Power Cord Length

Okay...I wasted my undergraduate tuition for my physics degree if I said anything other than "a power cord needs to be longer than 5 feet to be a clean conductor? What are you smoking?!"

What I *have* heard, though, is that some manufacturers (myself included, when I used to put together my own lab cables) use particular kinds of casings and antistatic/insulators that can actually pinch the conducting core if the cables are so short that their curves are of some, often small, angle or less (pinching). Thus, if you have a cable of "sufficient length" cabling loops are allowed, as long as they're not too tight. This generally describes home-grown, and often *cheaper* cables, though, not high end lab/mil spec/a/v cables...

I seriously doubt that such precarious storage/use requirements were employed by the company you used: after many years in a lab, I've only used one material - a flexible carbon fiber-aluminum hybrid - whose characteristics for best signal passage demanded relatively unkinked runs. It cost ~$2200/6". Thus, unless that was one, well, really costly power cord, I'd say it is unlikely a realistic concern for you.

Sheesh...

Seriously (if there is such a thing in this hobby??), I 'm sure some of us will be led to believe there is truth in this (marketing reasons or otherwise) but the link below does suggest digital cable lengths are affected by it, not sure about PC though since it is not passing signal/information??
spdif

Oops....the link below suggest digital cable lengths are affected by it........
http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue14/spdif.htm

Mahalo to everyone for your input. I can buy into Ivyinvestor's explaination of cable pinching. There maybe some stiff high end cords, which require more length to provide for gentle curves to meet installation needs, but otherwise I'll keep using with the shortest power cables possible.

just a guess here but it seems to make sence...if there is any sence to be made spending big $$ on power cords. In an article i read about using the house electric service to run computer network signals they indicated that they put that signal into the higher frequency range since the noise on the system resides in the lower frequency. My guess is that some of the high end cords are acting as high pass filters to some degree so that the noise is removed before it gets to the amp. A longer cable may increase the efficiency of the filtering?