But I am getting older and have a greater interest in getting to the final system in my lifetime.
@ghdprentice Ha! We can dream I suppose.
Ideal power cord lengths?
A quick Google search suggests there is consensus that the ideal power cord length is 2m. 1m cords sound “harsher” and 3m cords sound “smoother”, with 2m being the sweet spot. The PS Audio dude suggests that the reason is that the reason is that all cords have an impact on the power, and the greater the length, the greater the impact, good or bad.
I know many will say there is no difference between a 1m cord and a 3m cord. But my question is, who here has tried like model power cords of different lengths, and what were the differences?
Second question: How does length factor into the equation when you have a cord feeding a conditioner, then other cords feeding components? If 2m cords are in fact the ideal, would 1m cords be ideal when using conditioners?
I tend to believe those that say that power cord lengths matter. While I’ve not been able to do this test myself, I’ve had these two experiences:
- Testing Audioquest Diamond and Nordost Valhalla 2 USB cables, the cables shorter than 1.5m sounded TERRIBLE by comparison. Especially the .75m Audioquest Diamond vs the 1.5m version. But the 1m Valhalla 2 also sounded awful in comparison to the 2m version. In general this opened my eyes to how much cable length matters, and counterintuitively in the case of digital cables.
- I have a 2019 2m AudioQuest Hurricane Source cable from back when AQ braided their cables, and I also have the newer non-braided Hurricane Source, but 3m in length. The new Hurricane sounds vastly superior to my old 2m Hurricane. In comparison the older cord compresses the soundstage depth. I don’t know if the differences are due to the differences in length, or if it’s due to a design change by Audioquest.
Very interested in learning of others experiences with power cord lengths.
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Not done any real testing with cable length. I remember many years ago that Steve from Empirical Audio saying that a USB cable needs to be either very short OR 1.5 meters or greater to avoid what I think I recall him saying as "reflections" on the cable. This correlates with what the OP was experiencing with USB as well. Also I seem to recall that the prior head guy at Nordost said that power cables were best at 4M. Seems to jive with what @ghdprentice was saying above. Me, I'd rather keep them about the length needed so I don't have a rats nest of cables behind my equipment and that makes it much easier to dress them and keep them apart as much as possible. It would be a fun exercise to experiment, but most of us don't have the $$ needed to buy two of every cable to do the experimentation. Just my thoughts. |
Wow, never considered cable length to factor in; dumb luck that most of my power cables are 2 meters long. More noticeable than comparing different cables, was getting dedicated power to the equipment. This was an immediate and noticeable change. (1) I have a dedicated 20AMP circuit to a PS Audio PowerPort plug, with Pangea Audio AC9 SE MkII (Cardas copper) cable driving a Denafrips Thallo amplifier. (2) I have the same set up feeding a Panamax M5300-PM conditioner, and Pangea Audio AC14 SE MkII (Cardas copper) cables feeding the low current devices.....only exception is a Cullen Cable C7 cable feeding a BlueSound Node 130 At some point will get around to swapping in various recepticles and power cables |
- 126 posts total