The same point as buying a decent amp, speakers, source, interconnects, etc....
Chain as strong as the weakest link.
Chain as strong as the weakest link.
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.
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.
845 responses Add your response
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@Geoffkait - Actually, no. Don't forget, you have markups involved as well. Distribution, reps, dealers, freight, warranty, UL codes, all that adds a percentage. That 50 dollar cable will add an easy 250 to 300 bucks to the retail price before the customer sees it on the shelf at his favorite dealer or spiffy catalog. Is that Model HPSPC High Performance Spiffy Power Cord you want to use UL/CSA approved? No? So a fire, which may have nothing to do with the amplifier but is related to the outlet on the wall, gets the manufacturer sued. They chose to put a non UL approved cord in their product and they will most certainly lose in court. Of course if you do replace their UL/CSA cord with the HPSPC and the place burns, the manufacturer is safe. Don't underestimate audiophiles, you might consider the Analysis Plus Oval to be awesome, but I'd bet my next paycheck there are others on this board who would disagree and prefer a different power cord. Do you seriously expect them to fork over 250 bucks for a cable they won't use and then go out and buy another $XXXX audiophile power cord? Or, "Why should I spend that much when I can go buy Brand A power cable for only $99 and it sounds better to boot?" I do agree that the power cord should be of quality and heft, but that is less than a dollar in quantity, if that. One audio company for which I consulted some years back, purposely tossed in a cheap RCA interconnect, even though their power amplifier was well reviewed in the press numerous times and most of the reviewers mentioned getting better interconnects to bring out the full potential. Their reasoning was "An audiophile is going to buy better cables anyway and we have no idea what they prefer. At least they get something to plug it in while the figure out what they want to do." |
100% disagree. Manufacturers aren’t caught between anything. Give me a break! They are blissfully ignorant of aftermarket power cords. Besides, even if they were aware of them, which they’re not, they could buy Analysis Plus Power Oval power cords, for example, at wholesale for 50 bucks and be miles ahead of whatever cheap crap they currently use. Same goes for fuses. It’s not about cost, it’s about knowing what in the wide world of sports is going on. |
I think the biggest reason is added cost. If you make a comparable amp to your competitor, you will price yourself out of the market if you mark it up $100 and include a better power cord. It also depends on the customer. It’s not like the amp sucks without a good power cable, it just doesn’t perform at its peak which many customers may not care about (not everyone is as anal as all of us here when it comes to music), and the customers who do care would rather shop around for the cable that sounds best to them (who wants to pay an extra $100 for a cable that will just sit around because you already had a better cable or you find one that better suits your taste?). Then there are the denialists - “No way I’m going to buy an amp from that company when they believe in pseudoscientific concepts like cables!” 😂 Manufacturers are in a tough position caught between cost, anal audiophiles and not turning off the denialists any more than they already are. |
Why? Because you have to sell your product. First a buyer has to believe your product is worth at least what you are asking. Second, the more you add cost, the more the retail climbs, making it harder to sell and harder for the buyer to justify the cost. Third, no matter how much a power cord improved the sound, there are folks out there who won't believe it and aren't willing to spend more bucks for something they don't believe helps. Fourth, it is one thing to buy a quality line cord that is mass produced, UL/CSA approved, and is independently tested safe; it is another to make a better line cord in small quantities that adds another 100 bucks to the retail price. It is impossible to compete with economy of scale in manufacturing - that is a factory making 5000 line cords a day and you in your small factory struggling to make quality audio gear at 10 pieces a day. As for the car / tire improvement, one manufacturer was sued a few years back for doing just that. They chose a 3 season tire that clearly outperformed the 4 season one but was sued when the owner crashed during wet weather. All cars today are sold with all season tires, just for that reason. |
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@boxer12. Doesn’t bother me at all. Everyone needs a hobby! For me its horses and music. Was talking with a traveling clinician once and he told that when speaking to a crowd if he actually reaches 1 person it was a good clinic. I’ll hang my hat on that thought. Plus the folks that are enjoyable to talk with float to the top. As a parting thought I took some more measurements and found that with my 2 upgraded PC one has 2.1% vs 2.4% THD. Nicely my ears followed the measurements. Same song, same preamp volume setting. Also a bit different power draw in amps although its rough as different passages are drawing different currents. Now off to consider new IC cables. Lol |
@jtucker, @thyname, @mkgus Sorry if I killed the discussion. I have some new data that you 3 might appreciate. Just got another upgrade PC and dropped between the wall and regenerator. Grabbed some new graphs. Wish the detail was better, but I'm limited to the granularity of built in scope I've added their difference plot side by side. Grabbed these 4 minutes apart so reflect my current input power. https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/6927 Sound wise, I'm hearing a difference not sure which I like better gonna let this one settle. Right off, my black isn't what it used to be. |
@mkgus : you are wasting your time with that guy. They will never listen, no matter what. First, If you tell them you can hear a difference, they say you are hallucinating. Prove it to me. With measurements and graphs. Then, when you show them graphs like @doitwithlife did, they say: meh... it is inaudible. Does not matter. It’s truly a waste of time. I know these guys. They are everywhere in the Internets. Or maybe it’s just one giant AI unit, that posts everywhere under fake identities. I don’t know. They try nothing, and they say they don’t have to try, because they KNOW it does not work. |
