Why not?

Why all the back and forth?  Just try some better power cords — either buy used and sell at little/no loss or buy direct from the many direct sellers and take advantage of their generous trial/return policies — and if they don’t make a significant improvement stick with the generic PCs and live happily ever after.  What I can’t accept is when people just reject out of hand PCs can make a difference and never even try better cables yet preach that better PCs can’t make a difference because there are no measurements to support it.  That’s just willful ignorance, and as @ghdprentice as a scientist has stated and while he might not fully understand why PCs make a significant difference, in reality they do in his experience for whatever reason.

Bottom line — not everything is measurable relative to what the human ear can hear.  So for those of you who follow the dogma that PCs shouldn’t make a difference, you’ve got no excuse as it’s free, or very near free, to try several brands and use your ears to see if they make a difference.  If they don’t, then fine you’re right where you started from with some good personal experience to support your beliefs.  If you haven’t yet tried better PCs, what are you afraid of — that your preconceived world might be upset and you can’t explain why?  Who cares?  If you get better sound you win whether you can explain it in measurements or not.  Sheesh. 

 

Why all the back and forth? Just try some better power cords — either buy used and sell at little/no loss or buy direct from the many direct sellers and take advantage of their generous trial/return policies — and if they don’t make a significant improvement stick with the generic PCs and live happily ever after. What I can’t accept is when people just reject out of hand PCs can make a difference and never even try better cables yet preach that better PCs can’t make a difference because there are no measurements to support it. That’s just willful ignorance, and as @ghdprentice as a scientist has stated and while he might not fully understand why PCs make a significant difference, in reality they do in his experience for whatever reason.

As a scientist I can understand that if one shows something happening on a DC supply then I know that the cord changed things.

And I also understand that people generally have a psychological bias to expect a change.

 

Bottom line — not everything is measurable relative to what the human ear can hear.

That seems like it is a bit of a magical way of thinking.

1. The people that design the electronics are more often thick glasses wearing types that understand the science.
2. The power cable people are more along the social sciences tract, that understand human nature and prose.

I would be looking for the best of group #1, before I looked for group #2.
Going for group #2, sort of implies that one should have been considering the group #1, but decided not to.

Secondly; the onus should not be upon the rational to prove that other are not hearing voices, it is upon those that hear the things to provide some evidence or reasoning that their stories have a basis is reality.

 

So for those of you who follow the dogma that PCs shouldn’t make a difference, you’ve got no excuse as it’s free, or very near free, to try several brands and use your ears to see if they make a difference. If they don’t, then fine you’re right where you started from with some good personal experience to support your beliefs. If you haven’t yet tried better PCs, what are you afraid of — that your preconceived world might be upset and you can’t explain why? Who cares? If you get better sound you win whether you can explain it in measurements or not. Sheesh.

Another approach is that It is entirely possible that some gear does enjoy a change from a power cord swap. (But probably the gear that I would not be looking at.)

Most of the quality gear is designed well, and putting specials cords on sub standard gear is sort like putting lipstick, or spats, onto a pig. (It does make for a better looking and more handsome pig.)

It is usually pretty easy to call the distributor or manufacturer to ask them.

This is sort of exactly as @bruce19 asked at the end of his post:

Mostly I would like to know if I am wrong and there are some examples of manufacturers who either include, offer or recommend specific power, interconnect and speaker cable for their products. Thanks community members for offering a place to ask this question that keeps gnawing at me.

Here you go @bruce19:
For the example of Nagra, their agent agrees with @soix and others.
(But they also basically said to consider the 12V battery ahead of a power cord.)

I would be asking @atmasphere, Suprateck, AR, Purifi etc. if they recommend a different power cord or not… and why? And if it has been tested?

 

Here is exactly what the local Swiss agent told me:

If running constantly off the mains power I would say yes, upgrading a power cord would make a difference sonically.

If going the battery option, I wouldn’t worry too much about power cables as once your in battery mode - the interconnects would make a larger difference here

I’;ll admit that ^This^ came a surprise to me… Their MPS (power supply) is not cheap. And it sounds pretty nice.

 

I’ll probably get a spare Lemo connector made, and try and quantify the voltage stability.
Then if I try a power cord, I could run the 12V through a power divider and digitise it with an ADC and have some objective data.

Even at the top of the high end, products are built to hit certain price points, with certain parts and pieces decisions made accordingly. The car tire analogy is an accurate one - good enough to last the buyer a fair amount of time but not the best one available. Secondly, not every manufacturer spends time testing after market tweaks with their products. Some do but many are already busy enough just keeping their products available, especially given today's product pipeline shortages.

 

As a scientist I can understand that if one shows something happening on a DC supply then I know that the cord changed things.

@holmz Ah, I see.  You don’t trust your own ears.  Got it.  You and @ghdprentice would have an interesting conversation as two scientists with polar opposite views on cables.  Why not just try an aftermarket PC just to see/hear for yourself?  What are you afraid of — that your comfortable and convenient world of theories and measurements might implode if your ears tell you they’re hearing actual improvements?   Or maybe you won’t find any improvements or maybe even decreased performance.  Either way, that’s called learning — a concept I’d think a scientist would embrace.  

Why not just try an aftermarket PC just to see/hear for yourself?

@soix : it's not going to work. They will never try anything for themselves. Trust me, I have attempted to do this several times over the years. I have even offered to send them for free power cords / cables, nothing fancy, basic good quality stuff at about $100 - $200 range. They have always refused. It is a "thing" for them. They will never try out of principle. I have given up attempting to help them. I already know the story the moment I see their very first post. It is an exercise in futility, no matter what.