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Power Cords Snake Oil ??

Having been a long time audiophile living with countless high end compnents I have to wonder about the theory and practicality of high end power cords.

I have yet to hear the difference a power cord makes. Ive owned, synergistic, Shunyata, BMI and cardas. I in no way can detect any sonic signature or change. Give me a pair of interconnects and I imeadiately notice a difference somewhere in the sonic spectrum. Not the PC though. I have accomplished 4 blind tests with my friends. 3 out of the 4 they did not know their cord was replaced. All 4 were using a stock factory supplied cord. Each of the 4 tests were done on different components. Amp, CDP, Preamp & dac.

My electrical backround tells me that provided you supply the component with its required voltage bet 110vac or 220/240vac its happy. Now, change the incoming frequency from 60hz to say 53hz and watch how quickly your soundstage collapses.! This is often the case during the summer months when home air conditioners are in use and the utility company power output is taxed to the max. A really good power conditioner should however take care of the frequency fluctuations. But 110vac is still 110vac regardless of the conductor it passes through as long as its remains 110vac when it reaches the intended circuit. Does your 8k amp or preamp know the difference of the path the voltage took to reach it ? Many an audiophile will use a dedicated 20amp circut for their equipment.That is a good idea as voltage & frequency fluctuations will occur in the home circuit to to other loads on the main breaker panel but again, A power cord simply is the means of transporting the voltage from the wall to the component. IF there is a clean 110vac @ 60hz at the wall socket, no matter what the medium is to go from the socket to the component, it will still be 110vac @60hz.

Could somebody expand on this a bit more. I just dont understand it. ??
128x128jetmek
corona
132 posts
 
Subaruguru:
You said it takes you 2 and 1/2 hours to build a power cable that should sell at $250.
That comes out to $100 per hour with no dealer to take his share and no overhead, and you’re calling other people greedy!
Now let me guess, I bet you take some wire, put some insulation around it (call that resonance control) and attach it to a couple of connectors and declare it a power cord. That may work fine for power tools but it is not going to do much in terms of accelerated audio performance. We are not amateurs. We do not make a living by hiding behind words on a computer screen. We do in-house demonstrations, directly or through our dealers. We compete against the best of the best. With the introduction of our new designs, I can tell you with absolute assurance, we are light years ahead of the competition.
There are a number of people who are more than willing to slam a product without any understanding of the technology involved, have never experienced the performance and do not even know anyone who has! Yet these individuals are eager to express violent opposition based solely on their long accumulated assumptions.
s23chang
619 posts
 
Corona, welcome to the "reality chatting" ( since no tv screen here.) The concept is hard to understand for some of the folks here because they never design the cable themselves. Sure, it is always easier to attack someone and anyone can do that. However, it is not always easy to find the science behind it ( We don't get hit by the falling apple under the apple tree everyday to dicover gravity.)
flex
292 posts
 
Corona, your response is pure crap. You log onto a consumer website and claim a lot of preposterous physics - superconductors, string theory (what's next - astrophysics?) There is only one way, and there never will be any other way, to do physics theory, and that is by publication and peer review - put your results where other people can test them. Listening proves *absolutely nothing* about physics, except that you can be *hugely* misinterpreting your results.

Claiming a lot of unpublished, hidden, unscrutinizable, grandiose garp serves to take the audio field down in the eyes of every respectable audio scientist. It may serve your marketing purposes which seem to be just to get your name out there. If you want to advertize your power cords for what they are, do so, but leave physics out of it until/unless you offer proof.

"..slam a product without any understanding of the technology involved".. What technology have you offered? String theory? Superconductors? The word 'resonance' is not a technology.
s23chang
619 posts
 
Flex, if you can make a cable say like a $10,000 NBS black series IC, are you going to tell folks how you making it?
It can only be free if everyone else already knows how to do it.

The truth about patent protection is all BS. Anyone can tweak a bit from original design and call that their own discovery.

Stop attacking people as you should respect their own company secret. That is way a lot of company decide not to publish any white paper because of people like you.

If you really want to know then fork up the dough to buy one and get it over with it and enjoy/hate the product.
zaikesman
3,017 posts
 
Ernie: No slam on Belden intended - just on anybody (not suggesting Corona or yourself here) who is making cables around OEM wire and then hiding that fact within some sleight-of-hand marketing scheme.

Speaking of which (I've read rumors about NBS around here...) S23chang, anybody can make a $10K IC (you just make an IC, and then charge $10K for it). But if I could actually *sell* a $10K IC, I would shut my mouth right there. And when NBS has advertised, this is exactly what they have done, as far as I can see: A glossy black page emblazoned with their logo, and zero product info or claims, other than maybe a lonely sentence fragment to the effect of being 'world's best' or somesuch. Maybe yes, maybe no, but whatever the case may be, the predictably gargantuan profit margin is courtesy of self-generated 'mystique' and the wisdom of P.T. Barnum. (Whether or not that approach is actually a better long-term business model than simply selling a great product at a fair price is another question, but it might work for a few in an overcrowded market.)
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