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Can a power cord increase the resolution of an Class D (SMPS) amp by more than 5% ?
5% in relation to a stock power cord.
I can’t really trust dealer comments. I am more interested in reports from audiophiles.
Whats your story? Did you manage to increase speed and resolution of your amp ? (without losses in the bass area)
I can’t really trust dealer comments. I am more interested in reports from audiophiles.
Whats your story? Did you manage to increase speed and resolution of your amp ? (without losses in the bass area)
130 responses Add your response
I've heard some owners of the Shunyata Research Alpha NR power cord that run class D amps say that it did lower the noise floor allowing more detail and resolution to pass through. Personally, I have not tried it yet but perhaps in the future. Seems like a large amount of money must be spent for a small margin of improvement, and it always seems to be that way with high end audio. |
An Ansuz D-TC power cord did just what lak mentioned above with my Aavik U300. Because of that I can play almost twice as loud. I never would have believed it if I didn't hear it in my home. Not sure what percentage of improvement I got but would say it was lot. If I have to guess I would say 20 - 30%. Yes it's crazy expensive too. Full List is 20K for 2M |
5% gain is quite a bit to expect with any pwr cord change from just a stock thick gauge cord. I’ve been using upgraded cords for a long time,generally make my own,and without question they do lwr the noise floor,have better defined dynamics,and are generally smoother and more refined across the board. I’ve owned many class d amps and I found that with all of them,they like being powered up all the time.My latest amp a Lyngdorf 2170 definitely likes being left on,not on standby,all the time for the very best in sound and also is ready to go at any time. I recommend that you try a reasonable priced cord and listen for yourself and compare to a stock cord. Kenny. |
I think so. Prior to the Stereophile review I purchased my first switching amplifier a PS Audio HCA-2 to fill in for a solid state amplifier out for an upgrade. We had recently moved into an 1972 vintage California ranch home. Right out of the box the PS Audio's presentation was somewhat forward with a startlingly plate glass transparency and a remarkable lack of congestion at higher listening levels. It wasn't long before I noticed I could hear what was being played faintly through a bedroom clock radio. We began a major remodel which included upgrading the electrical service from 100 to 400 amp service. This required the utility to replace the cable from the grid. My electrician replaced the aluminum cable from the new main breaker to the new breaker panel and two sub breaker panels one of which was for audio only. From the audio sub panel I used 10g for hot and common and an 8g ground within an uninterrupted metal clad BX housing to the metal receptacle boxes containing Hospital grade isolated ground receptacles and 10g DIY double shielded power cables. Bottom line here was beefy conductors and shielding for the area I'm in. Two runs to the Hi-Fi and two runs to the HT were just under 1K. Highly recomended. During all this the amplifier was steadily breaking in but that couldn't account for the degree of audible improvement we experienced nor could I attribute it to just the power cords. The improvement was much more than replacing all the cheapo speaker cables and interconnects with my Cardas Golden Reference and slightly less than replacing my very old Shure V15 with the Benz Ruby Z. One constant I've experienced with switching amplifiers up to my now dated Hypex nCore 400s is they all liked thick copper cabling and nothing silver or silver coated. NuForce speaker cable was noticeably better than the Cardas, if you can find it. |
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I compared a small handful of upgraded cables in the $300-$350 range. Compared them to the stock cables that came with my equipment, I got varied results from no improvement, to a small improvement, to slightly worse sound. The differences I heard with these cables in my system was mostly in the upper bass range. Obviously the cables with the heavier upper bass made some of the lower mids sound ever so slightly veiled. I found one cable of the bunch to give me a very clean sounding upper bass which in turn gave a tiny improvement in the mids. Granted all these differences were extremely small, but I felt if I could hear a difference so it wouldn't hurt to use them, right? It took a week of going back and forth with these cables and was quite the tedious process. I would like to think I made an informed decision, and it would be money well spent. The cable I chose at the time was $325 new for a 6 ft. length. I found several more of these cables used on Audiogon in a range of $120 to $150 each, so I bought them to wire my entire system. I do like the result, but I don't think I would buy mega buck power cords. IMO. |
I’m having trouble seeing how a power cord could make a difference. After all, the stock cable should be capable of delivering the full mains power available to the amp, and the power supply on the amp is going to clean up any minor amount of interference that could possibly sneak in between the wall and the unit. Besides, if it was easy to greatly increase the performance of an Amp with a different power cord, why wouldn’t they just ship it with a different power cord? Why handicap yourself is there’s such an easy solution? |
