Thank you for sharing. Really interesting.
When a system is balanced on a knife edge... it doesn't take much to push it one way or another.
I think by the very nature of what we are trying to do lends itself to this situation. My objective has been to recreate the real natural sound of music. I owned great components that do exactly that. But I struggled with the power cord for a year. One of the important things for me is to balance the prominence of the detail with the real thing. You can hear this in the ambience of a symphony hall before the music starts playing or with a minimal of instruments. I found several power cords on my amp would slightly accentuate the warmth and the ambiance would withdraw too much... and some that would overemphasis it. Eventually I found the perfect one... interestedly several others found the same power cord for the same equipment.