Why Expensive power Cables when Romex behind Wall?

No offence Boros as I was once a power cord skeptic myself-- but I get the impression that you haven't actually auditioned any PCs yourself.

Audiogon should have a regulation that no one can ask this question unless they have auditioned at least five decent power cords in their own system, IMO of course. I auditioned seven in a week and it cost me nothing but shipping. Do a search and read the interminable comments. Cheers. Craig

The same could be said anytime you're trying to purify "garbage" : poor recordings, poor source, bad room. I, too, used to be a skeptic. I was espically skeptical of all cables and even most CD players. most recording travel down a $16 XLR microphone cable somewhere during the recording process. Since that is the weak link, why should I bother using a better cable than that? (rhetorical)

Auditioning interconnects a couple years ago opened my mind to that. And recently contructing several DIY power cables have opened my mind that sometimes, a power cable can make a SMALL difference. Even with the junk in the walls.

Try some. You won't hear differences in all systems. This is like the last 0.00001% tweak of your system. But in some systems you will. Maybe yours isn't tuned that well. Or perhaps your ears aren't? Or perhaps you have the wrong power cord? Generally, if you can't heara difference - you have some other gross inadequacy in you system - that may or may not be due to the romex in the walls.

I would fathom of the increased (or reduced losses ;-) ) of better power_cords/outlets/iec_sockets tend to be a result of the improved grabbing ability of the connections in making a solid connection. "Hospital Grade" stuff in known for that. That's why we use stuff like that. Better connections.

And you're right. After power cords. You'll start playing with power condititioners. Then you'll start replacing outlets (might as well, <$10). Next you'll run a dedicated line, one each, for - analog, amplifers, digital gear. Heheheh.

I was skeptical too... had some "pretty good" power cords that were made for me by a local cable deigner; better than stock cords but certainly not current state of the art. I had heard them compared to stock cords and could CLEARLY hear an improvement. That was 7 or 8 years ago. I have upgraded components since then, and got the system settled down... then began to audition new power cords. Some were no better, some were worse (even expensive ones). The ones that I settled on were again, clearly better in my system. It doesn't make scientific sense to me, but it happens. I tried making a bunch of PCs. I used romex all the way to the component; hard and hashy sounding. I tried a few different kinds of braided wire too; conclusion, this guy cannot make a PC that sounds as good as what the Power Cord magicians are making. Go figure? MG

This is an excellent question but that 6 foot high-end power cord can make an audible improvement. This similar to using high-end speaker cables. Most internal speaker wiring is tin-plated copper yet one can hear an improvement. There are many claims of how power cords achieve this sonic improvement by filtering, shielding, and lower inductance. Of course there are many so called high-end cords that make no improvement at all (IMO) so be careful in your selection.

"Hospital" grade sais it all. Would you feel safe, if the high tech respirator keeping you alive had a lamp cord and was plugged into a $5 power strip from Walmart? Hospital gear comes with big fat cords and plugs (plus conditioning) because they don't dare skip a beat (no pun intended).

Your gear won't skip a musical beat either.