The Truth About Power Cords and there "Real" Price to Performance

I firmly believe that pleasure should be the primary factor in deciding how lovers of pure sound reproduction should spend their money...

   "....What it does not address is differential voltages between equipment locally, usually most influenced by grounds, though ground line interaction is possible. Do you need $20K of power cords to solve this? No, $100 of copper strapping between equipment grounds will do far more. There is the potential for power cord to interconnect EMI, but again you don't need a super expensive cord to fix..."

atdavid,

Good point. Circuit designers work hard to achieve a common (Star) ground point in their equipment designs and then we undo their best efforts by plugging the pieces of equipment into various outlets and power conditioners in the room without regard for establishing a common system ground. The Star grounding concept should be used at the system level and copper strapping is one way to achieve that.

atdavid: Not to worry about GK.  Two things you can count on.  One...he hawks this forum like a termite on a sawdust floor and will respond to just about any post within 5 minutes.  Second...he will defend voo-doo audio magic as if you were challenging his heritage.

He is not a bad guy...just not one that believes science has any place in the manufacture of audio accessories; and offers personal insults in rebuttal.  

dynaflex4 is a long-term know nothing and stalker. But he’s a good guy.

OK, so to respond to my post, I simply threw it out there, you may do with it what you want, but I am not afraid to double blind my cables. I dont think I have all the answers, I am not a scientist , I do believe there are things we experience as humans that can NOT be measured with any existing thingamajigger the physicists and scientists may have, even if it does go PING. The funny part is everyone is so stuck here. Its a phenomenon to me . Like we made a stick line in the dirt and put the chickens beak in it. The whole 50 miles of crap wire with noise, can easily be summed up so everyone can understand how a power cord could make a difference, in two words. . Filtering Cable. um....., is that so hard to imagine.. ? now depending on how much noise a filtering cable can remove will also affect the amount of noise on the ground plane of a piece of gear., this is because the safety ground is tied to the signal ground plane in 90% of pieces. Silly idea if you ask me , but I love differential design. Power supply noise gets on the ground plane from leakage current as well. This is why the more expensive gear where they have spent much time and effort at creating a low leakage, therefore low noise Psup , sound better and get less of a benefit from a filtering power cord. Ive decided to start really getting down to the nitty gritty if we want to talk cables. If people dont believe cables work, lets start with the microphone cable. to test this area, I recenty purchased a matched set of very flat measuremant microphones and a high fallotin mic pre. What I did not realize is that most if not all vocal mics have a rising frequency response in the higher frequency. Very simply put, the "coloration" starts with the microphone. .. this is a whole other discussion , but I ran recording tests this weekend with Mogami and My pure silver foil as a microphone cable . The difference is not subtle. Im also thinking a good way to prove the power cord thing is for me to make a power cord that will collapse your soundstage , in other words if power cords can change the sound of a rig, which they can. I should also be able to make one that degrades your sonic as well , right ? Yes , I can , through my trial and error proces, I know some things that will inherently degrade the sonic, collapse the soundstage roll off highs, kill dynamics, etc.. This may be easier for people to hear since it sits in the glass half empty arena and it seems some minds stay there.. So anyways , have a great Sunday and happy listening !