Power Cables and Wall Sockets


Without knowing for certain, it seems to me that power cables can only be as good as the in-home wiring coming to the wall socket. Is it possible that those who use expensive cables have improved the wiring to the socket? Or is the power from most wall sockets normally excellent, but is limited by conventional power cables?

128x128imaninatural

Showing 2 responses by mceljo

@imaninatural - I don't know what experience you have had personally with power cables, so I'll share my very limited experience and make a recommendation.  I had been curious about the possibility of power cords making an audible difference and ran across a recommendation for W Audio power cords that are available on Amazon for about $50.  I figured that this was a relatively inexpensive opportunity to satisfy my curiosity so I picked up a pair of them.  I put one on my Pathos Classic One MkIII (hooked to a power conditioner) and the other on my Maverick Audio DAC.  The sound of my system changed significantly and I realized that I was using my SACD player as the source so the only difference was the power cord on my amplifier.  I can't say that I have noticed a definitive difference with the other two power cords in my system (i.e. DAC and Power Conditioner), but it absolutely improved the sound of my amplifier.  The improvement was significant enough that it caused me to try some Audioquest interconnects that also surprised me which led to me trying an Audioquest digital cable that I can't say did anything in my system.  If you have not played around with power cords at all, spend $50 on a W Audio power cable that you can have in a couple of days and see what happens.  If you're an audiophile $50 isn't a lot to satisfy your curiosity.

I can't definitely say that if a W Audio cable doesn't yield a change in your system that another "better" cord won't, but it's a place to start.

@clearthinker - I can't speak to your specific equipment, but until recently I considered myself to be mostly a cable agnostic so to speak.  I had always been skeptical that cables could provide a significant improvement, but always left the door open to the idea that either my ears were not good enough or my system wasn't resolving enough.  As a result, my cable of choice was BJC because I consider them to be a no nonsense high value US manufacture that's fairly local for me.

I read an article about power cables and the recommendation was to try a W Audio power cord that can be purchased on Amazon for about $50 depending on length.  I figured that $50 was a reasonable price to see for myself what might be possible. I ordered two cables for use on my Pathos Classic One MkIII and DAC.  I immediately noticed significant improvement with my amplifier (using a different source), but can't say that I heard anything different on the DAC.  I didn't want a longer cable for the amplifier so I picked up a third one.  I tried the shorter one on my SACD player and honest felt that it sounded worse so moved it to my power conditioner where I can't say that I noticed any difference.

The improvement that resulted with my amplifier from the power cable upgrade was significant enough that I then purchased some Audioquest Chicago interconnects to see how they compared to my BJC LC-1 interconnects and again noticed a significant improvement.  

The next step was to purchase an Audioquest Cinnamon digital cable to replace my BJC silver plated cable and I didn't notice any difference.

I'm currently back to exploring further upgrades with my interconnects just to see if going further up the lineup truly results in an audible improvement in my system.  I'm tentatively leaning towards the Sydney interconnects as it seems to be the highest value cable at a price that I'd consider spending.

As an audiophile, I'm not interested in upgrades that I have to repeatedly A/B to form an opinion on if there's a difference and if so which one is better.  My goal is to optimize my system with changes that are clearly audible and until recently I wasn't convinced that that included cables in my system.

I resonated a bit with the video that Danny from GR Research has on youtube for power cables.  His experience seems to be a mixed bag when it comes to upgraded power cords not always having positive results and it, instead, being somewhat system and/or power grid dependent.

So much of this hobby is personal preference with very little documented science behind it that I believe there are very few absolute upgrades that the majority would agree on consistently.  I've opted to minimize my investments and only looked further when the initial investment results in an undeniable change.  In my experience, power cord upgrades using budget cables benefited some of the time, interconnects made an improvement, and the digital cable didn't seem to do anything for me.