of current…

Without a redo of the cable, we are sort of left wondering.

@jrimer if you have not repeated the process, and found that the cable does it more than once, we are still left not knowing. 

I would try powering down and switching cables again. If there is a problem, the results should repeat. If the problem repeats, try the cable on other equipment. Then check the cable for resistance. At that point I would pull the ends and check for loose connections. Then check the cable with an ohm meter for breaks.

One could also envision a hot spot somewhere, if the cable is a current bottleneck.

How can I put this delicately (and I mean no offense)? Are you new to the audio scene? There's an immense amount of information out there on this particular subject. All you have to do is search for it.

A lot of that information is largely marketing.

There are power cords out there that go for thousands and thousands of $$, and audiophiles swear by their performance.  

They do indeed swear by it.

Right. But where is the evidence that technology, and thus, performance, has advanced in the last 5 years?

Largely there is not any. There are a few papers on power cords.
… And some power conditioners show suppression of AC harmonics.

But there is also the other snake head on the hydra, where we do not know which amps have power supplies that are more immune to noise than others.

It could be true that some power cords help some amps. But with N amps and M power cords, it is an NxM solution space… and add in power conditioners and it becomes an even more massive set of combinations.

I’m not talking about price. I’ve been at this for 40 years, so I’m no novice. I’m also a rational thinking person

You may not be the audience that the power cord people are catering to.

… that needs to see some concrete evidence to substantiate such absurd claims. No need to be delicate. Just show me the empirical evidence. Simple.

Sadly you will probably be disappointed, as the examples seem well hidden to my searches.

But a lot of people that I loosely know, and also respect, seem to also swear by cables, power conditioners and a lot of high-end ICs and speaker cables.

@designsfx recently it is about a good God Damn song for XMAS.

 

…
I just want someone to publicly agree with this absurd claim so I and all rational audiophiles can have a good laugh. I don’t need “big boy audio ears”. I just need a good nose to sniff out this utter BS.

@jrimer
OK then… I agree.

However a lot of people that have systems that are a few steps up from mine tend to be into cables and power conditioners.
(Maybe I have just been lucky?)

The other factor is that some equipment may have more “sturdy” power supplies and are immune to cables.

A good amp for instance, should be converting the AC into DC and filling large capacitor banks for the energy needed to push out the current (voltage) between the incoming AC ripples.

Ignoring the ground, one should be able to monitor the voltage of the internal power supply while playing some known content… like with a DAC that does ADC.
And then show that cable-A and cable-B have an impact upon the rail voltage, or do not have an impact. (One would need a voltage divider in there.)

I have not seen that done, but that would be a way to convince myself that something is different.

If we hold the manufacturer to supply such info then we might see it.
But they have enough sales from people that do not care if the difference is provable or psychological to really be motivated to provide proof of their claims.

Those manufacturers have enough of a loyal following that will do a “Joan of Arc” fight for them, that it is a bit pointless to get too wrapped up in it (At least for me personally.)

That gear may actually work, but I am disinclined to try it as my system sounds good enough, and I’ll save the funds for things that may work, or that I like the looks of… YMMV.

Who gives one great God dam….

@soix  Nina Simone… 😎

@carlsbad One could probably measure the voltage drop across the various power cords with the same program material playing.

If they sound different that it is either that they are providing better power, or doing something with noise.

But I have no idea what the fellow’s 200W draws in terms of current. And a different 200W will likely draw something different if the power supply section is not the same.