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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
doitwithlife's avatar
doitwithlife
51 posts
 
The specific measurements I have are . These are with my upgraded cable.

THD in currently at 2.0 -1.9%. Was closer to 3% with factory cord

Voltage in 125.3. This doesn't change with the PC

Scope view of the input wave shows significant mess at the peak, more clipping  the leading edge than on the trailing. Its not totally obvious when doing and A/B of the waves what the difference is. What is more helpful is the difference view which shows the input wave vs the output wave. With the upgrade I see 3 peaks of correction leading and trailing. Its rough but there they are like mini waves of correction. With the factory cord this difference view is very course and haphazard. No symmetry in the difference.  My takeaway is that there is  clearly more noise in the waveform with the stock cord. Lots more correction required.  Even with the regeneration process "correcting" the waveform I'm still able to hear the difference. In my world that is powerful. 

In both cases THD out  reads 0.1% I don't know if thats as low as the unit will report or its the same measured value
doitwithlife's avatar
doitwithlife
51 posts
 
Posted images of the 2 difference views in my virtual system page. Enjoy
jtucker
35 posts
 
@doitwithlife, Thank you.  And the first picture is the upgrade and second id stock, correct?  P.S.  Nice system...
mzkmxcv
558 posts
 
@doitwithlife 
  
> In both cases THD out reads 0.1% I don't know if thats as low as the unit will report or its the same measured value  
  
So yeah, below audibility for music. I don’t think anyone argues one power cable could have better THD, what people argue is that it makes no difference in having audible changes to the output from your speakers.
mkgus's avatar
mkgus OP
82 posts
 
@mzk If I’m understanding @doitwithlife correctly, he’s saying that the input power to his PS Audio regenerator is cleaned up significantly with an aftermarket power cable. The power regenerator is doing such a good job cleaning up the signal that the output levels are similar, but apparently still audible between cords. That’s after a very high quality power regenerator, which costs more than some people’s entire systems! 

If you’re like most people who don’t have a power regenerator (which isn’t the same as a power conditioner), you’ll be sending 33% less harmonic distortion to your amplifier and electronics. I believe that is audible. That’s supported by the fact that I can easily hear the difference between cables and so can many people who have posted in this thread (and thousands more if you include other forums). 

At last, we have small bridge between the objectivists and subjectivists. And surprise, surprise they might just be different paths to arrive at the same truths. 
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