The Last Power Cable Question EVER (from me)


Not trying to be argumentative but I can never seem to get an acceptable answer to what I think is a straightforward question.  Whenever the subject of clean power comes up, the “power cable” is suggested to be of prime importance in the quest for better sound.  It’s a given we are not using lamp cord to power our amps but going past any quality piece of 3-foot copper cable raises questions for me. 

The power cable is designed to transfer electricity from the wall outlet to your amp, or power conditioner if you are using one.  In theory, the worlds best power cable will complete this task without allowing any outside “noise” to get into the line over that 3-foot span.  To the best of my understanding of physics, copper wire does not have the capacity to act as a filter nor does it have any ability to impart tonal qualities.  In fact, no sound signal passes through the power cable.  Just electricity. 

So using what many would consider to be the crème de la crème in power cables, the famed Nordost Odin Gold Reference Power Cable, yours for one easy payment of $34,000, and assuming it does exactly what it is intended to do, move electricity for wall to amp without allowing anything else to interfere, then you are still just getting the same power that’s in you wall line, delivered right into your amp?  As dirty as that power may be, how is the $34000 cable NOT just transferring that exact same power from point A to point B?  I would love to learn something new today, but my common sense keeps telling me there’s a lot of Kool-Aid in the whole power cable discussion.  Someone given an explanation based in fact. 

128x128bigtwin

Showing 2 responses by brskie

There is an excellent video on this site titled  "How Electricity Actually Works" posted by @barts on 4/30/22. It goes into great depth concerning the "distributed" nature of circuits as opposed to the "Lumped" model which many "audiophiles" unknowingly use in their analysis of the connections between circuit elements. Lumped parameter systems make circuit analysis much easier to comprehend and they work on the macroscopic level. However, at the level of audio quality on this forum we need to look at a these circuits with a much more in-depth analysis. The graphics of growing & collapsing  E and B fields, and the "capacitor" model of the dielectric surrounding the metallic core of wires, are excellent and give a great visual of what is happening on this atomic level.

I am not an EE or research physicist. However, having taught basic physics courses for 30 yrs. I can say that this video is very helpful at dispelling the myth that all wires are the same. I am NOT saying that anyone should immediately go out and spend large amounts of $$$ on new cables. But like most natural phenomena, there is much more to it than meets the eye.

Bruce