Do power cords really matter?

"As long as it's cheap"? As long as it works ...

I recently read an article in Scientific American about using house electrical wiring to carry computer networking (i.e. internet) signals. I don't remember the details but the engineers were using higher frequencies carrier signals to avoid the noise generated by the household appliances that apparently resides at lower frequencies. They discussed all the issues discussed here like interference from outside the house, the fridge washer etc. It is very likely that the high end power cords all act as a high pass filter that removes a lot of the crap that is carried on the power lines.

There are certainly a class of cables that do have various types of filtering. However many just attempt to minimize resistance and inductance. These tend to be optimum for power amplifiers.

My " golden ears" tell me that a good power cord makes a significant if not huge difference.It is debateable if they make a bigger difference than the interconnects, but so as not to make an argument, I'll say they both make substantial differences. I would like to thank our in-house boy genius, Sean, for getting me a start in the right direction regarding good cables. I have no regrets storing my stock power cords in the closet.But system synergy is crucial.Once you've decided on your electronics,experimentation with power cords,interconnects, and speaker cables is recommended and fun,if you're a true audiophile.One of the nice advantages of this website, Audiogon, is you can buy a good used cord and if it doesn't work in your system, you can re-sell it on this same website to another fellow audiophile and try another one. I love this hobby.

Thanks to PsychicAnimal and Bob Bundus, i just snagged a handy piece of AC related test equipment off of Ebay. You plug it into the wall ( courtesy of a power cord with an IEC jack ) and it gives you three distinct views of your AC signal via an o'scope ( o'scope not included but i have a few ). Not only can you check to see if your 60 Hz sine wave is symmetrical or how much distortion it has riding on it, you can also check for common mode noise, noise between either the hot to ground or neutral to ground, etc...

It can do all of this simultaneously if you have a scope with enough inputs or multiple scopes. One can literally watch the changes in AC noise levels, small spikes and surges, etc... as they occur. I've been doing this for the last two days while at work and it has been pretty interesting to say the least. This should be an even greater help to me once i finally start testing PC, PLC's and noise filters.

My business partner, who is a "non-audiophile" and scoffs at the things that we "tweakaholics" do, was so intrigued by this device ( along with the Audioprism Noise Sniffers and Quiet Lines that i showed him ), that he "snagged" them from me for the long Memorial Day week-end. He wants to check out the AC in his house as he's been having a lot of interference on his Amateur radio gear lately. I'm sure that he'll be experimenting with his HT system also since he's got all the "goodies" to do so now. Hopefully, he'll see the value in working with "tweaks" and become more interested in such things. I could surely use the added "brain capacity" that he could offer when it comes to doing some of the testing / designing that i want to do in the near future. Sean
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