the magic of power cords


We need a bit of magic in our lives. It might be the reason why audiophilia has such traction among people from all walks of life.

The neophyte's skepticism is likely proportional to the level of technical training - the more you think you know, the stronger the conviction that, for example, the power cable business is a sham: "electrons are electrons" and "if the house cabling is bad, why would the last 3 feet matter?". The stronger the conviction, the more humbling the experience of hearing the power cord magic in action.

A few years back a Sophia Electric amp came into my hands with what looked like a generic power cord. The few non-generic cords I tried (Audioquest AC15, Audio Magic XSteam, Shunyata Research Diamondback) made a significant difference for the worse. The thin, black, generic-looking original cable allowed for a clarity and definition of voice and instruments that got totally washed out with the aftermarket cables. A night-and-day difference. No doubt - the power cord made a huge difference - but not in the expected direction. The Audioquest AC15 was particularly bad.

For awhile, I kept trying them around on all incoming equipment (be it DACs, preamps or amps). The AC15 sounded so bad every time that after awhile I wasn't even trying it out.

Many years and few amps later - something seemed not quite right with the presentation of my KAV-300i: slightly dull upper bass. Power cord: Zu Birth. Finally (after multiple interconnects and few speaker cable swaps) I pull out the power cord stash (same as above). This time around the AC15 was the great surprise: it allowed for clarity and macro dynamics well above the others.

What do I learn? Nothing, really. When is shielding important? When is gauge? How about the conductor or the insulation? How come there isn't one "best" design?

The magic continues.
cbozdog

Showing 7 responses by brownsfan

Everyone seems to have a story to tell on this subject, as I am sure you are aware. Over the next 12 hours, if this thread runs true to form, we are going to hear them all over again for the umpteenth time. The responses will include at least one who smugly replies that he or she is not about to spend money on this foolishness, since PCs can't possibly make a difference. Then someone else will point out that if you haven't heard you don't have an opinion.
Overall, I am in agreement with your take. One cannot predict when and if a particular PC, regardless of cost or pedigree, will impart an audible difference to a particular component. Trying to get the "best" PC for a particular component in a particular environment, is nearly impossible. One has to know when to say, "Hey, this is probably good enough." Further adding to this complication, Is that adding PCs has an additive effect. If you have some significant RFI/EMI problems, you may not be able to discern a significant difference adding one PC at a time. Its a pretty expensive experiment to replace 6 at a time.
As for me, I was a sceptic until a friend leant me a half dozen of his VH audio AirSines. They completely transformed my system, and over the next few months I put about 4K into new and used AirSines. I've added a couple VooDoos and an Audience since then to components that didn't seem to like the AirSines. I'm pretty satisfied with what I have now.
So what did the PC's do? Stated simply, they took the last vestiges of some high frequency noise out of the system that was apparently contributing to some listener fatigue. In one case, there was a substantial improvement in dynamics. Well worth the cost.
Onhwy, The key to understanding my use of the term "transformed" is linked to the virtual absence of fatigue I experienced after replacing the PCs. I did not mean to say that it completely changed the overall sound. Perhaps I could have used a different word, but what I heard was far more than an incremental or marginal improvement.
You are of course welcome to tune out.
Pops, Interesting. Some of the best tweaks I have made involve PC's and Audio Magic Pulse Gens, which are supposed to cancel out EMI/RFI. I must be located in an area particularly subject to that problem. In the absence of strong RFI/EMI fields, I could see how a stock PC might be preferred. After all, that is presumably the PC used when the equipment was designed.
I't could be that since your system is not suffering from digititis, your tolerance threshold for RFI/EMI is higher. Who knows?
I tend to tune out ; ) the "don't confuse me with the facts, my mind is made up" crowd. As I and others have stated, it"s not possible to predict a priori the effect, if any, particular PC will have. It can certainly be a frustrating and expensive process.
Dog- Great question! I think the best any of us can do is make an educated guess about the weak link in a system.
My approach is to read the forums carefully for a long time-- year is not uncommon. I look for components that get very strong review from the media and AG members, in particular, those members I have come to know and trust. I also look for clues regarding system synergy. What this does is increase the likelihood that a purchase will result in a system improvement.

As far as PC's, the improvements I have noticed have been with respect to dynamics and cleaning up the upper frequencies. Relief from listener fatigue and sweetening up strings.

Over the last 10 years I've only made 2 purchases that disappointed me. But I am getting to the point where it is probably going to become more difficult to find things that are truly better, not just different.
Onhyway, this is an area where diminishing returns is thrown out the window. One can get 90% for 1K, 95% for 3K, but that last 5% can cost you 100K.

If you have been stuck at 98.3% for 10 years, a change that gets you to 99.2% is for that person a substantial improvement, perhaps transformational.
On hyway, I do understand the point you are making, and it has some merit. I think our disagreement is more a matter of language than substance.

I don't know anyone who went from a from a 0.5K mini to a $30K system in a single upgrade. Permit me a bit more hyperbole here, but that like asking what kind of language would have been appropriate for Orville and Wilbur to have gone from Kitty Hawk to Apollo 11 in a day. There is no point in reserving superlatives for scenarios outside of human experience.

More common is a situation where one slowly builds a system, then plateaus at a fairly high level, struggling to achieve anything further. Then, one finds something that really does make a difference. This difference could be described as trivial, or even imperceptible, to 99.9% of the population. But in our circles, one's experience of that difference can be substantial. The two observers have a decidedly different frame of reference.
Dog, I think you catch my drift. however, diminishing returns applies, and each has to determine for himself where to draw the line. I think the way this thread has turned shows that it is devilishly hard to quantify improvements once a system attains a pretty high level of performance.

I can't tell Onhwy he is wrong in pointing out that the differences one might expect from a PC swap is something short of "transformational." In the first place, I didn't not hear what he didn't hear, and he didn't hear what I heard. Even if we had heard or not heard what the other did or didn't hear, we might very well value the difference heard differently.

Im swapping out PCs, I have at least achieved the same level of improvement, maybe more, that I have achieved by tube rolling. Maybe I've evaluated the wrong tubes or someone else hasn't found the PC that makes things work for them with their equipment. Who can say with certainty?