No matter what the voltage is at your outlet, the idea is to get as much of it to your gear as possible, so the age-old counterpoint/argument "what about all the wiring between the power plant and your house?" is moot. Voltage drop, and the corresponding performance loss that results from it, is real and it’s scientifically measurable. Unfortunately, every power cord suffers from it, but to widely varying degrees - up to a 3% voltage drop is considered "acceptable" in power cord manufacturing. If your amp is only fed 117 volts, it will not produce the same amount of power/performance as when it is fed 120 volts. Simple. With that said, you certainly don’t need a power cable costing 4 or 5 figures to combat/minimize voltage drop. Try some different cables with different gauges and go from there. Cheers and good luck! |
Voltage drop... if it's a concern for you. Have at it. http://www.calculator.net/voltage-drop-calculator.html?material=copper&wiresize=5.211&voltag... |
I’m having trouble seeing how a power cord could make a difference. After all, the stock cable should be capable of delivering the full mains power available to the amp, and the power supply on the amp is going to clean up any minor amount of interference that could possibly sneak in between the wall and the unit.I've seen a power cord cause a loss of about 40 watts on a 140 watt amp. It was easy to see why- there was a voltage drop across the cord. I measured it with regular Digital VoltMeter (DVM); its not rocket science. By contrast, the romex in the wall of most houses is much better performance, being made of solid core copper. But this material is illegal for use as a power cord; so yes, that last 6 feet can make a difference. Here is an additional issue, that I think will affect switching amps more than other types of amps. The voltage drop is not limited to 60 hz. The problem is that there is a power supply in the amp that is made of a transformer, rectifier(s) and filter caps. The rectifier converts the AC from the transformer to DC and the filter caps store that voltage for use by the amp. In-between peaks of the AC power waveform, the caps get discharged. The rectifiers only conduct when the cap voltage is lower than that of the transformer; if the caps are only slightly discharged (the normal state of affairs) then the time that the rectifiers turn on is very slight, perhaps a few milliseconds or even microseconds. At that time the current draw might be profound; if the power cord does not have the bandwidth, the pulses charging the caps will be current limited. This can be bad for a switching amp, which needs a really clean power supply to sound right, even if they don't seem to be drawing much power from it at any given time. So its worth it to try a power cord that has greater bandwidth (which romex already has...). |
@atmasphere Looking at @dep14 's calculator, it looks like for a typical home-use power cord (16/3 cable at 6' in length) you're only losing .6% of your voltage on a typical 120v 15a home circuit, that seems like it would be well within the margin of error of typical home outlets (which can range from 110v to 130v in actual output). Given that amplifiers are typically running at a small fraction of their maximum output (only a few watts except for very short dynamic peaks) how would such a small reduction in voltage actually be audible? If it were wouldn't you see an even bigger difference between two homes where one's AC voltage averages at 117 volts and another whose voltage averages at 121 volts? |
Is there some kind of parameter or specification that indicates power cable bandwidth?I've never seen one... it would be a good spec to include. Looking at @dep14 's calculator, it looks like for a typical home-use power cord (16/3 cable at 6' in length) you're only losing .6% of your voltage on a typical 120v 15a home circuit, In practice you see more- the problem area with many inexpensive cables in the connection at either end. That is where you are most likely to discover that the cable is heating up and this calculator does not take that into account. It also does not calculate the impedance of the cable at higher frequencies, so I can't regard it as 100% accurate, although for general home electrical stuff its fine. The problem here is that, like it or not, you can hear differences between power cables. My thinking is that if you can hear differences, there should be something measurable as well. I find it easier to measure the effects on the equipment with which the cable is used rather than to measure the cable. In a class D amp, the idle current is quite low. But to actually make the power to drive real speakers, the amp has to draw power from the wall and at full power can draw quite a lot depending on the amp. If you were to put an ammeter in series with the amp's AC power, you would see the meter dance around as you ran the volume up while playing music. The thing is, switching amps need the power supply to be quiet and the current it needs has to be readily available. Most of the expense of any class D amp is its power supply. |
Well, in the case of the new Hurricane power cord from Audioquest you can attribute part of its very high performance to wire directionality, which Audioquest now controls during manufacturing for power cords as well as speaker cables, interconnects and HDMI cables. Hel-loo! Wake up and smell the roses! 🌹🌹🌹 |
