Why Power Cables Affect Sound
If China and Hong Kong cables are out. : Silnote Poseidon GL power cable, is $99..... Poseidon GS power cable, is $199.....And they go up from there. (They have speaker and IC cables as well, all with many accolades from reviewers and customers ).These are priced for a 1 meter length ( more $ if longer ), with a 30 day money back guarantee, lifetime warranty, and they go through a bit of a burn in at the factory. Check out their web site. Enjoy MrD. |
But to be 100% honest, if any of you have, or can kindly point me to, good scientific explanations how an uber expensive powercord can improve the sound quality of a CD player or amplifier over a $10 powercord, I would love to be educated. I’m a scientist (a biologist) and I do strive to be open-minded, as long as the science and logic we are talking are sound. |
@mkgus, Thanks, you beat me to it. 👍 As for the rest of n80's argument, don't conflate what someone buys and is happy with with the "straw man" argument that mkgus states. I could care less and even be happy for anyone who bought a great PC for $1K or even more. It's their money and I'm not in the least jealous about it. In fact, if I had the disposable income, I'd try out PCs costing at least that, but I don't. Having said that, PCs in the $300-$500 price range can give you great returns on your investment. All the best, Nonoise |
Why is it that almost every single time someone mentions "better powercord" the argument against it is "one costing thousand of dollars" when it is not the case?It’s a type of logical fallacy called a “straw man.” In effect, they set up an argument that is supposed to encompass the opposition opinion but is actually distorted or exaggerated making it easy to “knock down” or refute and then they strut around like they won the argument. Some may not even know they are doing it. |
N80, would you mind if I forward you information on a cord, specifically for your Proceed amp. It is from China by an excellent manufacturer, and depending on the length you need, would run under $100. I recommend them often. You could also rent one from the cable company. Listen, I have no clue why ? I am thinking your cousin who had the system before you, purchased the system from a high end shop ( possibly an expert ), who put the system together for him, as, I feel it is proportional to the cost of each piece, and I can conceivably have an idea what your system sounds like, as I am familiar with each of the components, as well as the speakers. Enjoy ! MrD. |
mrdecibel, The reference to my old house wiring was intended as humor. Sorry if it fell flat. But in all seriousness, presuming power cables are an enhancement item, will that still work when your house system is crap? Or maybe it would make more of a difference? nonoise, what is the actual price for what you consider a good quality aftermarket power cord? If we use that number in place of a thousand dollars are we still framing the argument in a ridiculous fashion? Are there cords out there that cost more than that? If so, why? Are there thousand dollar power cords? If so, why? What do you think their happy owners have to say about them? Are they ridiculous? Would you question the validity of their positive assessment of such a cord? Is there a dollar figure, in your mind, at which point it becomes ridiculous to you? At that point would you be any different from the naysayers? Edit: A quick Google reveals any number of 1.5 meter power cables for 5 figures. One of them is $22,500. Found a few lower end ones for $5000 to $8,500 for a full 3 meters. |
Oh, N80 hears the improvement with his updated house wiring. Ok, that is a start. I do caution anyone to use knob and tube wiring, as it does not sound better ( unless it was installed " dedicated " from the panel, which I believe is what he is hearing ). and certain electrical ordinances do not allow it. When building a new home, the wiring used, and " how " it is routed from the box to the dedicated sound room / theater room, will be very significant in the final results. Nonoise, the entire argument of the naysayers is ridiculous, because, they either did not try it, or tried it and heard no difference, as pointed out by N80. You and I, and a few others, know what we hear, and this thread, as far as " I "am concerned, will be ending soon. The heading of this thread is " Why ", and this is a reason for the naysayers. But interestingly, so many threads have started " wow, I hear a difference ", and the naysayers still show up as well. A joke, actually. Enjoy ! MrD. |
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yang_hong, for future reference, when geoffkait says "no offense" you can count on the fact that offense is intended. Also, if he doesn't say "no offense" it is still safe to assume offense is intended. I wonder about this Romex stuff. My house is 90 years old. We've upgraded some of the wiring but not all. Probably some of what's getting to my amp is knob-and-tube. I'm telling you guys, you need to make the switch....it sounds FANTASTIC. |
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I’m new to this hobby, but seeing power cables priced to several thousand $ is just astonishing to me. As some users here have already said over and over: there is no way a power cable can affect your sound, unless it’s too thin, badly connected or you have a defective device. Physics is just physics. I’d love to hear someone explain the physics how a power cable can improve sound quality. Haven’t seen any so far. |
To think we are all at the mercy of Romex makes one want to quit this hobby. We can't do a thing about it so why bother? Just buy some piece of crap from Best Buy and be done with it. That's like saying we're all at the mercy of our roads so why bother getting a car we know can handle and ride better than the average rust bucket out there. All the best, Nonoise |
