Romex to your amp?

Daveyf

If we take this scenario one step further, and agree ( or not?) that Romex is the material/cable that is the limiting factor in the power supply SQ to our gear ( particularly our amps) then the question becomes how does a different kind of cable from the wall to the amp ( or other gear) better the sound of the cable in the wall. 

Sorry but I don't agree that Romex is bad.  Romex in your home is fine (good thing).  That happens between the hundreds of other miles between you and the power generating plant and your neighbors on the same grid using hair driers and noisy electronics is another story though.

Unlike what goes on in audio, AC power is easy to comprehend.  You don't worry about high or low frequency effects of the wire or if you need 6 nines pure copper.  All you need is a perfect sign wave at 60 Hz (only). You may have a small voltage drop of a few volts between you and your transformer but that is inconsequential.   All power cords do is give a chance for some of the RFI to dissipate in the last few feet of its thousand mile journey to your home on the grid.

The 40-50 feet of Romex in your house can cause voltage modulation of the AC under high loading from an amplifier, even more than the wire from the transformer to your house.

It really does not matter if the sine-wave is perfect 60Hz or not, the current draw isn't. It has high frequency components from the conduction angle on linear supplies or switching sources.

I am not advocating one way or another for cables, just stating the reality.

@delkal. I don’t think many(any?)of us actually have much experience with anything else in our walls. So, the actual SQ is a hard point to debate.

If we take this scenario one step further, and agree ( or not?) that Romex is the material/cable that is the limiting factor in the power supply SQ to our gear ( particularly our amps) then the question becomes how does a different kind of cable from the wall to the amp ( or other gear) better the sound of the cable in the wall. Maybe the answer is that it doesn’t actually better the limitation of the cable in the wall, but that the connectors to our after market cabling are what makes the only real difference....thoughts on this?

You’re warm.

For sure the wire in the wall is "a" limiting factor, but it is far from "the" limiting factor.

Be careful who you get your ideas from. Like "the connectors to our after market cabling are what makes the only real difference". That comes from DIY’ers who frankly haven’t a clue. Notice the guy who said that never said anything about comparing to professionally made PCs. They never do. I have long experience with this. They are so wrong it makes me laugh. Read through my posts for the stories of the 30 year DIYer and how hopelessly lost he is. I’m not in the mood to write it again.

Oh, and I tried it myself. Just to be clear I’m not just dissing, but telling it like it is.

The "answer" is that everything matters. The trick is to find the things that are cost and time effective and do as many of them as you have time and money to do. House wire matters, but winds up pretty low on down the list.

At this point I hope you are sitting down because I’m gonna tell you something so shocking you will find it near impossible to believe, considering its on Audiogon, Galaxy Central for parroting unfounded and unsupportable pontification. But its true: I know what I know not from reading but from doing.

My system first ran on a perfectly normal house circuit. You know, 120v romex, half a dozen outlets before the system, another few after, with a few light switches thrown in for good measure. I then replaced this with a normal "to code" circuit direct to the system. Then after that with a 120v circuit of 4 gauge direct. Then ripped that out, had it cryo’d and put back in. Then changed the 4 ga 120v to 240v, added an audiophile step-down transformer, and hardwired its output direct into my power conditioner.
This all happened over a period of years, assuring plenty of time to settle in and become familiar with the sound and be sure of what changed each time. Each step did indeed get better. Some like cryo were extremely cost effective- but also extremely the opposite in terms of time and difficulty. Live and learn. I write to inform and save others the trouble.

Okay, so like I said its everything. But not equally. The closer you get to the action the more it seems to matter.

Let that sink in. Go back and read my experience. Pause. Breathe. Let that sink in.

The closer you get to the action the more it seems to matter. Granted this is not a reason, its an observation. An observation that goes a long way towards answering your questions.

As to the real reason, here’s a hint: the wires bringing power to your system have a lot in common with the walls of your listening room.

In an effort to get the Romex out, I once ran a thick stranded extension cord from my rig to the breaker box. It sounded worse. So I went back to the wall receptacle and it sounded better.