Power cords or power conditioner

Most likely positioning and room treatments should get you the results if it is possible in your venue.

I’ll have to agree with @ghdprentice here.

Cables and power conditioners can theoretically only help with noise. And all the stuff you are talking about is from room bounce and interactions.

Why not both, power (distributor and cables) and room treatments. And honestly implementing room treatment is relatively inexpensive in the grand scheme of things.It just needs a lot of work. For me, I gotten everything I could possibly need, goods and advice, from GIK Acoustics. And of course, speaker placement, toe in, distance from listening position, etc. which are of course …. Free. Just some work.

From my own experience with real people, those who proclaim power cords and conditioners make zero difference, and room is all that matters, typically have zero room treatments in their rooms. They just love to bash cables. As they say, don’t pay attention to the preaching of a naked priest. Or something like that.

“Why not both,” is because the power cord and conditioner cannot fix a room, nor fix placement.

One cannot change the physics of the room interaction with a high $ cable.

Secondly, it is better to do the things have have a greater impact first, as well as the things that do not require a trip to the store.

Cleaning corrosion off the RCA/XLR and speaker connectors… and making sure that outlets connections are tight are some of the things that can make a difference. But moving a speaker almost always has a huge impact. And it can take hours or days of futzing around.

Once all that is done, I stop… But I am more of a cable denier so there is that. But a believer should probably start their cable search when the system is “as right as it can be.” And not start with cables and power conditioners as a strategy to fix and room and speaker placement issues.

@thyname

Let’s just leave it here:

OK. Fair. Nothing you said is essentially terribly wrong.

Once the OP sees if anything helpful can be done with speaker placement, then they can do the power cords.

My main statement was that I would do the easy stuff first.

Since we seem to agree on that, let’s just stop there for now.

Also - AC noise (THD) is not something you consciously hear from your speakers in most cases. But when it’s removed, if effective in your system, you may notice a quietness that surrounds vocals and instruments that wasn’t there before, allowing more detail, air and soundstage depth to come through.

@nyev - that is usually my first clue that a system is getting good.
When the system has a sort of quietness, but the SPL meter is high and one cannot hold a conversation… that is pretty good sign that the distortion is not wildly high.

Thanks for the link @thyname.
 

Love to see your highly acoustic optimized specifically built scientifically optimized room too. Happy I could help somehow by posting a link. All ears. I love science 

The only science applied was in the mathematics of avoiding hiring a divorce lawyer.
Many rooms have a Feng Shui feel that is dictated by the SO, and are not as fortunate as you to have a dedicated room.

I did upgrade/change some of the front end electronics to make them more visually appealing to the SO. (Smaller units, silver instead of black, and coordinated in look.)

pcrhkr : great advice! Please post a picture of your system here under “Systems

Where is that “systems” tab?

What makes you think I have a dedicated room?

It took a while, but using google “systems audiogon thyname” I found a room, that does not look like what my haus-boss would abide as a multifunction room.

Hence I assumed that would be called “dedicated”.

A picture of my room is right here on my profile when I post 😂. It’s a general purpose basement, a portion of it housing my audio system. It’s all how far one is willing to go on this hobby. If one is not allowed by the SO, or the proverbial “…. wearing the pants…”, then I feel sorry about you.

 

Speaking of which, this has to be lamest excuse one has in this hobby. It’s used so often, even by some with No SO whatsoever 🤦‍♂️

When the Mrs. is not busy, I’ll ask her if you’re right.😘

… you can try this inexpensive Novaris Surge filter pp10 with excellent noise & surge filter. 

…

One thing that the power cord crowd likes to spruik is that the power cord lets the current in faster to fill up the capacitors in the power supply.
How is a surge protector going to allow that?

… I think that we can conclude that you should buy your power cables, conditioners and regenerators with the ability to try and return if they don't meet your expectations.  Also, you must be willing to spend big money …

And some that reach differing conclusion.

I’ll agree that if you buy one make sure you can return it.

@holmz I never plug my amplifiers into power conditioners

Yeah @juanmanuelfangioii me either.
Many of them do not are more for the front end gear anyhow.

I seem be under the impression that you have quite stack of equipment, but I am not sure that is correct. If there is a certain amp that responds well to a cord, or doesn’t, then that would be kind of useful if one was putting together sort of spreadsheet for amps and cords.

And a similar deal for front end gear and power conditioners… or front end gear and cords also seems like it would be an aid.

OMG, OMG, OMG, OMG!!! Thank you so much for your purchase approval! 🙄. Nobody should buy anything without your blessing 🤦‍♂️🙄

@thyname I see you are getting vexed again.

I actually was @vonhelmholtz suggestion to make sure it is returnable that I quoted.

So the OP has von H and myself in violent agreement on that part, even though we are coming at it from two differing perspectives.

Maybe the OP does not wish to hear that advice, but I do not need to seek your approvals to reiterate Von H’s sage advice.

If you want to urge the OP to get a cable without a return policy then you’re free to that… Don’t feel you need to get my approval first, just opine on his cord decision questions… just chuck what ever is germane to the OP’s topic, which coincidentally, a swipe in my direction is straying off of the question and appears like some personal beef, or you are getting too emotionally vexed when reading sage advice.

let it go….
just let it go…

@holmz 

I'm not technician to answer your about the power surge, can look at the pro who answering the surge from the YouTube video. hope it helps.

 https://youtu.be/iigXmQgFO2I

It looks like a magic trick…

That loop of wire actually creates a coil, and the inductance will result is decreasing the voltage, and spreading the pulse out over time.

It is the same as a lightening spike on a roof, and then running it around the eaves to bolt it on to the slide of the building. Any lightening strike will see that bend in the wire as a huge impedance due to the inductance, and it’ll just arc in a straight line from the eaves towards the ground or to the somewhere on the cable in a straighter path.