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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
mkgus's avatar
mkgus OP
82 posts
 
@mzk If I’m understanding @doitwithlife correctly, he’s saying that the input power to his PS Audio regenerator is cleaned up significantly with an aftermarket power cable. The power regenerator is doing such a good job cleaning up the signal that the output levels are similar, but apparently still audible between cords. That’s after a very high quality power regenerator, which costs more than some people’s entire systems! 

If you’re like most people who don’t have a power regenerator (which isn’t the same as a power conditioner), you’ll be sending 33% less harmonic distortion to your amplifier and electronics. I believe that is audible. That’s supported by the fact that I can easily hear the difference between cables and so can many people who have posted in this thread (and thousands more if you include other forums). 

At last, we have small bridge between the objectivists and subjectivists. And surprise, surprise they might just be different paths to arrive at the same truths. 
mkgus's avatar
mkgus OP
82 posts
 
Can someone please post @doitwithlife’s photos in this thread so they are easily visible? Please make sure to cite him as the source in your post. 


jea48
2,944 posts
 
https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/6927
doitwithlife's avatar
doitwithlife
51 posts
 
I used to be in the camp of power and fancy speaker cables being the "emperors new clothes". 10-15 years ago a dealer came to the house and loaned me cables for a could of weeks. I didn’t hear anything so back they went. Lots changed since then.

@jtucker The 1st is the stock power cord, second is the upgrade.  If you mentally overlay the 1st over the full input wave you can see how it is filling in the missing tops and bottom of the incoming wave. Thanks for your comment about my system. I really enjoy listening to music these days. Still way less than what most have here.

I also added a 3rd which shows the full input sine wave. Not sure which power cord it describes. They look pretty similar in isolation. What the P15 does is bring the voltage within .1V AC of what I specify and more importantly brings back the missing top and bottom of the sine wave. I didn’t post the output sine wave but it looks very close to what you would expect a theoretical wave to be

@mkgus In my world I heard a huge difference when adding the P15 and that’s from day one. After living with it for awhile I brought in the power cord and that added another level, polish if you will

If I were asked, I’d recommend a regenerator before a power cord for audible results. Both make a difference. But then nobody asked. lol.

I would love to have visitors bring over power cords to compare, but where I live moose are the only one that like to visit

Keith
thyname's avatar
thyname
257 posts
 
@mkgus : you are wasting your time with that guy. They will never listen, no matter what.

First, If you tell them you can hear a difference, they say you are hallucinating. Prove it to me. With measurements and graphs.

Then, when you show them graphs like @doitwithlife did, they say: meh... it is inaudible. Does not matter.

It’s truly a waste of time. I know these guys. They are everywhere in the Internets. Or maybe it’s just one giant AI unit, that posts everywhere under fake identities. I don’t know. They try nothing, and they say they don’t have to try, because they KNOW it does not work.
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