Importance of Power cords feeding Conditioners

Power cords come with a variety of physical attributes, but the single most important "spec" for a power cord is its gauge (AWG = American Wire Gauge) The lower the AWG number, the thicker the conductor. The thicker the conductor (other things being equal) the better the energy transfer.

The two components that generally require the most/best energy transfer capability (AWG = 10 or larger) are amplifiers and high capacity power processors, like your APS. There is one (counter-intuitive) exception and that is DACs. Although their power requirements are low, for some reason, they seem to perform best with 12 AWG or larger PC's. And of course, anything containing digital data circuits (switching, converting, volume control and processing) should have a shielded power cord to help keep it from broadcasting digital RFI into the air. Hopefully the digital component itself has filters to keep it from inserting digital noise ("hash") back into the power line.
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The experience(s) some of you report is due to the fact that if you are using a conditioner or regenerator (between the wall and your equipmment,) the cord which connects it to the wall becomes the "great equalizer" for the performance of all the cords downstream. The performance of the equipment you have connected downstream (especially an amplifier) will be limited by the energy transfer capability of the cord between the conditioner and the wall; and no matter what other kinds of cords you use to connect the equipment itself to the conditioner/regenerator, they can only deliver what that main connection (to the wall) allows. Which is why some people use a modest conditioner (and cords) for their front end group, and then just plug the amp itself right into the wall.

Ptm, I strongly disagree with your statement "It's all about trial and error" or "all about synergies". It may be a LITTLE BIT about those things, but one can DRASTICALLY REDUCE the field by first taking into account the few immutable laws of physics that govern electrical energy transfer.

First and foremost being resistance -- bigger conductors and shorter cords have less resistance. But that doesn't mean one needs big conductors for everything!

Next is shielding -- mandatory for digital gear, optional for most modern components which almost always have built-in RFI and EMI (hum) filtering.

Beyond those two considerations, there are of course subtle differences among PC's which may or may not affect what you hear out of the speakers. This includes conductor materials, conductor topology (the arrangement, or layout of the conductors within the cord), type of shielding (braid, foil, ferrite choke, or simple twisted conductors).

There can be problems too, that most people don't know about. For instance, did you know that the FCC requires manufactures to supply shielded power cords with their equipment? Great, but unfortunately, UL requires that these cords have their shields connected to ground at BOTH ends. That's just asking for hum pickup! So it's usually best to replace these OEM cords with a PC that has a 'floating shield' if you encounter hum problms due to the PC picking up 60Hz from other cords, transformers, etc.

But I've found most of the variations in PC cord construction have only minor sonic effect compared to the two most important, of choosing adequate gauge, and most appropriate type of shield for the job. YMMV ;--)
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Ptm, my point was NOT that one can make decisions based strictly on objective (scientific) criteria. I don't know how you could have thought that from my comments. First of all, there are just too many choices out there even AFTER narrowing down the field!

My remarks had to do with putting together a credible short list of products that all have the basic physical characteristics necessary to do the job you want (one of them) to do. And that's when the listening should begin -- to find which one most satisfies your own sonic preferences.

But when something comes from out of left field (a "happy accident"?), or as you say, "something that just shouldn't work as well as it does", that seems to suggest the laws of physics don't apply to audio electronics. But they DO APPLY, don't they? And you will eventually discover (if you're curious) that for reasons you didn't yet understand, your 'miracle product' is working just exactly as it should. It's a learning experience ;--)
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