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
I don't get some of the arguments here? So because street lines and breaker boxes have noise issues then we "SHOULDN’T" bother with better power cables? That makes no sense in fact that makes the argument that yes we should invest in better cables and line conditioners cause normally the quality of the equipment sending us electricity is usually not that great.

We have control over the last hop into our audio electronics not the rest of the Electric infrastructure so we should try and improve the parts we can.
This stuff makes NO technical sense
@kosst_amojan

If you have any test equipment on hand, run your power amp with an 18ga. power cord up to clipping and note the power output. Change out the power cord with a 14ga. power cord and do the same test. Do you see any difference?

Can someone explain this or experienced this also? Could it have something to do with the power grid?

This is a common occurrence if our customers are any judge over the last 20 years. The grid is apparently a lot cleaner (and possibly higher voltage) at night.

@atmasphere 

So it only makes a difference if I drive my amp to the physical limits of it's power supply, which nobody ever actually does? 
So it only makes a difference if I drive my amp to the physical limits of it's power supply, which nobody ever actually does?

This is an exercise that shows that the effects of a power cord can be measured. In addition to total output power, distortion and output impedance change as well.


It is also interesting to measure the voltage drop across the power cord from one end to the other. This can be correlated with the performance changes in the amplifier.