Have you been surprised by power cable changes? s

Has anybody tried to “reverse” ICs or speaker cables to see if you can identify a difference?

Why don't you just try it and hear for yourself?

cleeds:

It seems to be common that many who've discovered the benefits of improved cable started as skeptics. That really frustrates the measurementalists who claim "placebo effect" to explain why some prefer better cables. 

"Measurementalists", good one! You make that up yourself? Whatever, I like it! Perfectly encapsulates the slavish devotion to ideology of those who put so much faith in something they don't understand that they aren't even aware it is in fact faith, and that they are worshiping instead of thinking. 

I was brought up on Julian Hirsch and a staunch believer that wire is wire. Until one day, okay I can hear a difference with speaker cables but that's it, for sure my patch cords are fine. Until one day a dealer let me compare my patch cord to some $75 interconnect and my patch cord sounded so bad I thought for a minute I had somehow broken something. But that's interconnects.

Surely not power cords!?! How could power cords possibly make any difference? Its AC! There isn't even any signal going through it! And doesn't every single component ever made, the first thing it does is take that AC and filter and store and rectify it into DC? Its just Ludicrous Speed silly that a power cord can make any difference!

Until you hear it. At which point, either admit the reality that there's something here you can't really explain but does in fact exist or..... become one of those hard of hearing zombie brained measurementalists.

sleepwalker65:

The power cord only comes into play on amplifiers if of insufficient gauge for the current draw.

So maybe you will explain to me why changing power cords makes so much difference on my CD player. It draws only a few amps. Yet power cords make a huge difference on every single CD player I've ever heard.

Or why power cords make such a huge difference on my phono stage. Which draws even less power than my CD player. Yet the power cords make a huge difference on every single phono stage I've tried them on.

Come to think of it, my Synergistic Research Master Control Center, which powers active shielding on my interconnects, draws the least power of anything, yet power cords still work on it. Why?

Without power conditioning, power cords can bring noise from switch-mode power supplies into the audio chain if filtering on each component is inadequate.

D'oh. I coulda had a V8!

Except, wait a minute! All the stuff above was with power conditioning. So just for the sake of the argument we will assume that I (and everyone else of the zillions who have compared) have one of those crummy conditioners that can't do ... whatever it is you think they do. So why then do power cords also make a difference even being used between the wall and the power conditioner????

I was fortunate enough to have learned this early on, around 1994.

Every piece of wire- be it power cord, interconnect, speaker cable, or even fuse- is just as much a component as the amps and speakers everyone knows about. Changing from a stock fuse to a Synergistic Research Blue Quantum Fuse is just as big an improvement as changing from the freebie power cord to a good, say $500, one. (Which, do the math, makes the $150 BQ Fuse a bargain.)

Late last year when I upgraded my phono stage from an old ARC PH3SE to a new Herron VTPH2A it was a monster, mega across the board improvement. Well for $3k it oughta be. (Which many times its not, oh well...) Then just now, literally just the other day, I upgraded my interconnect from an old Synergisitic Resolution Reference to a new Atmosphere Euphoria. Which some may roll their eyes but sorry if that's you because this was every bit as monster, mega across the board as the Herron. Or darn close. Well for $3k it oughta be!

This is why I have been saying for some time now that the wire in a system is every bit as important as everything else, and that therefore you want a great system you better budget the same as everything else. Yet for some reason people do nothing but dump on me for saying that.

Well, isn't that what you just proved is correct? Right. Thought so. Good for you.