Power Cords - Pixie Dust?


As an audiophile I am always prepared to believe that almost anything can make a difference in the sound. But this one makes me wonder. I have a TNT MKV with JMW 12.5 arm. The stand alone motor turns, via a belt, a flywheel that turns, via another belt, the platter.

I have seen an add claiming that replacing the power cord between the SDS speed controller and the stand alone motor can improved the sound of the table, "increasing upper range resolution and sweetness" or some such thing.

I suppose I can see how a new power cord might be argued to improve speed stability, but for the life of me how can a special power cord improve "resolution and sweetness", when the only function of the motor is to spin a belt, that turns a flywheel that spins another belt that turns the platter?? Does this claim make any sense?
jackcob

Showing 2 responses by hdm

According to Bob Crump, the turntable motor is the MOST sensitive component with respect to a power cord change (I believe he uses a Rockport). I have not changed the cord on my table, but even changing the molded plug to a quality Hubbell male plug brought about a pretty substantial improvement; I can recall that I spent about $200 upgrading my speaker cables from Kimber 4TC to 8TC at the time and the $10 I spent changing the male plug on my Gyrodec's cord brought more improvement than the cable upgrade.
Bob: Just to clarify things, I haven't actually replaced the cord on my table, as it's a bit complicated. I have an older Michell Gyrodek; the power cord connects with a very weird 3 pin connector I've never seen anywhere else essentially right at the motor and then runs to a "wall wart" kind of power supply, with the cord running out from that power supply to what used to be a cheap rubber/plastic molded plug. In my early days of experimenting with (and building some DIY) power cords, I simply cut off the molded plug and replaced it with a Hubbell 5266CCN male plug. This in itself made a pretty substantial improvement to sound quality, so I am not really too skeptical that a good cord might improve things further. If I could get my hands on a bit more 47 Labs OTA cable and guarantee myself that I could terminate at that 3 pin connector without destroying it or screwing things up, I'd probably go that route as I've used that same setup on my CD/DVD player with very good results.