An interesting experience with power cable.

@carlsbad That is possible. I do have a monster of an amp in terms of size. 90 lbs and it has a 2,000 watts toroidal transformer in the supply or something like that. I suppose that’s a lot. One thing I have to note is with the new cable into the amp, it doesn’t sound like it’s lacking in power, it seems to my ears that the amps are more hyper-focused and felt like I’m hearing the shortcomings of my upstream, in this case the dac. The thing is I can't imagine the basic stock cable can be less "undersize" than the new one I bought. 

@gammamike Yea $500 is too expensive for me right now. I have to remember what you say in the back of my head. I’m currently looking into acquiring the dac that is supposed to pair with my amp, some sort of current injection technology. Thanks.

Just a heads up, a quick A/B test is never a good indication. Have the cable on the component for 24hrs drawing current before you sit down for critical listening. Let it all settle. This is if the cable is broken in. If it’s brand new, allow about 200hrs before you judge it.

Also, a cheap way to upgrade a stock power cable if you don’t want to spend $500 is to swap the AC and IEC connectors. A good set of plugs will produce a nice improvement noticeable in reduction of noise floor, opening up soundstage, etc.

@samureyex I have a 12 lb tube amp that makes just a couple of watts per channel and I was shocked that it was limited by a 14 awg power cable.  I'll never use anything smaller that 10 awg on an amp again.

A small power cable will limit dynamics, rapid changes or bass notes.  music that is more consistent in level and range will be mostly unaffected.

Jerry

@samureyex - what you are experiencing is quite normal because generally speaking...

• Amps tend to have a more robust power supply capable of handling the dynamics of transient peak audio signals
• Source components tend to have have a lighter duty power supply, mainly by design
  • i.e. keeping the component to a specific price point
  • BUT - higher quality source components tend to have better power supplies
• installing a quality power cable on a source components often results in noticeble gains in sound quality
• BUT to achieve a noticeable improvement by attatching a power cable to an amp, you would require a very well designed and built power cable

But as normal, it’s not quite that simple - "GENERALLY"

• tube amps/components tend to use voltage to amplify
  • so a good UP-OCC cable ($$) will "generally" produce noticeable improvements
• solid state amps and components tend to use current to amplify
  • so power cables of the highest quality ($$$) would be required to achieve the same level of improvement
• Trying a cable before you buy is often a very good approach

Unfortunately, there are 100’s of brands of cable out there, but the following are just some of the brands that I have looked into in the 15 years I have been dabbling with DIY cables

• Audio Envy - very good bang for the buck products that offer very good performance
• Zavfino - a step up, but you have to venture into their higher end cables for an appreciable improvement
• In-Akustik - very capable cables but that perofrmance is reflected in their price
• Hijiri - these are exceptional cables for components of the highest quality

Please note - this IS NOT a difinitive list - just some exceptional cables that I have been made aware of.

Any of these cables will provide performance improvements over most commercially available "branded" products within a comparable price bracket.

These cables are...

• well designed - i.e. the employ a noise cancelling geometry, which lowers the noise floor of the cable
• use either UP-OCC copper or UP-OCC silver having excepetional conductivity ratings, which improves dynamic performance
• use insulations that have low values of Dielectric Constant, which improves clarity and imaging
• use quality copper connectors (as opposed to copper alloys)

Hope that helps take some of the myth out of this hobby

Regards - Steve