Help Me Explain Power Cables to my Guitar Friends

Markphd wrote - I think you are right, but I think where audiophiles can fall off the turnip truck is to equate difficulty in interpreting measurable differences (tubes vs solid state)to lack of measureable difference ($1000 pc versus WalMart). In the case of tubes vs transistors, the measurable differences are obvious, and learning to understand the relationship between listening pleasure and the two different characteristic distortion signatures has advanced the state of the art. Data is good!
Happy Listening!

Forget it. My musician friends dismiss high-end audio as bunk. Wire is wire in their opinion. Good luck.

I have been a guitar player for 30+ years and into audio since the 1970's. Yes, I can still hear the subtle differences! I have even had my hearing tested over the years. I upgraded the power cord for my Marshall JCM900 50 watt reverb top, running through a Mesa 4 x 12 slant cabinet (guitar lingo) and I can hear the difference in dynamics, sustain, and "chunk" in the sound. That is true whether I am playing my American Reissue '62 Stratocaster, Buck Owens Tele, 1989 White Les Paul Custom, or Paul Reed Smith Custom 24. Many companies are making "high end" guitar to amp cables now, including Monster and Tara Labs and DiMarzio. To me the differences are the same as audio applications in terms of improved frequency response and harmonic content. Show them my reply and they can tell by the gear that I take the guitar stuff seriously. You might need to point them in the right direction as to what to listen for. One thing about most guitar players, whether the guitar sound is distorted or not, they know when a type of guitar's sound is being accurately captured on a recording. Good luck!

While I absolutely agree that the vast majority of claims for power cords are absolute nonsense, when I brought home my Marchall amp for the first time there was a loud oscillating hum. Back to Guitar Center it went, where we couldn't duplicate the problem. They gave me another one anyway, and it had the same problem.
Ultimately we found that I had a wall wart power supply in close proximity to the power cord, and moving them far away cured the problem.
Just be sure your cord has good EMI/RFI (anything reasonably well shielded) and your good to go.
Or get one of those $4,500 "soundstaging champs" for a real guitar amp epiphany. Sure

Lkdog, you might have a point about the modeling amp. I use an Hughes and Kettner Zentera modeler around the house for practice (decent tones and flexability at low volume). I'll have to swap on a good power cord just for grins.

For playing out (rare these days) it's either a Soldano Decatone or a Groove Tubes Soul-o 75. I don't know that I'd want to bring an expensive cord to the places I go to play...

Daveyguitar, you're right about the higher quality guitar cords on the market. They beat the cheapo microphonic cords of years past (think Hendrix with that silly coiled cord going to his Marshall). The metal guys I know don't care about cords, but the jazz guys I play with do.

As a lot, guitar players tend to be very conservative on gear and its hard to convince them to incorporate new technology of any kind. Even cutting edge technology such as digital modeling amps is largely employed to emulate the sounds of classic 50's and 60's amplifiers.

I remeber reading something written by Walter Becker and Donald Fagan about the guitar player as the noble savage holding a vintage Les Paul. The comment is not far from the truth (and I resemble that remark)!