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
Why is the word placebo used incorrectly time and again? A placebo is a term used in pharmacology, dead stop. It is inappropriate to use it for audio applications. A drug is efficacious, or not, quantitatively, in clinical trials that use placebos as blinded negative controls so that the effects of the drug under study can be quantified and appropriately documented. Only in that manner can the drug be established, or not, to be efficacious according to its indicated use.

That is NOT what we are talking about here and I would GREATLY appreciate it if thread contributors here would cease its use. Stop it!
@mzkmxcv,

No. Just google "the dress" and you'll see all the difference images. Now look at anything but the dress. The background lighting is different as are it's colors. It's not just the dress. One of those images will take you to a simple demonstration of someone adjusting the white balance in adobe and gradually the dress color changes, as everything else in the picture does. 

What are the chances that all broadcasting and rebroadcasting (not to mention the intentional altering for the sake of a story) are identically balanced? 

And yes, I've seen that optical illusion you refer to decades ago. It's been around for ages. 

All the best,
Nonoise
Post removed 
Guys, Two things -

First, I have a question - does anyone know when the first audiophile power cord was announced or sold?  I know it came after interconnects but I was wondering what year it was.  Mid 1980's?

Second - Regarding why equipment manufacturers use standard power cords instead of audiophile ones is partly cost, which was already discussed, but the main reason is a UL listing.   Few PC companies have gone through the cost of getting UL approval on their cables.   Should something go wrong and a fire result, it is the amplifier manufacturer that will be sued.  yes, perhaps the cable company will be sued as well, but that amplifier company has no defense since they opted to use a non UL approved product.  Simply building a PC with UL components does not make it UL listed.