How can power cords make a difference?


I am trying to understand why power cords can make a difference.

It makes sense to me that interconnects and speaker cables make a difference. They are dealing with a complex signal that contains numerous frequencies at various phases and amplitudes. Any change in these parameters should affect the sound.

A power cord is ideally dealing with only a single frequency. If the explanation is RF rejection, then an AC regeneration device like PS Audio’s should make these cords unnecessary. I suppose it could be the capacitance of these cables offering some power factor correction since the transformer is an inductive load.

The purpose of my post is not to start a war between the “I hear what I hear so it must be so” camp and the “you’re crazy and wasting your money,” advocates. I am looking for reasons. I am hoping that someone can offer some valid scientific explanations or point me toward sources of this information. Thanks.
bruce1483
Lawyer: I will be doing the very same test that you just performed, in the near future, when I set up a new CDR to record tape (old cassette collection) to digital. I need to know which IC is best for the recording process which may be completely different than their playback ability. Now I regret selling some of my extra IC's as one of them may have been a clear winner for this application.
Yes, we discovered that the IC that sounded best for playback did not sound the same for recording as it did in playback mode. We're still deciding which is "best".

One of the IC's gave less record surface noise on the CDR. The other gave less record surface noise on playback mode?
Good info to have as it will encourage me to play around with it even more. I suspect that the HT Truthlinks, that I sold, would have been nice for the job. Too late now.
Albertporter. I dont know that people who buy Krell or any other super high end componet would have a problem with seeing a nice fat cord included with their hardware. I dont see many people saying that these aftermarket cords "hurt" performance; only that it does nothing, or it sounds better.
The mindset of most consumers is not "oh my god"! "look, I'm paying for this nice looking cord, and I dont need it". I would guess that most consumers would say "cool, look at this nice cord they "included" with my gear"! This is (in my opinion) the response most tech geeks(lovers) have to a product feature.

Or perhaps I'm the only one who feels this way?
Mhubbard. As long as it was included and the price did not suddenly rise to cover the expense to Krell for supplying it. The price the factory pays for any given part is usually five times that amount at retail ( to the end user ).

Even assuming that the Krell people can purchase a great aftermarket cord at one fourth of what we pay, the price still turns out to be more than retail at the check out counter.

There are those who would object if the cost were even a few hundred dollars more, and those who did not object to the price, would likely have their own idea as to which brand they preferred at that price level.

I am glad I do not have to make the decision as to which cord to include. My guess is no matter what you choose, someone would be unhappy. Better to include a decent quality Belden that cost $4.00 and keep the price low. You are probably already paying $20.00 for that stock Belden that is included for "free."