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
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.
My P15 regenerator has a scope built into it. Makes it easy to compare the sine wave of both the input and input/output wave forms as well as the distortion. When switching between the stock cord and my upgrade cord there is a noticeable difference in the measurements.  I can't explain why, but i can measure the difference.

To my ears it sounds like letting the air out if the tires going back yo the old PC
@doitwithlife Wow, that’s pretty fascinating! I wonder why cable manufacturers don’t do demos like that? Or maybe they do and I’m not aware of them. Honestly, I bought my cables without seeing a demo or hearing them. I went off reviews and my positive past experiences with cable upgrades and the money back guarantee helped too. 
@doitwithlife, Now we are getting somewhere.  Difference in both input and output waveforms?  The power cable is between the wall and the regenerator?  Is it possible to share the waveforms?  I would love to get a look.