Monstrous power cables

"The electricity is carried through my house probably using 14 gauge wire."

This is the key.  Same with streaming.  If your bandwidth from the curb to the house is bad, a 1000$ router is not going to make it any better.   If the source is bad, it will not get better with a different cable to the streamer.  You don't want the power cable to make the sound be any worse, but hard to understand how it going to fix the 50 feet of Romex in the wall, and Romex don't cost much per foot.  

I don’t see the relevance of 10 people not aware of the equipment or the process or the cables to me that doesn’t matter it’s strictly the hearing, do you hear a difference yes or no!  There’s much made of science, bean counters, nonbelievers , that sort of thing. So with heavy emphasis on hearing let’s do it, is there a difference or not ?
Have an average system, and alternately a very revealing system same process same questioning, is it different or not ? 
One doesn’t have to be open-minded… let a jury decide.

I read all the posts here and it talks about the same subject as a post I started last week.  I will add this to it as well.

I now have two high end sound systems now, over 100 K invested, of which 10 K in cables.  In Montreal I have mostly Transparent speaker and interconnects with a Simaudio amp and recently Q concept 500 speakers.   In the chalet, now our main home, I have new Raidho X3 with Devialet amp and Luna Red usb and speaker cables. 

My problem here is with power cords. Here are my findings:

The Audioquest Blizzard with the Raidhos make them sound less lively than a cheaper power cord.  The same setup with the Q concept worked fine ( I had them at the chalet for a month)

The Q concepts back in Montreal  replace Wilsons Sophia 3 . Now the sound is too bright. No distortion, but too bright nevertheless.  So I took out the DR Acoustics Red fire ( 5 K) and swapped home made Furutech heavy gauge. ( 200 $). And guess what: the balance of the speakers was back to normal. Could have more separation in instruments, but at least you can listen to the music and not the equipment.

I am not an engeneer, bus I said to myself: if the DR are more revealing, why noy try them with the Raidhos.  Well, I just did and ....   it works !!  The Raidhos are now as good as they were in the store.

In tis swap, the impact of the power cord was as big as one qurter turn in the old treble knobs. Much bigger impact than interconnects , digital and even speaker cables.

Finally, I want to point out that I went to a lot of live concerts in my life: Pink Floyd, ELP, Police, Sade etc, as weel as many symphonies in Montreal, Paris, Vienna, Milano, Carenigie hall etc.  

My criteria for any music, live or reproduced is: does it make my hair raise on my arms and the top: on my neck.

My exprience with 4 power cables fron 50 to 5000 $ made that happen in both systems.  

Conclusion: experiment with power cords. If your hair stays down, do not buy.

Have fun.

Power cords make a big difference in sound… that is the why. It is best to think about plugging into your outlet as plugging lake, as opposed to plugging into a 14 gauge “hose”. I think the founder of Shunyata uses this analogy. Power does not work like a hose.

But there is a lake at the power plant.
The amp has capacitors in it that also creates a lake inside of the amp.

Unless the internal capacitors are drooping, then how would the cord affect them?

@1971gto455ho

Just so happens that I was a practicing scientist when I began my pursuit of high end audio… before graduate school. Within a year I realized that the published technical parameters were grossly insufficient to account for most of what we hear in electronically reproduced music. It isn’t that this is beyond the realm, companies use science and engineering as a foundation to producing good sounding equipment. It is that the number of variables become overwhelming quickly. So, many variables quickly send designers to experimentation quickly… basic material science.

This is something I know something about. I worked as an inventor (electrical mechanical engineer) after college. I was given the task of designing a new system. The first few days I used physical and chemical properties to design. Then, realized how I would need computer simulation. I just went out and bought dozens of materials and used them in a prototype to see how they functioned. Hundreds of time more efficient.

Basic science is fantastic when using a few variables… but throw in dozens or hundreds for the sake of creating audio components and it become too time consuming.

Let me suggest you forget your vendetta against all of us stupid gullible people that will spend $5K on speaker cables or interconnects. Just go out and listen to some insanely expensive systems. Forget the price. Just listen. If they don’t sound fantastic to you. Great, go home and enjoy your system. If they do sound amazing… like they did to me… start investigating why.

I did. What I found is that they are systems and every component matters. You can find a good sounding system with just great components, but you will not find great sounding systems without every aspect carefully chosen and optimized. If you simply put together “good measuring” equipment like ASR is likely to recommend you will have yourself a very poor sounding system.