Why Power Cables Affect Sound


I just bought a new CD player and was underwhelmed with it compared to my cheaper, lower quality CD player. That’s when it hit me that my cheaper CD player is using an upgraded power cable. When I put an upgraded power cable on my new CD player, the sound was instantly transformed: the treble was tamed, the music was more dynamic and lifelike, and overall more musical. 

This got me thinking as to how in the world a power cable can affect sound. I want to hear all of your ideas. Here’s one of my ideas:

I have heard from many sources that a good power cable is made of multiple gauge conductors from large gauge to small gauge. The electrons in a power cable are like a train with each electron acting as a train car. When a treble note is played, for example, the small gauge wires can react quickly because that “train” has much less mass than a large gauge conductor. If you only had one large gauge conductor, you would need to accelerate a very large train for a small, quick treble note, and this leads to poor dynamics. A similar analogy might be water in a pipe. A small pipe can react much quicker to higher frequencies than a large pipe due to the decreased mass/momentum of the water in the pipe. 

That’s one of my ideas. Now I want to hear your thoughts and have a general discussion of why power cables matter. 

If you don’t think power cables matter at all, please refrain from derailing the conversation with antagonism. There a time and place for that but not in this thread please. 
128x128mkgus

Showing 3 responses by ghosthouse

Hello mkgus -
I used to be a "cable skeptic" and in particular about power cords. That’s no longer the case, especially after replacing a Cullen Crossover v1 PC with a Shunyata Venom HC cord on a Merrill Audio Taranis power amp. The immediate difference in sound was not subtle nor was the "difference" particularly pleasant...at least initially. Things got much much better after 50+ hours of use.

At any rate, the information posted by Galen Carol at the link below was provided by Caelin Gabriel of Shunyata Research. It might be of interest to you.

https://www.gcaudio.com/tips-tricks/why-power-cables-make-a-difference/
n80- 

Why would multi-thousand dollar components come without adequate power cables?


See Caelin Gabriel's #5 at the link posted at 12:46PM today.
@soundermn 
Glad someone else actually read the Caelin Gabriel/Shunyata comments.  Pleased they were helpful to you.  Thanks for letting me know.  You are absolutely right, he is in business to sell wire so his commentary should be viewed with a certain skepticism BUT when one of his products (and at the low end of the price range) delivers improved sonics, it lends credibility to his position.  When improved sonics attend power cables from a third party source, as in your experience, there's even more reason to think he might know what he's talking about  ;-)