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. 
mkgus
cleeds
Is it because of the better quality AC connectors? Is it the geometry of the cables themselves? I honestly don’t know. And I don’t care. And this being a hobbyist’s group,
Add, it is possible the cord used is helping to prevent induced AC voltage and noise from transferring onto nearby ICs.

I’m not required to satisfy anyone’s demands for technical proof of any kind.
Add me to that camp! I really don’t care why it does what it does. There are plenty of credible theories out there to read for those that want the why.

I am currently running early 1960s Amperex 6922 PQ white label tubes in my Sonic Frontiers preamp. To my ears I prefer how my audio system sounds with the tubes over current production Sovtek or EH 6922 tubes. Measurements? On my Hickok 6000a tube tester they measure the same. Measure the same??? Then they have to sound the same. Measurements don’t lie. Right?!
Jim








I've built my AC cords using Furutech Ohno Continuous Cast copper--much better sound clarity over tough pitch copper. Your signal needs a smooth, quiet pathway to travel in. No grain boundaries in OCC metal--less distortion.  You must also address the noisy power supply feeding into your AC cords instead of dismissing better cords because of the noisy power lines, etc--have to improve this.  Nothing should be ordinary in a high-performance system.    
 
Besides pure wires, IMO you need pure plugs. AC plugs made with any brass content are damaging the sound from your speakers.
Once I went to all Furutech Duplex (which are made with pure copper, and use springs to maintain contact, I realized the few plain brass Wattgate plugs were altering the sound, mainly adding a white noise into the upper midrange. With me finally buying Pangea powercords of the XL series, which also say they are pure copper plugs.. The sound is better. (though the gold plated SE Pangea were better and no noticeable haze in upper mids, vs cords with plain brass Wattgate plugs)
I cannot say if bronze is different? tin alloy vs zinc.                                     
Also I may try to make a cord like williewonka suggests.. a spiral.. For a source to start.
One thing always pops up in this thread is that people often talk about AC cable as if it directly carries the audio signal.

Can we at least have a consensus that this simply cannot be true? Otherwise I see absolutely no point for any further discussions.