After Market Power Cables - Gold or Snake Oil?

It's nice to see a new set of faces on the power cord issue helping the education process. As a long time advocate of after market cords I think my opinion has lost some weight in that I am often one of the same flag wavers. To have some new voices speak up brings a new level of credibility. Thanks!

Junking the 18 ga cables that come in the box for 10-12ga shielded cables with better connectors is a good idea for basic physical reasons, and doing so should cost under $50 a cord to make. Go to audioasylum.com for some great DIY cables. With adding a $500-$5000 power cord, now there's where the snake oil starts to really flow. Adding a power conditioner will drop the noise floor and filter more then any cable will ever be able to, and will show definite results, good, bad or ugly, whereas big buck powercable swaps will have a person without unlimited funds struggling to justify the expense beyond a sufficient 12ga p/c....

People who argue against the sonic benefits of powercords either, in my opinion, haven't tried them, or have equipment designed such that they don't make much difference (either because they don't resolve the information or are designed with spectacular power supplies: I gather this is true to some extent with certain brands of electronics such as Bryston). In my system, which includes Audio Research electronics and Transparent cabling, the differences between power cables and the improvements they can offer are both shocking (to me, a former skeptic) and instantly obvious to anyone. It's not subtle. Forget electronic logic on this one. Bumblebees can't fly either, according to aeronautics. The history of science is the recognition of clear phenomena, and trying to find a way to explain apparently anomalous conclusions after the fact.

Indeed, in medicine, particularly in Britain, there's a movement towards what's called "evidence-based medicine." When I naively suggested to a group of doctors at a party that I assumed all medicine was "evidence based" they could barely contain their laughter. Figure out what works first, they said, figure out why later... or maybe not at all (no one really understands even now why aspirin works, an analogy I've cited in these forums [fora?] before). Same here (if towards less serious ends).

Pure Note Sigma: I use to think all this talk about power cables made no sense. But, this relatively inexpensive cable transformed my $60K Krell/B&W system.

See my review under Pure Note and go to purenote.com

Try it!

Richard

I personally use cheap Cardas power cords ($79) only for mechanical superiority to computer grade power cords. I've
tried some $200+ power cords in the past. They appears to make a difference but it largely disappears with time or during a blind test. Have you ever wonder why your system sometimes sounds good but not other time even without any
change in your system? You must do reliable listening test to determine the difference. I am not so called audio objectivist since I do own audiophile brand name equipment and cables but PC is where I draw the line.