Will a good power cable replace the need for a PC?

Thank you Elizabeth.

You will get multiple replies, many will be opposite opinions.

I won't say a power cord will solve the same things that conditioning addresses, but so far I have not heard a power conditioner I liked.

All conditioners I've tried harmed the sound in some way. A couple were very expensive (seven to ten thousand dollars) and hurt dynamics, detail and even compressed the sound stage.

Then again you might hear from a music lover that lives in a high rise and has 100 other people beating on the same electrical service he's tied to and his test concluded that (brand here) conditioner was much preferred.

If you live in a single family home, chances are dedicated lines should be your first line of defense against bad AC.

After that improvement, maybe explore some high end power cables assuming all your equipment is pretty much where you want it.

There are a lots of AC cords on the market and many of them are an audible improvement over stock. That being said, conclusions as to which provide what are dependant on equipment and personal preferences.

Inna,

No, I have not tried that one. The most expensive one was a regenerator which converted AC to DC and then generates a "perfect" output. It actually improved the CD but when we added the turntable and six box Aesthetix phono and preamp it smoked the regenerator.

I was happy the regenerator belonged to a dealer and the test was at his insistence. I cautioned him about hooking to my (then) Aesthetix due to power draw.

I think the question is, do you NEED a power conditioner?

My comment about the high rise hinted at that but if you don't have a problem the conditioner can make things worse than doing nothing. Again, people are going to report their findings and even if accurate do not mean it applies to us.

That means every ones experience will differ, depending on where they live, the quality of their power and even their equipment. So far I've been better off with lots of dedicated copper runs to high quality equipment with no conditioner.

Some manufacturers I've approached lost interest in my trying their conditioner after learning how "over the top" my electrical is.

I have 3 phase at my residence and it's all copper, triple double zero runs with a 750 amp service drop with a trans socket meter (for a commercial building).

This route fixed a lot of problems and cost less than patching up afterward with a bunch of plug in processors. The problem is finding a commercial contractor that will do this on a home and then getting approval from the utility company. It requires an additional transformer (expensive) and a lot of labor.

Albert, what you did is very impressive. Unfortunately, some of us who live in apartments, condos and rented houses cannot do it. You also mentioned the difficulties that this approach may encounter.

No doubt, just saying even if a person could afford all those conditioners it probably cost more that what I did. I spent about $3800.00 for everything listed.

What I need first of all is to stabilize the power and only then think about conditioning. So I thought that something like better Furman or PurePower might work well in my modest system and do both things at the same time.

Yes, each situation is different as I posted previously. Since you cannot change what you have it makes sense to improve with add ons.

And in my experience power cords can sometimes do wonderful things, by the way.
Inna

Agreed, I've been using aftermarket AC cords for over 25 years. Many offerings today are extremely good.

I don't understand the last two posts but the short answer is yes, dedicated lines are preferred to plugging into an outlet that shares with multiple other items.

Every outlet, switch and additional run of the electrical is a break in the line. Most people have builder grade electrical outlets and many have marginal wire gauge.

Running a single (10 gauge Romex) copper line direct to your stereo system will pretty much always benefit a good quality system.

On my system it was absolutely huge, I heard the before and after and so did the twenty or more people that visit me regularly.

There are dozens of posts on this topic at Audiogon and many, many Audiogon members that report benefit with all brands of equipment.