As a follow-up / addendum to what Bigtee stated above, i looked into the comments being made by owners of Bryston gear stating that power cords make little to no difference on their gear. What i found was that Bryston incorporates more filtering into their power supply than that of what most other manufacturers provide. As such, power cords have the potential to make a difference with Bryston's, but the effects may not be near as audible as it is with other gear utilizing less filtration. As i've mentioned before, the greater the difference that a power cord makes on a component, the poorer the design of the component's power supply.
Having said that, most all designs will benefit from a low inductance / high capacitance power cord design. In theory, shielding should work better, but most shielded designs are not properly implimented in my experience. Depending on the specific design of the cord and the individual component that a shielded PC is being used on, it is possible to introduce non-linear distortions to the system. The end result could be considered an improvement for the majority of operation, but under specific operating conditions, particularly high current demands, be worse than an unshielded design.
Other than, i agree that dedicated low inductance lines are a start. From there, proper high current filtration that is rated for at least 2 and preferably 3 times the current demand that you'll ever pull should be next. If your system is capable of pulling 15 to 20 amps, your "AC filter" should be capable of passing at least 40 or preferably 60 amps of steady state current. In order to achieve this kind of current rating, you may need to "double up" or add filters in parallel. If you don't have the "headroom" available in the AC filtration system, one could run into dynamic compression / non-linear distortions being contributed, just like a poorly designed shielded power cord.
As a side note, the type of filtration that i'm mentioning here will be VERY heavy. If you've got "filtering" that is in a convenient little component sized box that weighs just a few pounds, you can bet that it is choking the system. This is why many folks have found that using such a design for line level components works okay, but they avoid running any high current devices such as an amp through them.
Once you've got all of this in place, add in some well designed reasonable cost low inductance power cords. Since most PC's use commercially available wire with good quality connectors used at both ends, it isn't hard to duplicate or improve upon them for pennies on the dollar. That is, IF you are willing to get your hands dirty and build your own. Having said that, there are some proprietary designs out there that have merit. These are typically quite expensive and would be harder to duplicate, but it can be done. Given their very high cost, "cloning" becomes even more beneficial in terms of a performance vs dollar spent ratio. Sean
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Having said that, most all designs will benefit from a low inductance / high capacitance power cord design. In theory, shielding should work better, but most shielded designs are not properly implimented in my experience. Depending on the specific design of the cord and the individual component that a shielded PC is being used on, it is possible to introduce non-linear distortions to the system. The end result could be considered an improvement for the majority of operation, but under specific operating conditions, particularly high current demands, be worse than an unshielded design.
Other than, i agree that dedicated low inductance lines are a start. From there, proper high current filtration that is rated for at least 2 and preferably 3 times the current demand that you'll ever pull should be next. If your system is capable of pulling 15 to 20 amps, your "AC filter" should be capable of passing at least 40 or preferably 60 amps of steady state current. In order to achieve this kind of current rating, you may need to "double up" or add filters in parallel. If you don't have the "headroom" available in the AC filtration system, one could run into dynamic compression / non-linear distortions being contributed, just like a poorly designed shielded power cord.
As a side note, the type of filtration that i'm mentioning here will be VERY heavy. If you've got "filtering" that is in a convenient little component sized box that weighs just a few pounds, you can bet that it is choking the system. This is why many folks have found that using such a design for line level components works okay, but they avoid running any high current devices such as an amp through them.
Once you've got all of this in place, add in some well designed reasonable cost low inductance power cords. Since most PC's use commercially available wire with good quality connectors used at both ends, it isn't hard to duplicate or improve upon them for pennies on the dollar. That is, IF you are willing to get your hands dirty and build your own. Having said that, there are some proprietary designs out there that have merit. These are typically quite expensive and would be harder to duplicate, but it can be done. Given their very high cost, "cloning" becomes even more beneficial in terms of a performance vs dollar spent ratio. Sean
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