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Not again...... Power cables do NOT affect amplifier sound. Having said that, if your cable CURRENT rating is not adequate enough to supply the necessary CURRENT to begin with, you MAY experience some improvement. At the end of the day, remember that the weakest link in your home is the standard 15 amp Romex wire installed in the walls. |
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mkgus Assuming the phenomenon can’t be fully explained by the values of resistance, inductance and capacitance, I’m left to wonder if we are measuring the right properties. Are there other properties that need measurement? Do any of the R, L and C values change dynamically along with electron flow or are they fixed at all times? >>>>>As much as I hate to nitpick, electrons are not (rpt not) flowing. Carry on. Smoke if ya got em. “If I could explain it to the average person they wouldn’t have given me the Nobel prize.” |
N80, I am done with prof and analogluvr, as they are no longer worth my time. I indicated that I did not like the cables in your system, because somewhere, I remember reading you mentioning the brand " Transparent ", I do not like the sound of that brand’s cables ( speaker, interconnect and power cables ). If I spoke out of line about that, I apologize. If in fact, you have after market cables ( heavier and beefier than just the computer cables I mentioned you might have lying around, I still feel it would be worth it to exchange them out, and, not for me, or anyone else. Just to see if you can hear a difference. You do not need to dissect it further as to which you prefer, just that a difference might be audible to you, or not. My biggest gripe with " those folks " who are against these differences are ( 1 ) If they never tried a different cable or ( 2 ) They tried a different cable and did not hear a difference, and then claim that these differences do not exist. I also do not believe that it is impossible for some people to believe I am an expert in this field ( the listening side ), and have such a hard time with it. My ears are likely no better than others, but my time and experience in the field has allowed me to train myself to hear very minute differences amongst all related items in audio. Keep in mind, also, that there are quite a few of me out there, as I know others. Some right here on the ’Gon. * A good friend of mine is a retired sheriff, has a huge gun collection, and teaches at a shooting range. I consider him an expert in the field of hand guns. I am clueless about guns. I have another buddy who is into automobiles ( such as yourself). He builds, and rebuilds, and rebuilds. I consider him an expert in his particular field of automobiles. He can do a mod on a suspension, or an engine, take me for a ride, and ask me if I feel a difference. Never have. Just putting this out there. I have no interest in guns; I have no interest in vehicles ( I drive a 2018 CRV Touring ). These two buddies come to me as their audio guru ( many do ). And they both spend much more money on audio than I do. I do not like making enemies, and I am pretty much an easy going guy. But, I do know what is real, " to my ears ", and anyone who says I am imagining it, well, we will go our separate ways and be done with it. As I have said to you before, in the 6 months you have been here, you have had much to say, that I find enjoyable to read. After all, it is all about the music. Never hard feelings, especially when in this hobby, and enjoyable pastime. Enjoy ! MrD. |
The paradox is that at some level we are talking about a technical phenomenon with no good technical explanation. That is yet another reason to question the effect. Indeed, it is a reason to question the phenomenon. It is also a reason to keep investigating if you believe something is going on as many believe to be the case. I’m surprised this is still a big question mark? Why hasn’t this been solved yet? I keep getting drawn back to the 3 basic properties of wires: resistance, inductance and capacitance. Can these three alone not explain the effect fully? I’m guessing not because if it were that simple, then surely someone would have shown it to be the case already - perhaps a cable manufacturer. This would be a very simple test one could do at home with some test equipment: relate R, L and C to the “sound” of power cables. Assuming the phenomenon can’t be fully explained by the values of resistance, inductance and capacitance, I’m left to wonder if we are measuring the right properties. Are there other properties that need measurement? Do any of the R, L and C values change dynamically along with electron flow or are they fixed at all times? |
@mkgus: "Just so we’re on the same page, just because there is no plausible explanation doesn’t mean the effect doesn’t exist." I agree completely. But lack of a plausible explanation remains a valid reason for questioning the effect. Especially since among observers there is no consensus. So the sky analogy would be more appropriate if you included than some people found it to be a different shade of blue that many if not most people could not see. In that regard lack of plausible explanation takes on more power as a defeater. Not proof, as you say, but still reasonable evidence. The paradox is that at some level we are talking about a technical phenomenon with no good technical explanation. That is yet another reason to question the effect. |
