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. 
128x128mkgus
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@tobor007 I like your idea. Now we just need to find a vendor who will let 10 people “steal” their system for an afternoon. Haha!

One of my concerns with “on the spot” listening tests is that I need time to learn a specific system’s sound first. I can pick up on very subtle changes with my system because I am very acquainted with it. If I go to someone else’s house, I would not fare so well because I am not very acquainted with the “baseline” sound. Give me enough time, which could be hours or days and I would do much better on listening tests. What I am alluding to is that if we show up at an audio show with an unfamiliar system, we could all fail a listening test and there could still be differences between cables that we miss because we aren’t familiar with the “baseline” sound. 
mkgus
One of my concerns with “on the spot” listening tests is that I need time to learn a specific system’s sound first. I can pick up on very subtle changes with my system because I am very acquainted with it. If I go to someone else’s house, I would not fare so well ... Give me enough time, which could be hours or days and I would do much better on listening tests. What I am alluding to is that if we show up at an audio show with an unfamiliar system, we could all fail a listening test and there could still be differences between cables that we miss because we aren’t familiar with the “baseline” sound.
You will not "fail" a listening test, because such tests don’t actually test the listener. For that, see an audiologist; that’s what they do.

But your point about being part of a listening test using an unfamiliar system is quite valid, and represents one of the many issues that must be addressed as part of designing a scientifically valid test.