If an expensive power cord is too short, would the use of a cheap 12 g. extension cord from the cord to the wall degrade the sonics? Are you the defeating the purpose of the upgraded cord?
The argument would be:
(1) The house wiring is cheap 14/3 stuff anyway, so doing this wouldn't really make the source of electricity any inferio.
(2) Above argument supports the belief that high grade power cords make their sonic difference through filtering, altering, cleaning of the raw AC. Hence, this would have no effect?
I've considered cords for sale that were too short, and wondered if this would be a viable solution -- or is this audiophile HERESY!
I'll be dammed if I know why but when I did this on one set up i got noise (hum) but on another curcuit it made no difference. I suspect it had nothing to do with the cable except for the fact that the it may have had a lesser capacity for resisting RFI which was present in the area where the extension cable ran.
I haven't seen many cable makers claim their products work based on your criteria #2, so maybe it is the cord that is the absence of the bad cord that makes better music?
If RFI is an issue, you can even get cheap shielded low gauge cables like Voltex.
Search the web for Panamax Pinnacle 12 AWG AC power extension cord with gold-plated connectors, twisted architecture and a drain wire. You should find a 10' Pinnacle for $30. Best extension cord for your needs.
like buying beatiful furniture and putting plastic slip covers on them. I go with: a system is as good as its' weakest link. I'd save for a longer power cord...peace, warren
Thanks, guys, for your thoughts and ideas. Hope to have more responses and opinions.
I didn't think about the fact that one would be going from solid core Romex in the wall to stranded in the extension cord, which probably creates some change in the transfer of the raw AC. Also, another set of connectors for the AC to travel through, which probably alters these unknown AC phenomena / properties that obviously have sonic effects.
However, this brings into question the effect of these 'interruptions' in the AC signal that power conditioners themselves would also create. The AC is going through the cord of the conditioner, its connectors, internal wiring, and then its outlets. Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that some audiophiles love conditioners, and others feel they do something detrimental.
Try a quality longer power cord (like maybe a Shunyata) and compare it to your shorter "idea" extension cord hook up. Borrow the power cord from the Cable Company if you need to. But ,don't just use any after market power cord.
Personally, I would think running better wire from the Electric Company pole transformer to your audio equipment would be a huge improvement! Well we know most of that is impossible. But, dedicated circuits help clean up some of the junk running around the House via the Romex.
Different power cords make different improvements, some seem to do nothing at all. Again, as you improve the cable running to your equipment so will the sound. You can try to cheapen that with your shorter cable / extension cable idea and all you will accomplish is a pinched hose senerio.
Try a powervar 12 line conditioner instead of an extension cord and then hook up your short power cords to the powervar. You should get clean quiet power no matter what is coming out of your wall.
I could venture an opinion that your suggestion will sound horrid, but it would just be an opinion. I can tell you that I was having some work done on my system's dedicated mains feed that took a couple of days so I plugged everything into a decent distribution box and fat extension cord to get from another power outlet to the stereo. I was using good power cords on all components. The sound was so bad I decided to not listen to music at all for the two days. I cannot find the words to describe how utterly horrid it sounded, and I was shocked at the enormity of the difference.
I am having the same issue as you are Kevziek. I am planning to plug my amp and DCC2 directly into the wall using my hi-end power cords, and then plug my philips transport into one of my high end power cords and then into an extnesion cord. The reason is that I do not have enough sockets (I have two nearby and need three), and when I pluged my DCC2 into a multi prong adaptor before hitting the wall socket, it killed the systems dynamics. The amps handle the use of a cheap multiprong adapter better but it still losses dynamics. I am hoping that the same does not hold true for the transport (we shall see). I know this is not convential wisdom, as transport usually benefit most from power cord upgrades, but in this case the meitnerized philips is only spinning hte disk and reading the digital data. The clock is in the DCC2. I am hoping that makes a difference. I will not be able to test this hypothesis for a few days...but wish me luck. Eventually when I move into a house I will correct this problem.
I forgot where I read this, the guy is asking the same question like Kevsiek, the powercord designer told Him, ALWAYS THINK THE PC as THE FIRST 6 FT. It makes a lot sense to me.Thanks
---Jea48, after I reflected on this again, why should the stranded cable in an extension cord make a difference when most power cords use stranded cable anyway? Hence, a change from the solid core wire in the wall is going to happen anyway.
---Redkiwi, your experience obviously speaks for itself. There is more going on with AC power than meets the eye.
---Drhst20, from my own experience, the cord on the transport makes a huge difference. I think your use of a cheap multi-prong adaptor will definitely affect sonics and unimpeded flow of AC.
Interestingly, one can use a power conditioner and connect multiple units to it; yet, the conditioner is tapping off only one side of an outlet. One would think that plugging each unit into a separate outlet would give maximum flow of AC, as opposed to 'bottlenecking' effect a power conditioner would theoretically create.
Kevziek, I agree with you completely that the power cord to the transport usually makes a huge difference (from my experience it usually makes more of a difference then any other piece, amp, dac, or pre-amp). However, for some reason the power cord to my philips seems to make alot less diffference then the power cords to my DCC2 and amp. As to why, who knows? I am going to run the DCC2 and amp directly to the wall using my Harmonix power cords. I am then going to use an extension cord (the highest guage I could find at Home Depot that would work in a standard outlet) to go to my Harmonix cable and then go to my transport. I am currently forced to run one of my componenets through either an extension cord or a multi prog adaptor. I have heard the negative effects of the multi prog adaptor on my amp and pre-amp. I am hoping that the extension cord (vs using the multi prog adaptor) will have less of an impact on my transport. We shall see. Anyone care to take a guess as to what will happen? (I should also mention that given that the DCC2 seems to be the most sensative to not using a direct to wall approach, the remaining options are A) Run the transport and amp into a mulit prog adaptor and run the DCC2 dreiclty into the wall or B) Run the amp and DCC2 directly into the wall and use an extension cord on the philips transport)
Kevziek, I can only speak of the AudioQuest power cord.
From AudioQuest,
"AC Power Cables" "The power cable going from the wall to an amp, preamp or other component is subject to many of the same distortion mechanisms as speaker cable. The wiring inside the wall avoids most of the problems by being very stiff and never using stranded conductors"
"By using Hyperlitz design. AudioQuest power cables provide flexibility while eliminating the strand modulation problems common to most power cables."
"AudioQuest AC-12 is a 12 awg X 3 cable using four separate solid 18 awg OFHC conductors for hot, four for neutral and a 12 awg stranded conductor for earth. The cable is flexible but has no strand modulation problems."
AQ shows a picture in the brochure each of the solid 18 awg OFHC conductors are insulated.
Kevziec, if I understand your point then I agree with you that stranded versus solid conductor is not an issue with power cords. I believe that strand-jumping is an issue with speakers wire and interconnects, but not with AC power cords.
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