Why Power Cables Affect Sound


I just bought a new CD player and was underwhelmed with it compared to my cheaper, lower quality CD player. That’s when it hit me that my cheaper CD player is using an upgraded power cable. When I put an upgraded power cable on my new CD player, the sound was instantly transformed: the treble was tamed, the music was more dynamic and lifelike, and overall more musical. 

This got me thinking as to how in the world a power cable can affect sound. I want to hear all of your ideas. Here’s one of my ideas:

I have heard from many sources that a good power cable is made of multiple gauge conductors from large gauge to small gauge. The electrons in a power cable are like a train with each electron acting as a train car. When a treble note is played, for example, the small gauge wires can react quickly because that “train” has much less mass than a large gauge conductor. If you only had one large gauge conductor, you would need to accelerate a very large train for a small, quick treble note, and this leads to poor dynamics. A similar analogy might be water in a pipe. A small pipe can react much quicker to higher frequencies than a large pipe due to the decreased mass/momentum of the water in the pipe. 

That’s one of my ideas. Now I want to hear your thoughts and have a general discussion of why power cables matter. 

If you don’t think power cables matter at all, please refrain from derailing the conversation with antagonism. There a time and place for that but not in this thread please. 
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Showing 7 responses by analogluvr

It’s amazing that presumably intelligent grown ups buy into this crap!  Do you believe in Santa Clause too?
 Exactly! I can buy into the speaker cable and the interconnect having an effect on the sound but if the power cable to changes the sound in a measurable way you should throw the device in the garbage and get another one. It must have a horrible horrible power supply 
I think people would be further ahead to get rid of the stupid IEC and hardwire a decent gauge cord in instead of spending big bucks on some silly overpriced well marketed crap. 
@prof another excellent post! I would say the measurements that show a change to the output signal don’t exist because they don’t exist. 
 And I think some manufacturers say to use the best cabling because they don’t want to alienate potential buyers. And what does that mean exactly? To me the best interconnects is a Beldon purchased for $50.  If they said cables don’t matter and you’re an idiot if you think so, then if you believed they did you wouldn’t buy their product. 
I’m sure the improvements were obvious to everyone when you told them you had subbed in a larger gauge power cable and that it would sound much better. 
The nerve of him!  He probably doesn’t have a clue what he is talking about!  And neither do all the science based individuals who study confirmation bias. 
Just trust your ears 🙄