Nrchy, I (and I'm sure many others) had an experience similar to yours. Several years ago, I bought an amp (which shall remain nameless for this discussion) used from a local guy. I auditioned it at his house and was satisfied, but when I got it home I wasn't quite as happy after the first couple of weeks or so. I called him about it to see if he had any suggestions, and he told me that when I had auditioned it, he had been using an aftermarket PC (also to go nameless here) which he found indispensable for getting best sound from this particular amp. He wanted about 1/3 of the price I had paid for the amp for the PC (neither was very expensive), but was willing to let me take it home for an audition first before buying. Back then, I had no experience with aftermarket PC's (not to mention a much less revealing setup than I do today), and though I had read some positive opinions about them, I was quite skeptical about the whole concept, for the usual reasons (read: I had no actual listening experience with PC's). So I got this cord back home, and damned if he wasn't 100% correct ; going back to the stock cord seemed to make the amp only half as good as it could be. So I bought the cord and used that amp for the next two or so years, and to this day that was still the biggest difference I've heard in my system concerning power cords (of course, I also had no power conditioner back then as I have had since).*
Eldartford: I'm glad you corrected the post regarding line frequency variations - this is what I thought, but I also thought it better to let someone technically qualified question the assertion. But about your "one of the more ridiculous ideas in audio": I'll grant you that on the $2,000 figure (no cable of mine remotely approaches that price level, though I'm content to let the market figure this stuff out, and understand that a premium cord could be better in absolute terms than the ones I'm using). But if what you meant was merely the cord idea itself, at any price level, I've got to ask you: Have you ever comprehensively auditioned one at home?
*[As a footnote to that experience, a dealer I had bought from in the past, and who's electronics brand lineup included the manufacturer of that amp of mine, immediately poo-pooed the entire possibility out-of-hand when I told him about my test results, based solely on 'principle' from what I could tell. I never returned to his shop again - not because I was insulted, but because I decided he must either be closed-minded or just couldn't hear. I sympathized with him, and understood where he was coming from, but for a guy in his business I couldn't trust his judgement anymore.]
Eldartford: I'm glad you corrected the post regarding line frequency variations - this is what I thought, but I also thought it better to let someone technically qualified question the assertion. But about your "one of the more ridiculous ideas in audio": I'll grant you that on the $2,000 figure (no cable of mine remotely approaches that price level, though I'm content to let the market figure this stuff out, and understand that a premium cord could be better in absolute terms than the ones I'm using). But if what you meant was merely the cord idea itself, at any price level, I've got to ask you: Have you ever comprehensively auditioned one at home?
*[As a footnote to that experience, a dealer I had bought from in the past, and who's electronics brand lineup included the manufacturer of that amp of mine, immediately poo-pooed the entire possibility out-of-hand when I told him about my test results, based solely on 'principle' from what I could tell. I never returned to his shop again - not because I was insulted, but because I decided he must either be closed-minded or just couldn't hear. I sympathized with him, and understood where he was coming from, but for a guy in his business I couldn't trust his judgement anymore.]