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... abit confused: how does a power cord affect the presentation of sound...

Hello to all...

I was shifting around components in my system, trying to squeeze out better controlled bass, more definition within the soundstage, and better define the "voice/midrange" presentation...

I presently have a tube preamp (hardwired with a wall wart) into an HT Receiver; source is a Marantz SA-8001 CD Player

Swapped out a Yamaha HTR -5550 (hardwired) for a Parasound HCA-750A (which needs a power cord).

CD Player is powered with a PS Audio Statement SC power cord, so I went in my closet and pulled out another PS AUDIO Statement SC power cord, hooked it up and expect to give it at least 5 days continuous re-break-in before serious listening.

Took a minute to lookup reviews about this power cord - and I read some rather confusing reviews: some luved 'um, some liked 'um, but some thought them " ...slow... " (?), and giving a veiled presentation...

I'm gonna listen and decide myself - but I'm abit confused: how does a power cord affect the presentation of sound - I know that interconnects and speaker cables would/could/Do affect sound presentation - but how could a power cord?

Explanation/thoughts please...
insearchofprat
djones51
4,947 posts
 
Once the noise floor is beyond a humans auditory perception does it really matter if it gets any lower?
mahgister's avatar
mahgister
12,964 posts
 
Nobody hears the noise floor directly...

We hears a modification of the sound coming from some noise ocean floor so to speak....( the electrical grid of the house is an "ocean" of noise )

When engineer design the electronic component they do so trying also to decrease the noise floor of each electronic components composing an amplifier or a dac for example... It is always a trade off, because ANY new component will work but with a cost of his own in term of noise...It is a compensation business for the engineer to controls the effects of the noise....

Like you already know i am not a scientist, this is my experience and reading...
djones51
4,947 posts
 
We can measure the amount of noise and distortion from that "ocean" and once those measurements show us it's not audible by humans then I don't really see the point of making it lower. From an engineering perspective I understand the desire for more and better but from a listener perspective it's not that important once you can't hear it. Unless you have very poor performing components the speakers will have the most distortion of anything else anyway.
mahgister's avatar
mahgister
12,964 posts
 
Rob Watts the designer of dac even use noise floor modulation ( Noise modulation is the undesirable variation of the noise floor )to increase the power of resolution and naturalness of his dac :

« What does noise floor modulation sound like?

Noise floor modulation is extremely important subjectively - you perceive the slightest amount as a brightness or hardness to the sound. When it gets bad, you hear glare or grain in the treble.

Less noise floor modulation, smoother sound quality. The curious thing about this is that the brain is very sensitive to it, so you can easily hear it. Problem is that many listeners hear the brightness as more detail resolution, and so think it sounds better - but that’s another story.»
djones51
4,947 posts
 
IM or intermodulation noise can be reduced below human hearing. Once the random noise floor reaches these levels of -160 dBFS  in a DAC noise from amps, speakers etc.. swamp it. It isn't audible to humans , dolphins maybe. 

The Benchmark DAC3 offers extremely low levels of harmonic distortion from all its outputs. Intermodulation distortion was similarly vanishingly low."

"No power-supply–related spuriae can be seen, and the random noise floor lies below –160 dBFS!"

"When the DAC3 decoded dithered 16-bit and 24-bit data representing a 1 kHz tone at -60 dBFS, the increase in bit depth dropped the noise floor by more than 30 dB, indicating that the Benchmark’s resolution is at least 21 bits."


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