McIntosh C2300 Power Cord Recommendation

Notbananas: Very sagacious reply. Good to see some "snake oil repellent" out there.

I believe that if you add an expensive power cord, it will only sound better (or different) if you look at it. That's why the manufacturers make them look like something NASA would use on a Mars Rover. Once you've looked at it connected and powering your equipment it will sound different because you just dropped a whole bunch of cash on it. Your eye's will convince your mind for you.

This is my opinion based on my ears, but the three things I wish I never bought was very expensive speaker cables, a cryoed hospital grade 20a wall outlet, and after market headphone cord for my AKG 702's. I cannot hear the difference in any of those. YMMV.

I don't have a BSEE. I barely understand how electricity and electrical appliances function. But when I replaced the stock power cable on my McIntosh C220 preamp with an Empowered Cord by K-Works, I absolutely heard some clear, but subtle differences. The soundstage became more focused, and the level of detail retrieval improved, especially low level details. Remember, if the rest of your system is not highly resolving, you probably won't hear any difference in cables, but when your system is highly resolving, differences in cables and other connected items becomes clearly apparent. Notice that Notbananas has no system link, and did not provide a specific equipment list. Also, that "how could the last 5 feet of wire make a difference" thing is silly. Every stretch of wire has the potential to introduce extraneous noise into the attached components, so any improvement anywhere along the power-signal path has the potential to improve the performance of the attached equipment. Finally, to paraphrase Einstein: Not everything that counts can be measured, and not everything that can be measured counts.

Any thought on the AudioQuest product?

The AQ power cords work well with the Mcintosh electronics in my room. They don't seem to add flavor but only clean things up and lower noise.