The Truth About Power Cords and there "Real" Price to Performance

Hmmmm I live in Atlanta.  I might be interested, Mike Powell.  Are you talking IEC cords?

Imagine if I made two cords to prove my point that have the following construction:

• 3 feet of 12AWG Romex that plugs into your wall outlet with a Marinco or Wattgate  plug...or even wired directly to your mains box.

• The other end of that Romex would go into a junction box.  Inside that junction box will be a Marinco or Wattgate 3 prong plug that plugs into a hospital grade outlet (which is wired to the Romex) and coming out of that box would be 3 feet of a fancy twisted pair, cryo treated silver conductor, blah blah blah cord that terminates in an IEC plug that goes into your gear.

• The second box would be Romex all-the way.  Same junction box.  Same plugs.  Same outlet.  Just 6 total feet 12AWG Romex all the way to your gear.

Are any of you willing to tell me you could hear a difference?  Because that is how your house is wired.

I am confident nobody could not pass an A:B comparison noticing any difference with any consistency.

The power cord doesn’t matter as long as the gauge is correct for your circuit.  
15A circuit = 14AWG
20A circuit = 12AWG
30A circuit = 10AWG

You can use hospital grade outlets if you want a good, solid connection from your cord to the outlet.

Spend your extra money on a power conditioner / re-generator / filter.  Those actually matter and *can* make an audible difference if you have noisy AC power.  If you have coax service (Cable TV) into your system you may have buzzing / ground loops on your sub; fiber optic/Toslink can break that ground loop, as can a nice filter on your coax.

The above information is real-world vs. all the cable voodoo nonsense I see on here.

@atdavid,

My point is simple:

You have "mains feed" into your breaker or fuse box at your listening location.

From there, you have a breaker or fuse that protects the circuit.  That breaker or circuit is sized according to the amperage of the circuit you will run off that breaker.

The AWG wire sizes I listed are the minimum electrical code standards for circuits of the listed amperage.  There is potentially a very LONG run of Romex that goes from that breaker / fuse box to your AC outlet.  Then you have the outlet itself. (I recommend a hospital grade outlet simply because they are robust and grip your cord tightly.)

Thinking that the last six feet of wiring after the outlet makes a difference after all of that...and thinking you can hear a difference...is crazy - unless the cable is doing something other than just transmitting the power (such as a choke / filter or power conditioning system).

Things like a Furman, PanaMax or Monster cable power conditioner DO make a difference...because they have filters and chokes that CLEAN the power.  An Emotiva CMX-2 DOES make a difference because it filters and eliminates DC offset.

Silver cords, braided cords, excessively oversized cords, etc. don't do a darn thing that is audible unless they have a choke or filter in the cable. 

A cord that is too small for the current draw will actually get hot and be a safety hazard.  

@atdavid...
Yessir. It’s ~ 3.18 volts @ 50 feet for 120VAC with a 20A load.

If you want to do your own calculations you can go here:

https://www.calculator.net/voltage-drop-calculator.html?material=copper&wiresize=5.211&voltage=120&phase=ac&noofconductor=1&distance=50&distanceunit=feet&amperes=20&x=49&y=21

We’re talking cords AND house wiring - as they are all part of the same feed line into one’s gear - unless you use batteries or other gear as I previously mentioned (like a power conditioner, caps, batteries, transformers, chokes, etc.)

Most people cannot control the house wiring. Most folks are running their systems on a 15A circuit with ~50 feet of 14AWG Romex copper. That same circuit for most also powers a bunch of lights, ceiling fans and AC outlets that your significant other might plug a vacuum cleaner into.

I have dedicated 12AWG Romex runs to all of my audio gear with 20A breakers (modern code requires AFCI and GFCI, so I run CAFCI (AFCI/GFCI all-in-one).

So do any of you think that a 99.999% pure silver braided, shielded, twisted, cold-press or silver soldered-in-an-argon-chamber, oxygen free / techflex-skinned, 3M heatshrink covered cable on elevators made from African Panke-baobab-wood harvested by bearded millennial vegan artisans from 2400 year-old trees is going to make an audible difference going that last 6-10 feet from your A/C wall outlet into your gear’s IEC port?

Where’s the Atlanta guy with the listening challenge? I’m game. I’ve got an all-mechanical A:B switchbox I built with identical headphone amps that can A:B a pair of Oppos with whatever cords you want to battle. Level match with 1KHz test tone and VOILA! I’ll prove that nobody can hear a difference (consistently) between properly gauged power cords.

My Opps is a stock BDP-103. All we need is a second one and we’ve got a test rig.

My buddy has a PHD in statistics; I’ll have him assist me to build a test matrix that is scientifically valid.

Who in Atlanta who thinks they can hear a difference is game to prove it?