What was the first power cable that you noticed a difference in the sound?

Triode wire labs Obsession .

I remember fiddling with off brands and some inexpensive Shunyata power cords to no effect. This was ten or fifteen years ago.
 

With my newer Audio Research amps they come with heavy duty copper and  20 amp connectors, so I couldn’t use any of my stash. So I rotated through every Cardas line, all of which were pretty much instantly obviously better… but also tipped the tonal balance slightly and the AudioQuest Hurricane which just improved every aspect of the sound and was completely neutral.

OP.

What I would recommend is to find a way to borrow an Audioquest Hurricane. These things took the audio world by storm a couple years ago. The difference should be instantly obvious and overwhelmingly positive. If not… fantastic… the power cord has no effect on your amp… you are lucky. You know for certain. End of story.

Otherwise you have a data point. If it is worth it… well, I know of incidences when an absurdly expensive cord is performance justified. Or drop down a level in the storm series.

Also, the Audioquest are incredibly tight fitting… on purpose.  

JD2000 said: "perfect, now I can have my coffee knowing you are listening." Sounds like sarcasm, if you read between the lines, I am actually agreeing with you.

I must be deaf to not feel the urgency to buy a 2,000 to 4,000 bucks audio cord for my 700 bucks system ...😋🤑😵

I am deaf or my system is so well embedded i dont need it ...

Or i am happy with what will be deemed a trash system by many ...😁 It is Ok ...

But then how is it if i compare to all audio system i listened to in my life ? Not better than mine and in most cases inferior even with better speakers and better amplifier ... ( my Tannoy dual concentric were vastly superior to my actual low cost speakers, but i prefer the sound i have now, why ? because the superior Tannoy were badly embedded not at all in fact ,and my low cost speakers are very well embedded )

It is with this experience in my life that when i thought about S.Q. i did not thought about price tag, by lack of money for sure also,  but about mechanical,electrical and especially acoustical embeddings control...

i solved this question about power cord by the carlsbad idea in his post above about the fact that not all amplifier design benefit from power cord ... The Sansui alpha was a top of his era in 1980 ...

My power cord is integrated with the Sansui and i will not pay to solder a new one ... 😊

@h4k4lugi Thanks for posting that. I have no doubt bringing in Shunyata to design and implement a fully developed and integrated power, grounding, and interconnect strategy can yield a 10dB improvement in a studio. But that is a very different thing than swapping just a power cable at home. 

One of my jobs along the way was developing grounding and cabling schemes for large live sound touring systems because having to pick up and move several semis of gear every night then rebuild it in a new venue, with new power on a tight timeline is a huge challenge. And 10dB can make the difference between a great show and an unhappy band. But the key point is that it takes an understanding of the entire system requirements and a whole system solution. There are no single silver bullets.