See. again the need for proof is on the naysayers part. not the folks who can hear a difference. No one ’needs’ to prove anything. If you can’t hear it. NOT MY PROBLEM. I have no need to help you discover anything. It is like a big club. Membership requirement number one: Be able to hear differences in cables.So here is this guy(s) wanting to sneak in the back door? or claiming the club is "illegal" (?Because you wont let him in??) No way.. Ignore the heckler standing outside in the cold! eventually he will either: wear himself out fighting with shadows.. or discover he too CAN hear a difference. (amazing how many members used to be hecklers... )
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.
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.
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- 845 posts total
@jea48 I don’t have a subscription to access AES papers, so nothing 100% credible, but here are some measurements of RCA cables. Of course it’s not Nordost Odin 2 or anything that ridicoulous. As for the stereo crosstalk, keep in mind even the worse offender is still well below the signal to be considered inaudible, and the 3” generic cable performed similarly/better than the 3” “expensive” silver one. EDIT: Wonderful, just notified some of my comments were removed, even though they break none of the guidelines. Love the open discussion. |
mitch2.. One part of you query is about what else can be in the powercord that is not being measured" (totally parphrasing, if in error, yell at me) Stuff only from my experience, and no one is agreeing in any way, but I will put it out there for some genius to decide to see it is is real.... . From my playing around with power.. cords, duplex, conditioners, I have 'made up' a theory that the wave form can be made 'THICK' or 'THIN" or fuzzy or tight. somehow using these things. and THAT is what changes the way stuff sounds. Now the wave is not instantaneous. it takes time. How much time is normal. can it be tighter? IE arrive faster and leave sooner? can it arrive slowly and leave slowly. sure it is microseconds.. but still. Does it have time? are there timing errors? certainly in the industrial sector, where the power factor matters.. Does it matter in audio? can it be measured/ How much off matters to the sound? no one is measuring this. |
@elizabth Changing the waveform’s “speed” is thus changing the frequency of the wave. Now, even though the US power grid is 60Hz, there is of course some allowed deviation, and there is deviation within our home’s wiring too. Clocks in microwaves, ovens, etc. all use the cycle rate to count time, so if one of your clocks runs faster/slower than the others, it likely means the outlet it’s connected to it constantly putting out less/more cycles (or the clock inside the equipment is just faulty). But no, changing power cords won’t make a 1kHz note suddenly become a 1200Hz one. |
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