The fallacy of ac treatment

You bring up some good points that I did not consider but I am still the skeptic. I whole heartedly agree that the larger the power cable you use, the better off you are! It is safe to say at our relatively low voltages of 110 vac or 220 vac the larger the conductor the less opposition to current flow or resistance (at much higher potentials you deal with the skin effect where current flows on the outside of the conductor only). If we look at Ohm's law, a current flowing through resistance will cause a voltage drop. The amount of voltage dropped is dependant on the electrical resistance (or impedance with alternating current) and the current flow. Any drop of voltage across the power cord is detremental to system performance and frankly dangerous due to heat generated in the power cord itself (remember Power(heat)= V (voltage drop in the cord)x I (the current flowing). The second point I agree with you is on EMI (Electro Magnetic Interference). There are 2 types of EMI we must deal with: Radiated and Induced. The sources of these type of interferences are common to our everyday life from vacuum cleaners to our television sets. Unfortunately the best power cord in the world will not help with induced EMI as the interference is induced on the power source itself. This is the case for a dedicated outlet for yours audio system. There are caveats with this also. If one chooses to use a dedicated outlet the ground at the outlet is the most important consideration. I propose that the ground wire that is enclosed in the piece of romex feeding your outlet may not suffient depending on how far the outlet is from your breaker panel (remember what I mentioned about wire size and resistance). This can be checked by by measureing the neutral to ground voltage under load at your outlet. It should be almost zero volts. If it is not there is a voltage drop and this could be a cause of noise in you system. Radiated EMI is quite another story though. This (in my opinion) has more to do with good design in your component than a very good power cord. Shielding, ground planes on circuit cards etc. have more effect on this than the power cord. The only rule of thumb here is to keep everything as short as possible. If the EMI is higher in frequency, shorter leads make a poor antenna to pick up this. Remember that if the interference is 1 MHz or less a sufficient antenna would have to be over 100 feet long. A power conditioner may help with some of these problems but I submit as an electrical engineer that fancy power cords and power conditioners are not a good substitute for good electrical design and a little thought. Thanks for the reply. Audio sometimes becomes an emotional issue, and it is my pleasure to correspond with someone who is willing to talk about some of the scientific principles behind these issues.

Gmkowal - let us hope audio is an emotional issue for all of us. You may be right that we should not fix AC noise problems with better power cords, but only buy equipment that deals with these problems (more effectively) internally. But if having bought the best sounding component I can reasonably afford, and then I find that $400 on a power cord significantly improves the sound - what am I to do? Refuse to buy the power cord on the basis that I am pissed with the component designer for not designing his product competently? That seems to be self-defeating. Complain to the component's manufacturer? Somehow I don't think they would listen. Perhaps you believe I am deluded about what I hear with power cords? But I have many years of experience with this hobby, and so if I am deluded about power cords then I must be deluded about most other choices I have made in audio, since I apply the same listening tests to those other decisions too. Since the delusion has led to countless hours of joy through bringing me closer to the music, I will take my delusion any day over your apparent blind faith that your theory explains everything. It is one thing to wonder about the reason why people report hearing a difference, and another to state that there cannot be a difference because your belief in some theories is inconsistent with it. I am a scientist too, but more freely acknowledge that scientific theories are blunt instruments.

Hey Redkiwi, I guess I am delusional too. Aint it great.

Gentlemen, I do not want to you to think that I think ill of anyone who would purchase that $400 power cord. I merely point these facts out to alert those who are considering the purchase of such an item as to the cause and effect some of the problems for which one may consider purchasing such an item. I merely wish to point out that before you spend your $400 please make sure that that $400 will remedy the problem. Some of the problems I have pointed out, can not not be solved by a power cord at any price. If it makes you happy to spend $400 on a power cord, God bless you. But would'nt it be sad, if one spent the money on the $400 power cord and the new power did nothing to solve the problem because it was a grounding or EMI problem. My point is simply this: try understand what you are trying to remedy and why. It could save alot of time and money and maybe buy you a better designed amplifier.

I think I see your point Gmkowal, that theory can help us in focussing on a remedy for the most appropriate source of a problem. But I have not come across any universal theory that works repeatedly in distinguishing between the many options we audiophiles must choose between. Without a reliable universal theory, then any individual theory tends to tell only part of the story. For example, I can postulate a theory that explains why using a sorbothane footer ought to be beneficial. But I can use another theory to postulate that using a cone ought to be beneficial too. Yet I know of no theory that tells me that a cone will be better than a sorbothane footer, that cannot be countered by a theory that tells the reverse story. Only listening removes the ambiguity, or reveals the nature of the trade-off. From listening I tend to develop my own theories of course - like, that if there are two compliant materials in a system the result is awful - therefore use only one, and use rigid coupling for any other support interfaces. Of course I can use conventional theory to explain that this is due to correlation effects, but only my ears can tell me whether the issue is relevant and significant. My ears tell me that the choice of power cord is very relevant and very beneficial - I have said it before, on a par with changing speaker cables.