“Well, in the case of the new Hurricane power cord from Audioquest you can attribute part of its very high performance to wire directionality, which Audioquest now controls during manufacturing for power cords as well as speaker cables, interconnects and HDMI cables. Hel-loo! Wake up and smell the roses! 🌹🌹🌹” What do you mean? Surely it is the bottle of magic pixie dust ($1200 per bottle) that they sprinkle on ordinary wires to make them smell sweet as roses. Hel-loo! |
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I have the Bel Canto ref1000m Class D amps. These will flip my circuit breaker if I turn them both on at the same time. Otherwise I never have a problem. The power supply seems to draw a lot of current when turned on, then not so much. I would expect less difference with power cords then with many amplifiers due to the relative efficiency. So I have not bothered to upgrade though its on my list of things to try someday. I use upgraded power cords with my pre-amp and DAC (Pangea) and hear clear differences there. |
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Well, in the case of the new Hurricane power cord from Audioquest you can attribute part of its very high performance to wire diectionality Once again, a wire that acts like a diode, "snake oil". Brilliant it's trying to rectify the mains, which is AC (alternating current) and changes 60 x a second, more "snake oil" Cheers George |
🐑 georgehifi geoffkait - “Well, in the case of the new Hurricane power cord from Audioquest you can attribute part of its very high performance to wire directionality.” Once again, a wire that acts like a diode, "snake oil". Brilliant it's trying to rectify the mains, which is AC (alternating current) and changes 60 x a second, more "snake oil" >>>>Oh, geez, you’re just regurgitating 🤮 what costco_emoji keeps claiming - that a wire acts like a diode. Hey, get real guys! Have you run out of ammo? No one says wire acts like a diode. After all this posturing as some sort of electronics EE guru and you still don’t even know what wire directionality means. Unbelievable! You’re right about one thing, the AC current does travel in both directions. But only one of those directions is audible. See if you can guess which one. A prize for the right answer. Extra credit: Why would Audioquest control directionality for power cords if it didn’t affect performance? Do you think naive gullible newbies are scarfing up the new Hurricane power cords because they think that directionality is cool? |
Kenny, no, Geoff's statement that only one direction of the AC current is audible is completely incorrect. As I said in one of the recent fuse threads: ... when AC current is moving toward the component in the "hot" conductor it is moving away from the component in the "neutral" conductor. And vice versa. So it is moving both toward and away from the component at all times. And a mains fuse is in series with the current in the neutral conductor as well as being in series with the current in the hot conductor, via the primary winding of the power transformer.So if in fact Audioquest's control of the direction of the wires in their power cords provides any benefit, it is not for the reason Geoff stated. Best regards, -- Al |
Al, what I’m afraid you don’t understand, is that both wires are directional. Both wires should be controlled for directionality. Which is obviously what Audioquest does. Nice try anyway. Then you will hear the effect of directionality, because the audible direction for both wires will be toward you the listener. We don’t care what the wire sounds like in the opposite direction. I don’t think I can say it any plainer. |
Moops checks in with yet another silly comment, guess he’s bored and figures, what the heck, at least he can boost his already astronomical post count. Obviously the whole fabrication process must be controlled to ensure directionality is correct. Not only for speaker cables and interconnects but also power cords and Ethernet cables and HDMI cables. Hiding your head in the sand doesn’t make the problem go away, Moops. Let us know when you guys figure out what the term directionality even means. Pop quiz Of all the various audio cables and cords which ones are not AC? |
Audioquest or no, its quite impossible for a wire in an AC power cord to express any directionality. To do so would be taking on characteristics of a diode as George (+1), kosst (+1) and Al (+1) have all pointed out. What *is* possible is that the shield of the cable might be hooked up at one end or the other (as opposed to the ground connection, which is the green wire) which *might* make a difference somehow, and certainly the finished power cord has connectors at either end that tend to make it directional :) Put another way, its quite possible to hear differences in power cords and to also confirm the differences through simple measurement. OTOH, its quite impossible to hear differences in the direction of AC wiring, and this is easily confirmed by the fact that measurement of such yields a null. When someone suggests to you that a wire in a power cord has a directional quality, the best plan of action is to turn in the other direction and run as hard as you can. Since Geoff has discovered this thread, it will no longer suit to continue posting to it or reading it as per usual; snake oil has a highly ephemeral quality and much of it will be applied soon, yielding a similar result as with a directional AC wire. |