Why Expensive power Cables when Romex behind Wall?

Trich, I have absolutely no doubt that your comments are true. My years of listening and testing have shown me that the only absolute is "we don't really know anything."

I have no idea about the transformer, it is a 25K VA model supplied by TU Electric, and is the third one on my home in the last few years.

Between the wet tree limbs, squirrels and Texas weather, this neighborhood is hell on transformers. That being said, the last two sounded identical as far as I could tell.

Florida is not to kind weatherwise either, sounds just like yours. Maybe FL Power had to change his transformer too and it drove him out? Who knows? The guy drove me nuts for 6 months, but anything I know about hospital grade wiring, I know from him. He even went in and red chalked the slab with notes to the drywallers where he wanted the drywall glued and not screwed. He drove my electricians crazy too, but they made a mint off of him. He was paying the installers all kinds of money for "electrical favors". At first I was charging him when I saw things I wasn't making a markup on, but there came a point I gave up as my electricians charged me only the bid amount. Just one question though, being as that you went to such extremes to make your supply the best it could be; wouldn't a power plant of ample size been a better move? So that no matter what transformer you ended up with, voltage drops, spikes, etc, the power was cleaned and constant?

Psychicanimal - Just because a cord makes a difference does not mean that the last 6 feet is somehow magical. It still has to do with the inductance of the entire run to the panel. The last 6 feet reduces the overall resistance and inductance compared to a typical "rubber" cord. Cryoed cables can perform well because they are lower resistance.

I make cords myself and you can see all of the measurements, analysis and theory on my website:
http://www.empiricalaudio.com

I may be naive and this may garner some 'flames' but ... I've got to believe that the main impact of upgrading a PC is not to do with the cable but more the CONNECTION. Hello ? There are two of them. One to wall recepticle, and one to the equipment, if I understand correctly. My guess is that if you simply unplug and replug an existing PC you'll end up with a better connection and hence, hopefully, improved sound. Cleaning these connections would help to.

Freezing them (I'm in Tahoe) - does this help ? Bummer that it only gets down to -20c here in winter and the better half would be distinctly uphappy if I opened the windows and shut down the stove to improve the sound ;-)

No flames--I read a post in the Asylum by Jon Risch where he says he suspects 50% of the sound in power cords is due to proper grip...