Power Conditioner vs A/C cables


Here's my question...Is it necessary to buy expensive power cables downstream of a high-end power conditioner?
What do they do that hasn't already been done?  As long as you don't go so cheap you degrade the signal.
Ag insider logo xs@2xrjlownote
A question. Some big IBM mainframes used motor generators to create juice of different voltage, phase and frequency. 
Why not an audio motor generator? All it has to do is create clean 60 Hz, 120+- volts, single phase power. All audio units would be plugged into the generator. The juice would be isolated from vagaries and noise of the electric companies juice. A flywheel would keep the output good if the input faltered a bit. The unit could be fed by a decent UPS for when the grid goes away. Don’t worry about lightning strikes. Any network connection would go through an optical coupler.

True isolated power.


At a certain point in developing your system it ceases to be about what is 'necessary'.

I am a firm believer in the importance of the quality of the power that feeds our components - we start with an extremely small signal and amplify it using that power, so it could be argued that we are listening to that power supply. That's aside from noise and the environment issues in the air and from other components on the same circuit, which includes all the crap wall warts that power items that are not part of our system. Everything on a circuit forms part of that circuit.

I use an Ansuz Mainz8 C2 distributor and the difference it made to the sound quality was significant. I use matching power cables to the distributor from the wall and to my speakers (active, so I am talking about power cables to the amplification).

I will get another power cable for the wall to distributor connection (tempted to try Sablon Audio as I'd like to use a D2 to the distributor but that's a price that I'm not quite comfortable with) and then use the existing C2 power cable for my DAC. The DAVE seems quite sensitive to power quality and using a decent power cable to it provided a noticeable improvement. Or I might get a Sean Jacobs DC4 instead. I was quite surprised at the difference the power cable made to the DAVE. It seemed to make no difference to my streamer though, so I'll leave that with a standard power cable.

In my experience, quality power is the foundation of getting the best possible sound from your system.

But, to answer your question... no, it's not 'necessary'. 
Some big IBM mainframes used motor generators.

Motor Generators? 

You mean a Gen Set? A generator with an Engine?

That is the absolute dirtiest source you can have. Nasa has a few clean runners.. BIG cat gen sets.. BUT they are made for power not clean power, none I've worked on anyway.. I was in charge of 3 CAT genset in Vegas at CES in 2003 and 5. The smart vendors figured it out QUICK.

People were putting their fingers in their ears, dirty power.. The casinos didn't have the juice, it was even WORSE..

A few Cooled the Power supply and were very successful in spite of it all.. I was at a Florida show .. EAR PLUGS it was so bad.. Hoody and ear plugs, YUP.. Everybody was bitchin'. Crap power, BOILING highs. Just bad. Could not get any of the Florida booths sounding right..

How important is the power supply? It's a "Elvis has left the building" thing for me... 

Regards