Cost effective power cables recommendations, low and high power

Check out Empirical Design power cables—they have ED 416 for high current and ED 316 for low current components. Excellent products with great support.

You can buy and sell used to try.

Audio Bacon had a PC shootout a few years back.

Acoustic Revive on eBay from Japan

RSX Upper PC lines got great reviews

Hello Family,  Good Post OP.  I also bought the $40 dollar Amazon power cords I replace the stock PC`s of my Audio Research CD3 CD player, also to each of my Velodyne Subs, one for the Pass XP30 Preamp. an also one for My Pass XP350 Power amp I`m very pleased with the power cords.  The Pass XP30 is a 3 tier Preamp that uses umbilical cords I upgraded those with a used pair of Revelation Audio Labs DP25`s the big 3.6 Maggies sound soooooooo much better.

Let me ask another question. For the main amp, it is pretty heavy so a thick stiff cord is workable but for smaller items like phono stage or DAC they are smaller lighter units, they will work much better with a pretty flexible lighter AC cable. Would appreciate suggestions for good sounding lighter gauge cords please.

As I understand it, shielding is pretty darned important, so perhaps making a really good sounding lighter flexible cord is actually more challenging than a big thick one.

I know that some makers do purposefully like to market their cords as mega thick pythons and give customers a sense they are getting something substantial, play with the buyer psychology some. But I think for my use with source components lighter and more flexible will be better, sound of the cable aside.

The ridgidity is dependent on the brand. Cardas are not ridged although thick. In general I agree that the emphasis on greater flexibility for components. It is not uncommon this to be true.

Most companies make power cords specifically for amps and also specifically for components. Component power cords are designed for greater noice resistance and the amp ones for greater current capacity.

I recommend just work on one cord… for your amp first. As I mentioned earlier, this typically will make the biggest difference. This makes it simpler. You can use Cableco’s lending library, instead of buying… or have a dealer lend you some. If you don’t get a valuable sound difference out of this… then you are unlikely to get a bigger difference out of one of your components (but it is possible).

Also, when auditioning… well anything. It’s good to do a few quick A / B comparisons and write down the results. But, unless you are really put off my a change, spend a number of continuous hours listening to music (not to the power cord). When you take it out, you will most likely get the best take on the real change in sound. I always switch back to my standard… which over the decades [I have chosen to be DHLabs… to me has always been a good quality budget wire. That is me. You can use Home Depot as your standard if you want.]