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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. 
128x128mkgus
marqmike
676 posts
 
+1 Jea48, Cleeds
jafreeman's avatar
jafreeman
448 posts
 
I've built my AC cords using Furutech Ohno Continuous Cast copper--much better sound clarity over tough pitch copper. Your signal needs a smooth, quiet pathway to travel in. No grain boundaries in OCC metal--less distortion.  You must also address the noisy power supply feeding into your AC cords instead of dismissing better cords because of the noisy power lines, etc--have to improve this.  Nothing should be ordinary in a high-performance system.    
 
elizabeth
6,726 posts
 
Besides pure wires, IMO you need pure plugs. AC plugs made with any brass content are damaging the sound from your speakers.
Once I went to all Furutech Duplex (which are made with pure copper, and use springs to maintain contact, I realized the few plain brass Wattgate plugs were altering the sound, mainly adding a white noise into the upper midrange. With me finally buying Pangea powercords of the XL series, which also say they are pure copper plugs.. The sound is better. (though the gold plated SE Pangea were better and no noticeable haze in upper mids, vs cords with plain brass Wattgate plugs)
I cannot say if bronze is different? tin alloy vs zinc.                                     
Also I may try to make a cord like williewonka suggests.. a spiral.. For a source to start.
yang_hong
13 posts
 
One thing always pops up in this thread is that people often talk about AC cable as if it directly carries the audio signal.

Can we at least have a consensus that this simply cannot be true? Otherwise I see absolutely no point for any further discussions.
elizabeth
6,726 posts
 

yang_hong (welcome)
The point of threads like this is (some) folks agree power cables CAN affect the sound coming out of the speakers. They agree better AC power cords can and do change the sound one hears from the stereo.
Now the naysayers all agree this is ’not possible’. So that is the crux of the dispute between the yea-sayers, and the nay-sayers.

The most interesting thing is... Over time, many nay-sayers BECOME yea-sayers once they actually hear the changes power cords can make. I am one of those people. I used to, years ago believe power cords were just wire. Now, to me, they are part of the components.
So I would write that power cords in any of the components, can (but not always do) AFFECT the sound coming out of the speakers. and that is the basic claim of the yea-sayers.
The nay-sayers claim it is not possible for a power cord to affect the sound (except if it is too small, or has too much resistance.. The classic resistance, capacitance, inductance, ampacity.. and nothing else.)
So it would seem you (yang_hong) are in the naysayer camp? Welcome anyway!                   
                          
Added" One point is the folks who generally are hearing differences have rather high end systems. I know for my own ability to hear such differences increased a lot when I upgraded back in 2010. And another big improvement in being able to hear such differences when i upgraded this year.             
Such recent upgrades included from Magnepan 3.6 to 20.7 speakers. Buying a Marantz Sa-10 SACD/DAC. Switching all duplex outlets to Furutech GTX-D..
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