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So here I am questioning how in the hell a cable that isn’t even in the signal chain improves the soundSays who? That’s cherry picking. Remove the power cord and nothing happens. Rectification done after receiving power from said power cord is rarely done correctly (look at all the different ways it’s done: there are those who will always find fault in anyone's design) and fully so it’s going to mess with signal. Rectifiers impart tone. It’s not pure and perfect after the power cord delivers the power. Never is and never will be. All the best, Nonoise |
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So far I haven't heard any compelling explanation. Lots of experts and savants with different opinions but no plausible reason for the perceived effect. I hadn’t either which is why I started the thread. Just so we’re on the same page, just because there is no plausible explanation doesn’t mean the effect doesn’t exist. That would be like saying “I don’t believe the sky is blue until we understand why it could be blue,” which is what I hear a lot of cable-naysayers saying. 😅 |
And the money spent has really no sane connection with reality. I don’t disagree with you on that. Cost doesn’t necessarily correlate with performance. You don’t need to spend $20,000 on a power cable. I think that’s where the industry gets a bad name, especially when the manufacturer doesn’t provide any technical specs but just says “trust us.” I think it’s more so about gauge, geometry and material which can cost a few bucks. If you go try to make an RCA interconnect with high quality connectors, silver wire, good shielding, etc you may end up with a bill for $200. In that case I have no issues with a cable company charging $250-$300 for that cable if the material, labor and markup are justifiable. |
Now, I realize that what I’m about to say is going to rub some people the wrong way. (Hey, I’m a poet and don’t know it.) One reason power cords sound good in one system but not another, I.e., why people get differing results with even expensive power cords is because they are directional. So, unless the manufacturer, I.e., Audioquest, controls the power cords for wire directionality the odds are 50% that a given power cord will sound like it’s supposed to and 50% that it will sound worse than it could sound. It might even sound yukky. It could make the sound worse if the previous power cord was accidentally constructed properly directionality wise. |
cables are the ultimate sucker buy. @2010challenger I want that to be the case. I really do. Let me share my experience with you that led me to this crazy path: On the advice of an internet forum, I changed my generic, cheapo stranded core speaker cables to generic, cheapo solid core speaker cables and appreciated the change in sound - particularly the increase in treble detail. Cost to me: a few bucks. After hearing that, I wondered what solid core RCA cables would do to the sound. I considered building my own but opted to spend around $60 for a pair of well-shielded, solidly-build solid core RCA cables that got 5 star reviews. I heard a significant improvement and I liked what it did to the sound. At this point, I was actually upset because I came to know that cables matter. I didn’t want to spend money on cables. I didn’t want them to matter, but they do for better or worse. After my speaker cable and interconnect escapade, I read many 5 star reviews on a power cable made by the same company as my interconnects. The interconnect reviews were accurate which made me put some trust in the power cable reviews. I figured the worst that could happen is that they wouldn’t do anything and I could return them for the cost of shipping. I recieved the garden hose, err, I mean, power cable in the mail and put them on my amplifier... the improvement was unmistakeable. Did my system sound good before the power cable? Yes. Did it sound better after the cable. Absolutely! So here I am questioning how in the hell a cable that isn’t even in the signal chain improves the sound and watching as forum members take snipes at each other akin to religious furor, thinking “what have I gotten myself into?” Happy listening! |
n80
Yes, you've put your finger on the problem here. "negative" results are never counted - the relevance is only ever dismissed. If you ever fail hearing a difference it can only be your fault, or the fault of whatever test you conduct. If you acknowledge your own fallibility, and the general fallibility of humans in this regard, you are dogmatic. It's NEVER that the subjective results of the audiophile could be wrong. And remember...they are the "open minded" ones ;-) |
@cleeds Even though the test wasn’t scientific, you can’t accurately say that the cable "failed" the test. Obviously I was speaking colloquially. But the point expressed is certainly correct: The cable "failed the test" in the sense that I could not distinguish it from a cheap cable, hence for the proposal "there is an audible difference between the expensive cable and the cheap cable" I was left with the null hypothesis. That doesn’t sound like a double blind test, so the results aren’t scientifically valid. 1. Of course double-blind tests are the gold standard. But in case you are implying that single blind tests are not "scientific," that would be incorrect. Single blind tests are often used where double blinding is not feasible. 