The Truth About Power Cords and there "Real" Price to Performance


This is a journey through real life experiences from you to everyone that cares to educate themselves. I must admit that I was not a believer in power cords and how they affect sound in your system. I from the camp that believed that the speaker provided 75% of the sound signature then your source then components but never the power cord. Until that magic day I along with another highly acclaimed AudioGoner who I will keep anatomist ran through a few cables in quite a few different systems and was "WOWED" at what I heard. That being said cable I know that I am not the only believer and that is why there are so many power cord/cable companies out there that range from $50 to 20-30 thousand dollars and above. So I like most of you have to scratch my head and ask where do I begin what brand and product and what should i really pay for it?

The purpose of this discussion to get some honest feed back on Price to Performance from you the end user to us here in the community.

Please fire away!


 


128x128blumartini
Farther up on this thread or maybe another I have expressed my views on "cords". I think you will find my views often similar to yours but more nuanced.


I have two runs of heavy gauge to a split outlet, same phase for both with grounds tied. Predates ACFI/GFCI. Was discussing on another thread. I can't even get the type of breaker I used any more. 


Silver wire, etc , is marketing, hence why no validated testing. Heavy ground, heavy gauge for amps, good shielding all beneficial ... Most of the time. For some equipment, arguably, resistance helps .... less AC noise and EMI.


Equipment to equipment grounds are arguably most critical and there are much cheaper ways of fixing that. If someone puts heavy capacitance from DC circuit ground to chassis ground, then things get dicey.

" So do any of you think that a 99.999% pure silver braided, shielded, twisted, cold-press or silver soldered-in-an-argon-chamber, oxygen free / techflex-skinned, 3M heatshrink covered cable on elevators made from African Panke-baobab-wood harvested by bearded millennial vegan artisans from 2400 year-old trees is going to make an audible difference going that last 6-10 feet from your A/C wall outlet into your gear’s IEC port?"

Yes
I have been using Triode Wire Labs cables for several years simply because they are the best sounding cables my system has ever known. They are exceptionally well made and Pete has always been a pleasure to deal with. Great sound and tremendous value, it is no surprise these cables are now being part of the finest systems assembled. A must try.
PS: if someone still thinks there is no such thing as great sounding cables and poor sounding cables I suggest they reconsider their devotion to this hobby... save your money and enjoy your car radio. Just my 2 cents.
This is all simply an indication of the big split that exists between HiFi folks and Advanced Audiophiles. Nothing to get hung up about, though. 🤗

The closer you look the weirder it gets. - Old audiophile axiom

“In the South Seas there is a cargo cult of people. During the war they saw airplanes land with lots of good materials, and they want the same thing to happen now. So they've arranged to imitate things like runways, to put fires along the sides of the runways, to make a wooden hut for a man to sit in, with two wooden pieces on his head like headphones and bars of bamboo sticking out like antennas—he's the controller—and they wait for the airplanes to land. They're doing everything right. The form is perfect. It looks exactly the way it looked before. But it doesn't work. No airplanes land. So I call these things cargo cult science, because they follow all the apparent precepts and forms of scientific investigation, but they're missing something essential, because the planes don't land.[1]” - Richard Feynman

Feynman cautioned that to avoid becoming cargo cult scientists, researchers must avoid fooling themselves, be willing to question and doubt their own theories and their own results, and investigate possible flaws in a theory or an experiment. He recommended that researchers adopt an unusually high level of honesty which is rarely encountered in everyday life, and gave examples from advertising, politics, and psychology to illustrate the everyday dishonesty which should be unacceptable in science.