What was the first power cable that you noticed a difference in the sound?

@polkalover Broad generalizations such as you promote are not universally true.  In many situations a power cable change makes little difference because the are problems or performance limitations in other parts of the system.  As another post described extensive experience setting up an entire system for minimal noise floor, same system approach should be applied to home audio.  That approach does not mean expensive cables of any type have to be used.  Quality matters.  Everything matters.

If one person is happy with manufacturer supplied cables - FINE.  If another wants to spend THEIR money and time differently - FINE.  Manufacturers are in the business of making money and staying in business.  Assuming anything else is ass -u-me, as the saying goes.

NASA and the Air Force learned when first trying to launch things into space, unexpected things happened.  Well designed sub-systems did not always behave as expected and failures were frequent.  Eventually smart people discovered unexpected and unplanned circuit paths, i.e. sneak circuits.  A sneak circuit analysis discipline evolved.  Other analysis disciplines evolved that are incorporated, to some degree, in modern electrical design.  However, make no mistake that cost remains the primary driver when it comes time to stop the engineers and go into production.

Does everybody need a $200, $1000, $10,000 power cable?  Absolutely not.  Is there a lot of smoke and mirrors justifying some high dollar cables.  Yes, but not all.  There are well engineered and constructed cables that will make a difference when part of a system level approach.  The only universal truth is the personal freedom to make your own choice.

@texbychoice   Jack Bybee's work as a physicist would be an example cable/circuit research for military use.

Bybee’s first commercial products emerged from Cold War-era military-industrial research. The stealthy shadow contest of nuclear submarine detection, location and evasion demanded ever-quieter circuits, lower electronic noise and greater signal-to-noise ratios. Practitioners summed up the problem as: “reducing 1/f noise, from DC to 2000hz”.  

Bybee’s technology involves exotic blends of rare-earth metals or their isotopes to reduce electronic noise in circuits. In the mid-1990s, Bybee’s AC filtering was among the first of its kind to use exotic doped materials instead of transformers or balanced power, which made it a novel concept at the time.

_ _ _ _ _

More examples would be these engineers who started - and continue to run - innovative audio cable companies.

Purist Audio Design – Founded by Jim Aud – EE & Physicist

From there, I earned my Electronics Engineering degree at Brescia University, and would later study Computer Science for almost two years at Westinghouse. Then I came to South Texas Nuclear, and studied what they’d call today nuclear physics. Link here.

Shunyata Research – Founded by Caelin Gabriel – Research Scientist

Caelin Gabriel is a former US military research scientist with a background in research and design of ultra-sensitive data acquisition systems.  These systems were designed to detect extremely low-level signals otherwise obscured by random noise, requiring years of intensive research into the sources and effects of signal and power-line noise interference.  Link here.

Bybee Technologies – Founded by Jack Bybee – Physicist

Jack’s science and physicist background gave him the understanding about negative effects of quantum noise. Link here.

Silversmith Audio – Founded by Jeffrey Smith – Engineer

CEO/Designer Jeffrey Smith is a Wyoming native and graduate of the United States Naval Academy with a Bachelor of Science degree in General Engineering. He also earned a Master of Science Degree, With Distinction, in Defense and Strategic Studies. Link here.

MIT Cables – Founded by Bruce Brisson – awarded 20 USPTO engineering patents.

MIT Cables founder Bruce Brisson began purposely designing audio cables in the 1970’s after encountering the sonic problems inherent in cables typical of the day. Link here.

Audioquest – Garth Powell - Sr. Director of Engineering

Formerly with Furman Power for 12 years.

It is when reading about Bybee 12 years ago that i decided to experiment with some minerals as shungite and quartz etc ... With success at my modest scale ...😊

I dont have money for costly tweaks but it does not means they dont work ...

Science is experiments, not decrees by some Pope of a technological cult faith about how and why qualia are only reducible to Maxwell equations as interpreted by some engineers ..

One of the greatest science achievements of all time come from mystics rigorous thinking by the way ... Sorry for technocratic materialists ...

life is not simplistic ... 😁

@texbychoice Jack Bybee’s work as a physicist would be an example cable/circuit research for military use.

@pindac  I have read the manufacturing process for PC Triple C Wire and I'm lost as to the benefit.  If I understand it correctly, they are repeatedly working the copper to end up with all the crystals aligned.  And yet, with the OCC continuous casting process, you supposedly end up with a cable comprised of one single crystal.  Zero boundaries for the power/signal to need to navigate.  No need to compress it to remove oxygen as it's already oxygen free.  Kind of sounds like they needed to come up with a process to convince us to buy new cables?  IMHO  As an aside to this, I run Hegel amps, and questioned them directly on the best power cable to use.  They suggested using anything other than the stock cable they provided was a waste of money.  For what it's worth.  

My first "contact" with the power cord issue was buying a high power Classe amp, 25 years ago, and one of the first things in the manual was the suggestion I should purchase an upgrade power cord...I was quite angry seeing this...bought an A/C Mater Coupler a few years later, and it did sound better...and the Classe included cord was a quality cord, not a throw away...sold the A/C coupler 10 years later, for the original used price I had paid...