Why Power Cables Affect Sound


I just bought a new CD player and was underwhelmed with it compared to my cheaper, lower quality CD player. That’s when it hit me that my cheaper CD player is using an upgraded power cable. When I put an upgraded power cable on my new CD player, the sound was instantly transformed: the treble was tamed, the music was more dynamic and lifelike, and overall more musical. 

This got me thinking as to how in the world a power cable can affect sound. I want to hear all of your ideas. Here’s one of my ideas:

I have heard from many sources that a good power cable is made of multiple gauge conductors from large gauge to small gauge. The electrons in a power cable are like a train with each electron acting as a train car. When a treble note is played, for example, the small gauge wires can react quickly because that “train” has much less mass than a large gauge conductor. If you only had one large gauge conductor, you would need to accelerate a very large train for a small, quick treble note, and this leads to poor dynamics. A similar analogy might be water in a pipe. A small pipe can react much quicker to higher frequencies than a large pipe due to the decreased mass/momentum of the water in the pipe. 

That’s one of my ideas. Now I want to hear your thoughts and have a general discussion of why power cables matter. 

If you don’t think power cables matter at all, please refrain from derailing the conversation with antagonism. There a time and place for that but not in this thread please. 
128x128mkgus

Showing 1 response by br3098

Sorry to inform but there is no electron transfer through wire. Electrons are for all intents and purposes stationary. What IS traveling through the wires is photons, which makes sense, right?
Dude, really???

I know that this is Audiogon but bad science is bad.  FYI, current is not composed of photons.  Electrons and photons ARE NOT the same:
1. Electrons have mass.  Photons have no measurable mass.
2. Electrons are negatively charged particles.  Photons have no measurable charge.
3. Electron mobility (speed) can vary from (effectively) zero to almost (but never reaching) the speed of light (c).  Photons always travel at c in a vacuum and very close to c in other media.
4. Spin (s) for an electron is assigned at 1/2.  s for a photon is assigned as 1.
5. Electrons have an associated antiparticle, positrons.  Photons do not have an associated antiparticle and are created by the annihilation of particles and antiparticles.

Current is composed of electrons, not photons.  It's true that electrons do not travel very far or very fast in a conductor, but they do travel.