How can power cords make a difference?

Yes exactly Shadorne - I wanted the house atop the hill so I could get all the good electrons from the power pole. But instead I get all the crummy leftovers so I gotta use these stinkin' bandaid power cables.

Shadorne: I put little technical thought into what the Audio Magic PLC is doing to improve the system. But its benefits are dramatic. Simply removing the cheapo Pioneer transport from the PLC results in a mush of sound. The degree of improvement with the PLC, especially with the digital components, continues to impress me.

There is much talk that one needs to start with dedicated lines. And I did this with 2 more lines for the CAT amps and the rest of the system on the third circuit. With the CAT amps no longer being current limited, I had greater dynamics but otherwise I did not hear the multitude of improvements like I did months later with the AM PLC added to the system.

Before I got the AM PLC, I had owned/tried various NBS Statement, PS Audio Statement xStreme and Electraglide Fatboy PCs and really had to strain to hear the difference. But a couple local buddies came to my home and changed all this. Keep in mind this was only after they first convinced me to try the PLC. And the ability to hear such power cable differences was only possible after the PLC was in the system.

I have since recabled the system as well as put much effort into room treatments. Power cable differences are now significant; it is quite easy to hear the difference between a Dominus B vs. a Dominus Ferox PC. A year ago it would have been difficult to hear the difference between the Dominus and the PCs I owned at that time. And that was what I tried to convey in the PLC thread last year.

With 11 power cables in my system, I am one PC away from replacing all the cheapo stock PCs. It is quite a wake-up call to go back now and replace just 2 or 3 of the new PCs with the stock ones. This experience makes it very clear how far my system has come in a year, and it is due to many things....but the PLC was the major factor here.

Two weeks ago I got ahold of a Sound Application Line Stage PLC. I was eager to compare the SA to the AM Eclipse PLC. Initially, the SA destroyed the AM. It seemed like way too much of a difference so I switched back and forth. The difference was repeatable: an incredible improvement in clarity in bass guitar (upper freq range) rhythms. But there was one other factor here: the SA uses a 20A connector; it came with a 20A "mystery" PC. With the AM Eclipse, I used the 15A Dominus. The PLC listening test had been two PLCs driven by two differnet PCs. Was the SA that significant over the AM or was this mystery PC really that significant over the Dominus? With an IEC adaptor, I was able to use the Dominus into the SA, and the benefits with the SA were gone. So now I must do some further investigation as to what is so special about this mystery PC that just crossed my path. I will hunt down a 15A version of this PC and drive the AM to quantify the two PLCs' differences on the front end as well as with the SoundLab speakers and maybe even a couple amps I have in house.

As Aroc infers, this process is not simple at all. And to expand on a comment from Warrenh - cheapo PCs don't last very long in my system. But a few super expensive ones have not survived very long either.

John

Sorry Guido, you're too late. All tickets have been sold for this matinee.