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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
mkgus's avatar
mkgus OP
82 posts
 
Only poorly designed gear benefits from upgraded power supply cables or power source (power conditioner, etc.).

No doubt a well-built, oversized power supply goes a long way towards reaching maximize sound quality. 

If your product benefits from it, return it and get a better made one.

Manufacturers have to build to certain price points based on consumer wants and needs, and unfortunately (most) people have budgets they have to stick to with this hobby. Most anything “budget friendly” will benefit from power cables because they will have a power supply that’s “good enough” to get good sound, and not over-engineered ones that are required for high end audio. You could say these budget friendly models are poorly designed but many are probably good designs given their price point.
mzkmxcv
558 posts
 
@mkgus

Manufacturers have to build to certain price points

Maybe if we are talking $100 power amps or $30 DACs. Any issue with power supply would show up in measurements done by various sites (again, unless you live literally next to a radio tower, as the reviewers likely don’t), and it’s very rare for any products, regardless of price, to show any mains leakage (harmonic distortion every 60Hz, or 50Hz for Europe and whatnot).

Disregarding mains leakage and focusing on EMI, a 20¢ ferrite with most likely solve the issue.
elizabeth
6,726 posts
 
I find the better the equipment, the MORE that equipment responds well to a better power cord, better wall AC duplex.            
Back when I had $2000 a pop electronics, I could barely tell the differences in power cords. When I jumped to $5000 a pop for equipment, and added a $3500 power conditioner, it became easier to hear the differences.           
Now with a $14,000 pair of speakers, and a lot of AC improvements, I can hear the change of moving one power cord plug from a Gold plated Furutech GTX to the Rhodium one. 
This is the difference of actual experience instead of fantasy theory, and the failure to realize: "Gee if I can't hear it, no one can" is not true.
nonoise's avatar
nonoise
4,382 posts
 
@elizabeth ,
Well said. 

There has to be a stop put to the notion that there is some kind of cut off point where there's junk that benefits from the use of better cords and conditioners and above that, everything is perfect and won't. That's way too simplistic an argument and not at all in standing with what's been observed.

All the best,
Nonoise
mitch2
1,911 posts
 
@atmasphere
 I’ve seen a power cord make a difference of nearly 30% of output power out of a power amplifier. I could also see that that was caused by a voltage drop across the power cord.
and
You can measure differences in output power, output impedance and distortion on many power amps just by changing the power cord- and many of these differences are simply caused by voltage drop.
and finally,
There is more to it than voltage drop though. It also has to do with bandwidth of the power cord.......
 My questions are not whether a power cord can affect the sound of an amplifier (or other gear) since I have heard the differences, but rather,
1. What characteristics of a power cord would affect voltage (i.e., cause a voltage drop) - is that primarily a function of resistance and wire gauge, or something else, and
2. What characteristics of a power cord would affect bandwidth?  
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