How can power cords make a difference?

Mmccoy. I cannot help thinking you are falling into a trap that many or perhaps all of us have fallen into from time to time, and that some here seem to be utterly captured by. It is important in any endeavour like ours to have some basis for guessing which direction might lead to progress with enjoying reproduced music. This means we naturally develop theories. The trap I refer to is believing that our prevailing theories are sufficient and complete that we need to do no more than deduce knowledge from them. My experience does not support your deductions that power supplies render power cord quality as redundant, nor your conclusions that the sound difference must be small, nor the conclusion that at 53 you would not hear the difference.

In the end you must decide whether the many here that agree with me have sufficient credibility with you to cause you to try some decent power cords. I was sceptical when I first tried a decent power cord but was open minded enough to give it a try and just listen - in my case, not expecting to hear anything at all different. What I have found is that the difference between different power cords is very similar to the difference between speaker cables in my system. Depending on your perspective this is either a lot, not much, or nothing at all. For me, it is a lot.

Therefore I am happy to spend a similar amount on power cords as I have spent on my speaker cables. If you think I am just deluded by marketing, then I would add that the first decent power cord I tried, was before I ever saw any advertisement or review or recommendation for esoteric power cords. My local dealer simply handed two to me and said "try these and tell me what you think". Believe me, I have tried lots of his suggestions and returned the kit later and told him what a load of junk they were.

Red & Greg, two excellent posts. I have an even more severe test for you Mmccoy. Take solid core 14/2 or 12/2 Romex and attach the appropriate male/female IEC ends, and compare that to your stock 16/2 or 16/3 stranded PC. You should immidiately hear some pretty big differences in sound. Usually, brighter, glassier and harder than the stock cord. Of, course this is also bad sound, but should be sufficient enough for anyone to hear, and therefore know this is a real occurence. Perhaps Red or Greg have also tried this in the past. The PC that showed me the light, was manufactured by the now defunct, DISCRETE TECHNOLOGY company. When the stock PCs on QUAD ESL-63s were replaced with this, the speaker became a legend to my ears, back in 1985 or so..........Frank

Hi Frap. Thanks for the help - I hope Mmccoy realises we are trying to help, not beat him into submission. Good PCs on electrostatic speakers do indeed have a significant effect, in my repeated experience. The standard cords sound as if detail has been smoothed over, there is an upper midrange ringing, and the soundstage shrinks. The ringing problem can be reduced by using RF blocking capsules on the power cord, but it does not improve the other issues.

I experienced a significant improvement with my Soundlab speakers using audiophile power cords.
These speakers, like the Quads, require AC to operate. The first time the discussion concerning expensive replacement power cords was raised, I rejected it outright. My assumption was that with a power requirement of only one eight of an amp, the extra carrying capacity, geometry and quality of copper could not possibly help the performance.

The end result of my experimentation was that the superior power cables provided equal or greater performance for my Soundlabs, as they did on my preamp and amps. I do not claim to have an explanation for this, but obviously there is something more to this than just delivering 120V from the wall to the component.

Just so everyone knows where I'm coming from, I'm not of the opinion that stock power cords are in every case 'totally sufficient' and a system cannot benefit from a better quality cable, e.g. I can certainly wholeheartedly agree that anything that might lower resistance, improve mechanical connection & reduce potential interference, etc. beyond what the current cable provides (no pun intended) is a good thing.

Rather, I'm just thinking there has to be a point of diminishing returns... that once you reach a certain minimum/maximum level of achieving the above any further effort is simply beating a dead horse. That is, in all seriousness can a $1500-2000 (retail) power cable provide that much improvement over a $500 (retail) one to warrant the difference in cost?

Of course my simplistic view doesn't take into account the 'psychology' inherent in audiophiles that creates the ever present quest to achieve totally perfect sound reproduction . And I thus suppose the point at which an audiophile begins to 'beat a dead horse' is, bottom line, only dictated by his/her budget. My hats off to those that can pursue this 'ultimate goal' with a system budget that (in more than a few cases) exceeds the cost of my house ;)