2. cables
  3. 141153-122613

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
jea48
2,944 posts
 
mzkmxcv334 posts01-13-2019 8:49am@elizabeth  
 
If I can easily show that the sound coming out of your speakers is still the same regardless of “upgrading” power cords, what argument would the “believers” have then?

What a bunch of BS!
What test equipment do you use to measure for Fullness and Timbre?
mzkmxcv
558 posts
 
@jea48

“Fullness” is a meaningless term, so not sure (do you mean deep bass?). Timbre is harmonics, so that’s easy.

However, no solid state amp should have timbre anyway, it should only output what the input signal dictates. However all amps have some THD/IMD, but when it’s 80dB down, it’s not important.


elizabeth
6,726 posts
 
I would say you are not measuring the right things..... LOL.The measurement thing is your game, not mine.Why would I play by your biased rules??? When they are not what I base my judgements on? I like the fine art analogy. You idea is to measure the painting, not LOOK at it.
Post removed 
elizabeth
6,726 posts
 
""Upgrading the power cord on "ALL"..."" no one ever said that. It is true on some, maybe even many, but not all, which leaves your argument worthless.
"Extends treble response" nope. again a restatement of what was said to make it fit YOUR NOTION. not the person who said it. Generally SOMETIMES, (note the sometimes.). the treble has more clarity. easier to understand female vocals, hear cymbals clearly, massed violins sound as a group of separate instruments, not just some clump of noise. I would go on to add that usually this also means attack is sharper, cleaner.
Bass is usually tighter, less wooly, not louder
And then placebo. So far we have allowed the ’notion’ created by the naysayers that ’placebo’ is : ’bad’, ’stupid’ terrible’ ’a failure’. When those are THEIR colorations to the word. When in fact placebo is neutral. it is not judgemental. It is a statement that the (great and wanted) effect, has no known reasons. OK So then I say Placebo is GOOD, Fine, no problem, it works, and that is all that matters is the sound is better to YOU. If some other person wants to name that placebo,... THROW AWAY the negative markers THEY put on the word. Say so what if you call it placebo, it means nothing. neutral, only means you could not measure it. YOUR fail not mine.
If in YOUR mind that makes no sense, I cannot fix it for you. Your brain just is not able to make it work. Sorry.
I understand you want to engage, you think by constantly trying to invent a new way to debate you can somehow ’refute’ the things being said. Sorry it will never work. The things being said are an attempt to say in words what the person experiences. If the words fall short, it does not make the experience invalid. The experience is the basis. not the words. Where for the naysayer, it does seem the words are all that matter.So even if the words of the people who have had the positive EXPERIENCE of value added power cords falter. The experience stands. Where all you naysayers have are words, endless words. Like I mentioned before. "A picture is worth a thousand words" and in audio the sound is worth a million. You have about 999,023 more words needed to even start coming close to being meaningful.. Just keep typing.. you WILL get there.. (Number of words, not necessarily winning your case)
More to discover