I used to be in the camp of power and fancy speaker cables being the "emperors new clothes". 10-15 years ago a dealer came to the house and loaned me cables for a could of weeks. I didn’t hear anything so back they went. Lots changed since then. @jtucker The 1st is the stock power cord, second is the upgrade. If you mentally overlay the 1st over the full input wave you can see how it is filling in the missing tops and bottom of the incoming wave. Thanks for your comment about my system. I really enjoy listening to music these days. Still way less than what most have here. I also added a 3rd which shows the full input sine wave. Not sure which power cord it describes. They look pretty similar in isolation. What the P15 does is bring the voltage within .1V AC of what I specify and more importantly brings back the missing top and bottom of the sine wave. I didn’t post the output sine wave but it looks very close to what you would expect a theoretical wave to be @mkgus In my world I heard a huge difference when adding the P15 and that’s from day one. After living with it for awhile I brought in the power cord and that added another level, polish if you will If I were asked, I’d recommend a regenerator before a power cord for audible results. Both make a difference. But then nobody asked. lol. I would love to have visitors bring over power cords to compare, but where I live moose are the only one that like to visit Keith |
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@mzk If I’m understanding @doitwithlife correctly, he’s saying that the input power to his PS Audio regenerator is cleaned up significantly with an aftermarket power cable. The power regenerator is doing such a good job cleaning up the signal that the output levels are similar, but apparently still audible between cords. That’s after a very high quality power regenerator, which costs more than some people’s entire systems! If you’re like most people who don’t have a power regenerator (which isn’t the same as a power conditioner), you’ll be sending 33% less harmonic distortion to your amplifier and electronics. I believe that is audible. That’s supported by the fact that I can easily hear the difference between cables and so can many people who have posted in this thread (and thousands more if you include other forums). At last, we have small bridge between the objectivists and subjectivists. And surprise, surprise they might just be different paths to arrive at the same truths. |
@doitwithlife > In both cases THD out reads 0.1% I don't know if thats as low as the unit will report or its the same measured value So yeah, below audibility for music. I don’t think anyone argues one power cable could have better THD, what people argue is that it makes no difference in having audible changes to the output from your speakers. |
The specific measurements I have are . These are with my upgraded cable. THD in currently at 2.0 -1.9%. Was closer to 3% with factory cord Voltage in 125.3. This doesn't change with the PC Scope view of the input wave shows significant mess at the peak, more clipping the leading edge than on the trailing. Its not totally obvious when doing and A/B of the waves what the difference is. What is more helpful is the difference view which shows the input wave vs the output wave. With the upgrade I see 3 peaks of correction leading and trailing. Its rough but there they are like mini waves of correction. With the factory cord this difference view is very course and haphazard. No symmetry in the difference. My takeaway is that there is clearly more noise in the waveform with the stock cord. Lots more correction required. Even with the regeneration process "correcting" the waveform I'm still able to hear the difference. In my world that is powerful. In both cases THD out reads 0.1% I don't know if thats as low as the unit will report or its the same measured value |
I'd be more than happy to share a couple of images showing the differences. Someone please share with me how to post on this site. I got my ca ble on blind faith. It lives between the wall and the regenerator. I chatted with the manufacturer and suggested there on the output to my directstream dac. I tried moving it to the dac and thats when i felt it was like taking air out of the tires. Its back at the wall now. |
@doitwithlife Wow, that’s pretty fascinating! I wonder why cable manufacturers don’t do demos like that? Or maybe they do and I’m not aware of them. Honestly, I bought my cables without seeing a demo or hearing them. I went off reviews and my positive past experiences with cable upgrades and the money back guarantee helped too. |
My P15 regenerator has a scope built into it. Makes it easy to compare the sine wave of both the input and input/output wave forms as well as the distortion. When switching between the stock cord and my upgrade cord there is a noticeable difference in the measurements. I can't explain why, but i can measure the difference. To my ears it sounds like letting the air out if the tires going back yo the old PC |
So it only makes a difference if I drive my amp to the physical limits of it's power supply, which nobody ever actually does? This is an exercise that shows that the effects of a power cord can be measured. In addition to total output power, distortion and output impedance change as well. It is also interesting to measure the voltage drop across the power cord from one end to the other. This can be correlated with the performance changes in the amplifier. |
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This stuff makes NO technical sense@kosst_amojan If you have any test equipment on hand, run your power amp with an 18ga. power cord up to clipping and note the power output. Change out the power cord with a 14ga. power cord and do the same test. Do you see any difference? Can someone explain this or experienced this also? Could it have something to do with the power grid? This is a common occurrence if our customers are any judge over the last 20 years. The grid is apparently a lot cleaner (and possibly higher voltage) at night. |
I don't get some of the arguments here? So because street lines and breaker boxes have noise issues then we "SHOULDN’T" bother with better power cables? That makes no sense in fact that makes the argument that yes we should invest in better cables and line conditioners cause normally the quality of the equipment sending us electricity is usually not that great. We have control over the last hop into our audio electronics not the rest of the Electric infrastructure so we should try and improve the parts we can. |
Twinterfinder you and I have similar results. My wife definitely heard and felt the difference with different pc’s also. She plays keys and I guitar and she also wears hearing aides. One thing we both have noticed is that tunes start to really change for the better in the early afternoon through the evening. Can someone explain this or experienced this also? Could it have something to do with the power grid? |
I actually find the argument that the pet dog perked its ears up and cocked its head a more credible argument than the ones involving the wife hearing the difference from the kitchen or yoga studio. In any case, it’s well known audiophiles can’t hear very well so they obviously need to come up with something. |
@twinterfinder. I really appreciated to hear your success story! There is also something very unique about it: in your specific case, the fact that your wife noticed the difference in sound and had no idea there was a new power cable in the system. That should really throw the objectivist/measurement people for a loop. They cannot claim placebo or bias or any sort of “tricking the mind” based arguments for this one. I’m curious what they will come up with or, perhaps, they’ll give a pass for your one specific example and concede a small amount of ground in that SOME power cables do effect sound SOME of the time. Hallelujah! |
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