Power Cables which take the soundstage back

Here are several suggestions around the $200 mark:

The Cable Company has Shunyata Research's Diamondback Platinum on special in 1.5 M length for $125 right now. This cable tends to be forward-neutral, but does a nice job of helping to organize the sound stage left to right. No sloppy bass here.

Others I would look at...

JPS Labs's GPA 2

MIT - Music Interface Technologies's Z-Cord

Analysis Plus's Power Oval 10

DH Labs Silver Sonic's Power Plus

How do better power cables "work"? They:

1. have better conductors than lamp cord (I.E. bigger gauge, fewer stands, better metal)

2. have better shielding and/or geometry that cancels RFI/EMI from getting into the wire itself

3. or, more importantly, have better geometry/shielding that prevents RFI/EMI from leaking out of the cord and interfering with your low level audio signals in your nearby interconnects or the fancy circuits inside your gear

4. have better connectors that grip IEC and AC plugs firmly and better alloys that more efficiently transfer current.

5. are fatter, with fancier wrappers that make their owners feel special.

To respond to some of the comments above that after market power cords are either a bunch of whoo-ie, or that at least beyond certain simple structural improvements have no real impact, I suggest that there is a lot of room for design improvements that can especially affect #3 above, and that this is the place where the greatest benefits accrue.

I hear differences in sound between $99, $250 and $800 cords. I agree that the incremental benefits decay exponentially with increasing cost, but some people are willing to pay for those differences whether it is with wire, electronics, speakers and room treatments. If you don't hear any difference between different power cables, then God bless you and all that money you are saving.

PS - I could not help but laugh out loud at Stewie's posts above.

Macdadtexas,

Your humor is much appreciated. We just hear things a little differently;-)

You say "Once your power goes from the wall or the power conditioner, as long as the correct volume of electrons, flow into the transformer of the amp/preamp/source then the transformer powers up the remainder of the circuit, tell me again how the power cord affected that? If it is getting the power, enough power to the ciruit the transformer then takes over the power duties. The power transformer can and does affect sound, and the better the gear, usually the better the transformer and the rest of circuit. So if you think your super expensive cord sounds better than a moderate one, good for you. IT'S MAGIC."

You have addressed part of the story, current delivery to the transformer in your gear. But not the possibility of modification of the AC waveform in the power cable itself between the wall or the power conditioner and the transformer. Or, more importantly in my opinion, the possibility of interference from the raw AC in your power delivery cable with nearby interconnects and speaker cables and/or electronic circuits in adjacent gear.

Given my rudimentary understanding of electrical circuits and electromagnetism, this last effect is the most compelling reason that I and others can detect an audible difference between different power cables. I suggest you might want to ask your electrical engineering friends if suppression of interference from a high current power delivery cable with adjacent low voltage audio signal delivery cables and electrical circuits could, in theory at least, cause an audible effect.

With that said, I thank my lucky stars everyday that you and your colleagues successfully develop and implement 500KW power plants and electrical grids so I can push the play button on my CDP, and it plays without fail, not to mention other blessings like a working furnace fan, electric lights, etc. But just as I would not necessarily go to a podiatrist for a pain in my side, I would suggest that the specific expertise needed to successfully deliver 1000KW to the power grid is not the same expertise needed to deliver a chain of electrons through a random collection of electronic and electromechanical devices patched together with wires of various specifications in various physical configurations so that the outcome is something approximating a live musical performance. I am not a shill for wire snake oil, but my guess is that there is a lot going on in the space between the wall socket, our boxes and our speakers, and given all the variables and potential permutations of wire and gear selections each of us are making all the time, it is an inexact science at best with very few fixed controls. This may also be partly why some people hear big effects from power cables while others do not.

Given all this variability, there is something to be said for a company like Naim that sells wires that have been tested by the manufacturer for compatibility with their gear under controlled conditions. You could probably improve on their selections with other wire products, but you would have to go through a similar or more elaborate and expensive (to you) series of testing your self. For what it is worth, Naim offers an upgraded power cable for use with their gear. One could say this new product offering is just a marketing gimmick, but given their almost fanatical attention to power management and delivery, it is also possible they have decided this might provide a real benefit...