2. Double blind testing in my case was not feasible (at least for the power cables) so all I could do was attempt single blind, to at least control for some variables. A friend helped me by being the cable switcher. I wore a blindfold. Of course one of the variables are confounding cues - e.g. from the tester to the subject - that can influence or give "tells" for a false positive result. As I usually do if I’m single-blinding, we did some pre-tests to establish whether this was a factor. So we first did some testing for that variable. I was blindfolded and the switcher did not speak to me, only switched when I said "switch." The switcher did not speak to me even to say "ok" that he was finished switching - just my noting the activity involved with the switching, and waiting an appropriate amount of time, sufficed between switching. We did some randomized testing (tester coin-flipped before-hand to establish pattern) in which no music signal was played. With blind-fold on, I would say "switch" and the tester would simply switch between the cables (or not switch but pretend to by still unplugging and plugging the same plug in). In this way we established that my guesses for which cable was being used, or even when one was switched, were random. Suggesting that I was not able to get cues from the switcher as to which cables were being swapped, or if a cable was being swapped. Then we proceeded to the music trials, which were done in the same way, and the results for my trying to discern between the Shunyata and cheap AC cable were random. In this way, not only was I blinded, but we tried to control for a type of experimenter bias (where the experimenter subtly influences the outcome) to the degree possible. Given during the trials, there was no verbal communication from the switcher to me to add that influencing variable, and our pre-trials suggested we had eliminated a confounding variable of whether I was getting some other extraneous cue via the sound of the cable switches themselves, then I think we did a pretty good job of controlling for variables given our resources. 3. The conclusions and claims I draw from my own blind testing such as the above are modest. Both in terms of the modest level at which I can blind test audio gear, and in terms of inferences from bind testing in general. I do not claim from my own attempts to blind test: "therefore there IS no audible difference between the power cables in question." Only that I was not able to discern any when I attempted to control for other variables. Of course my own experience influences my purchases (if I’m not able to demonstrate to myself I heard a difference, I’m not going to buy the cable). And given the well-established problems of subjective bias, it makes more sense to put more emphasis on the trials where I attempted to control for such variables - as well as introduce faster switching - vs the causal sighted trials with no attempt whatsoever to control variables. Nor do I claim from my own tests, of course, "therefore NO audible differences exist between AC cables, and every positive anecdote is due to subjective bias." That would be far too rash and unwarranted. BUT....I put my own experience in the context of the bigger picture.For one thing, whatever the status of my blind tests, one thing is clear:In the sighted trials I perceived specific difference between the two cables. In the "blinded" trials, I simply did not perceive that difference any more. That in of itself is telling about the variable nature of perception. And this fits well with all the scientific understanding on how variables can influence perception. And that this ought to be taken in to account especially when trying to discern if there are even differences existing in the first place. Then I put that together with the fact that the claims about audible differences between AC cables in the audiophile world are pretty much all uncontrolled anecdote. I have yet to encounter blind testing data of any kind, validating the claim that a boutique audio cable produces audible differences from a cheaper (competent) ac cable. And then I add in all the debates I’ve observed where qualified electrical engineers weigh in on the claim made by audiophiles and high end cable companies, in which the engineers seem to me to make the more convincing case against the high end cable claims. Finally, one doesn’t even have to be a qualified electrical engineer to notice that the very nature of the claims made by high end AC cable manufacturers are extremely fishy in nature, in the ways I’ve detailed here many times before. They make much about technical measurable phenomena being a problem, but rarely provide objective measurements showing they have "fixed" the problem and, more important, do not provide evidence from the beginning that the phenomena in question was audible (in regular competently built AC cables/equipment), and that their component produces audibly detectable results (no controlled blind testing). Instead, it goes "here’s this technical problem with AC cabling that we address" and then it just punts straight to marketing hype and audiophile anecdote as vetting the claims. These are reasons why I think my general skepticism regarding high end AC cable claims are warranted. That is entirely different from claiming "AC cables make no audible difference" - a claim I have never made. Unfortunately, it seems some are so dogmatically wedded to confidence in their subjective results that they see any challenge, any skepticism raised about those results, as somehow being a dogmatic rejection of their claims. "Look, YOU may be fallible in your perception, but THERE’S NO WAY I’M WRONG!" It’s projecting their own dogmatism the other side, while, amazingly, holding themselves to be the "open minded" ones. |
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prof1,573 posts12-18-2018 11:18amgeoffkait wrote: "Psychological bias cannot be used to explain all positive results." ...... That poor, poor strawman geoff, won’t you ever stop beating it? Have some mercy on the thing! >>>>>If the shoe fits wear it. 👠. - Old audiophile axiom |
