What was the first power cable that you noticed a difference in the sound?

I remember fiddling with off brands and some inexpensive Shunyata power cords to no effect. This was ten or fifteen years ago.
 

With my newer Audio Research amps they come with heavy duty copper and  20 amp connectors, so I couldn’t use any of my stash. So I rotated through every Cardas line, all of which were pretty much instantly obviously better… but also tipped the tonal balance slightly and the AudioQuest Hurricane which just improved every aspect of the sound and was completely neutral.

OP.

What I would recommend is to find a way to borrow an Audioquest Hurricane. These things took the audio world by storm a couple years ago. The difference should be instantly obvious and overwhelmingly positive. If not… fantastic… the power cord has no effect on your amp… you are lucky. You know for certain. End of story.

Otherwise you have a data point. If it is worth it… well, I know of incidences when an absurdly expensive cord is performance justified. Or drop down a level in the storm series.

Also, the Audioquest are incredibly tight fitting… on purpose.  

@strawj 

What is your system? The effect of power cords is depend on your system. Very helpful to know where you are coming from. You can see my systems under my ID.

@platypus22

Welcome to the forum. Thanks for your comments…

However,  without context it is hard to gain any insight. What are your components and venue. There is a place under your user ID to put photos and identify your components. A bit of context is also helpful to understand the conditions of you observations.

I have also tried numerous after market power cords from $100 to $2,500 and found the lower end to have no impact and the upper ones to have something between excellent improvements that were very nuanced to startling improvement.

In a good system a $2K Audio Quest Hurricane can be a bargain for the amount of sound quality gained for the money. 
 

This is the whole reason high end wires are around, for a person that chooses wisely, he will always be getting a bargain for what ever the cables cost.

I remember having a system at the $5K / component level and my dealer sent me a set of cables costing $2K… I thought that was simply ridiculous, until I heard them. I could not have gotten that improvement by swapping components for less than $5K. The sound quality improvement of any given component (wires included) needs to prove itself. One of the important steps in high end audio is to put in the time to learn what is worth it given your values and system.

@sc0ttc00ter

Welcome to the alternate reality which is high end audio. Yep, power cords can make a big difference. Also, the difference between 1 meter and two can be surprising… 2 meters is better. Hence, it is the standard recommended cord length.