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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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n80
1,227 posts
 
@david_ten 

Why would multi-thousand dollar components come without adequate power cables?

n80 Good choice of word in 'adequate.' That's exactly what they are: adequate.

That makes less sense than Geoff's explanation that the big buck manufacturers aren't aware of the power cable market. Again, they build their components to the highest of standards, not compromising on anything, but then just sticking an 'adequate' power cord in the box? It just makes no sense at all.
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
14,147 posts
 
It’s the same reason high end HDTVs and Blu Ray players don’t come with fancy audiophile grade power cords or audiophile grade HDMI cables. They never heard of em. The first step in a ten-step recovery program is admitting you have a problem. 😳
n80
1,227 posts
 
No problems at all Geoff. My power cables are awesome. I think the folks that made my gear knew what they were doing. Seems a pity that apparently many of them are in the dark about this cable thing.

Now, having no credibility is a problem. But admitting that you have that problem isn't going to help no matter how many steps are in the program.That ship has sailed.


stevecham
3,298 posts
 
The propogation of electronic signals through wire happens by way of electric fields, not photons. The electons move relatively slowly while the electric fields propogate at light speed.
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cleeds
2,065 posts
 
tobor007
"A 2014 study published in Science Translational Medicine (Harvard medical school) explored placebo effect by testing how people reacted to migraine pain medication. The researchers discovered that the placebo was 50% as effective as the real drug to reduce pain after a migraine attack."

That percentage would pretty much cover the " significant" difference some people are hearing
This is a red herring. The "significant" differences many audiophiles report hearing happen to those who are pretty sure in advance that they actually won't hear any difference. Many real audiophiles start as skeptics, but are willing to experiment. (Of course, some audiophiles claim to be skeptics, but won't experiment with things such as power cables. Those aren't genuine skeptics.)
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