Dekay: Don't forget that power cords, like every other piece of wire, take a certain amount of time to break in. The last time I changed power cords it took several days for the improvement to become apparent. You can't pass judgement on a power cord or interconnect cable until it's been in your system for awhile, some say around 400 hours of actual use. BTW, I purchased my Parasound 2000 preamp largely because it had a phase reversing switch on the remote. Shortly afterward, I read that phase inverting switches add an additional circuit -- to say nothing of the switch itself -- into the signal path. More garbage between you and the music = BAD! For this reason, the Parasound has an alternative direct output that bypasses the phase inverting function for serious listening. You can't win. It's helpful, however, to be able to determine the phase setting that sounds the best on a recording-to-recording basis right from your listening chair, and then mark it right on the jewel case for the CD. Regrettably, this really only works fairly well with classical recordings, and even then, only with a good one. In a multi-mic recording, mics may be out of phase with one another. On the pop music side, I have a Joni Mitchell CD where the absolute polarity jumps around from cut to cut. Pop albums are frequently recorded in multiple studios, with the master carried around the world to have tracks added. Off to Nashville to have a rhythm guitar track added, then off to someplace else to record the horns, etc. Fleetwood Mac, for example, is notorious for this. By the time you pop that CD into your system, God only knows WHAT you’ve got.
