Do power cords make an audible difference?

The ability of a system to resolve information is key for decerning cabling changes as they do or do not influence or alter the audio product when put in place of the orig power cords.

I feel it depends on which power cord as well. I’ve a Bedroom system which is undeniably mid fi or lower. Sony ES receiver, Oppo DVD, HD cable box, Phase Tech & Canton speakers, Velodyne sub, Panasonic 50 in. plasma. PS Audio Duet.

I put a Voodoo Black Dragon III on the feed for both the HD CABLE BOX & OPPO DVD player via a double IEC to NEMA plug.

The diff is easily noticeable when the Black Dragon is installed…. And when it is not. The audio becomes smoother, clearer, and the sound stage expands a bit, providing a more enveloping sound field in the multi ch array. Bass too is improved upon… albeit it becomes a bit more bloated and warmish sounding than precise and defined. In the confines of that room… with some adjusting of the x over on the receiver, it’s more than acceptable now, following those tweaks.

So yeah… they make a diff… but the value of the noticed change does correlate with the cord itself. If I use my Elrod, Voodoo Tesla II, or Shunyata Python VX or some other more upscale cord I own, the diff is still more noticeable…. As they are still more expensive than the Black Dragon cable too.

I’ve been there and done that add a power cord of great expense on a high end piece of gear, and at times the cabling on it simply can not be justified as to it’s cost vs. performance levels. At times I’ve had $2K worth of PC on a $6K amp…. Very nice. But that’s as far as this guy is going to go with pcs on amps. I’ve also got a $1K pc on my $2.5K DAC. A $1.5K pc feeding my $1.3K power filter.

Those wires are as far as I’m going.

Albeit performance was substantially increased as the price per wire moved upwards, I no longer will take that tact as a general rule of thumb. Expensive cables reside on expensive gear… ONLY… around here anymore… despite the noticed improvements. I can’t justify the costs anymore, personally. Those days are gone. Some others might be able to add cables of likewise value or cost onto a thing and reap greater benefits still by so doing. Hooray for them! I’ve had to make sense of it all and act accordingly and sanely as of late.

Yes I have noticed a difference, I found that with my xlo reference pc on my amp it made an audible difference the background noise was quiter, but on my cd player it didn't seem to make any difference at all. I then put a locally made Cawsey pc on my cd player and I did hear a difference. The sound seem to open up a bit more, it was a bit more airy. Sorry for my discriptions, not very good at discribing what I hear, hope this is of use, cheers

From searching the archives to find out how others have handled glare in their systems I found that members years ago heard audible improvements when they swapped stock power cords out of their CDPs for aftermarket ones. Some of these threads though were 4-7 years old.

For me when I had an Emotiva ERC-1 CDP and put in a My Audio Cables (MAC) HC Power Cord I heard a quieter background. It made me get off my chair and notice.

Again like Theo said above it is system and person dependent. Part of me believes it is component dependent as well. When I had a decent Sony receiver and put a thick Tributaries power cord on it I heard no difference.

Do trees falling in a forest make a sound?

Same answer to both questions...Yes, only if there's a person to hear it.

For my ears, in my room, with my system ... YES !!
I replaced the stock power cords of both my Rogue Audio Cronus amplifier and my Rotel RCD-1072 deck with Signal Cable upgraded power cords (less than $ 100 each), and have noticed an improvement.