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Power Cords Snake Oil ??

Having been a long time audiophile living with countless high end compnents I have to wonder about the theory and practicality of high end power cords.

I have yet to hear the difference a power cord makes. Ive owned, synergistic, Shunyata, BMI and cardas. I in no way can detect any sonic signature or change. Give me a pair of interconnects and I imeadiately notice a difference somewhere in the sonic spectrum. Not the PC though. I have accomplished 4 blind tests with my friends. 3 out of the 4 they did not know their cord was replaced. All 4 were using a stock factory supplied cord. Each of the 4 tests were done on different components. Amp, CDP, Preamp & dac.

My electrical backround tells me that provided you supply the component with its required voltage bet 110vac or 220/240vac its happy. Now, change the incoming frequency from 60hz to say 53hz and watch how quickly your soundstage collapses.! This is often the case during the summer months when home air conditioners are in use and the utility company power output is taxed to the max. A really good power conditioner should however take care of the frequency fluctuations. But 110vac is still 110vac regardless of the conductor it passes through as long as its remains 110vac when it reaches the intended circuit. Does your 8k amp or preamp know the difference of the path the voltage took to reach it ? Many an audiophile will use a dedicated 20amp circut for their equipment.That is a good idea as voltage & frequency fluctuations will occur in the home circuit to to other loads on the main breaker panel but again, A power cord simply is the means of transporting the voltage from the wall to the component. IF there is a clean 110vac @ 60hz at the wall socket, no matter what the medium is to go from the socket to the component, it will still be 110vac @60hz.

Could somebody expand on this a bit more. I just dont understand it. ??
128x128jetmek
ezragreen
7 posts
 
my 1st experience w/pc's was when a friend brought over a
mit pc w/the blk bx. We were listening to "strange fruit"
on a cassandra wilson cd. The cut opens with a "match striking" sort of in audio slow motion. With the stock cord
you could not readily identify the sound as a match but only
tell that there was some kind of little noise. The only component I had w/a iec connector for a pc was my vtl deluxe
preamp. We put the mit in, replayed the track, and realized
that the sound was a match striking. Of note is the following: NO I didnt immediately go buy an mit. I did order
some audioquest heavy guage speaker wire,solid core,unshielded from micheal percy, (he's always popping up
in these discussions isnt he?) and an iec plug and male ac
plug, and made a pc up. Guess what? I could hear the match
strike with this cord too about just as good for about $40.
worth of materials. Further, I later added very fast,soft recovery diodes to the high volt and heater circuits and these actually made the now famous "match strike" even more
audible and much smoother and more detailed. Bottom line,
wether its pc's or soft rec diodes anything that LOWERS THE
NOISE FLOOR is going to be helpful. Made a shielded pc for
my rebuilt dynaco mk III's and they just seemed a bit quieter. All this was about 5-6 yrs ago. Just now getting
back to thinking about pc's because I happened to build 2
mono amps w/removable cords. Also it has been my own and my
friend erics experience that rewiring pwr supply leads w/solid core silver wire also can lower noise flrs. Please
use appropriate guage and insulation.
dopogue
1,773 posts
 
I was pretty much a power cord agnostic until I had the opportunity to change five of them (to monoblock power amps, VPI SDS, PS Audio P300, Sony XA777ES) at once. Wow. Nothing subtle about the improvement. "Course I have no idea which cords did which, or whether any of it is measurable. But there's no going back.
jependleton
155 posts
 
Just as an aside, if you are still in posession of any of the power cords that you mentioned, I would be happy to give you a fair price for them.
eldartford
4,262 posts
 
This is one of the more ridiculous ideas in audio, but, to help our nation's economy, I won't discourage people from buying $2,000 magic wires.

However, the suggestion that the power line frequency changes from 60 Hz is completely wrong, and if it were it would have no effect on the DC voltage generated from it. The power transformer might get warmer. No power cord could have any effect on frequency. Power companies maintain tight tolerances not only on on frequency, but also phase, even when the voltage sags due to problems. This is necessary so that different generating facilities can be tied together in a grid, and because many kinds of electrical equipment (eg: clocks) rely on the frequency for a time reference. Actually, once a day, usually around midnight, the power companies go through a brief procedure where the frequency is very slightly modified for a short time as necessary to have the exact number of cycles in one day (5,184,000). If they didn't do this electric clocks would gradually loose or gain time.
danlib1
819 posts
 
The only thing that matters is what YOU hear.
If you try one and notice a difference with high-end power cords, then you might want to buy some. In my system different cables make a difference- some for the better, some not.

This notion that people can't hear the differences rendered when changing cables has always puzzled me. I can clearly hear differences when swapping interconnects, and often power cables as well. Am I a "Golden Ear"? No. I'm just very familiar with my particular system. That intimate knowledge, I believe, is the key to hearing any improvement or degradation in sound quality when experimenting with cables.
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