I challenge the fact that you can hear the difference in power cords. The job of a power chord is to supply the transformer inside your piece of gear with alternate current of sufficient quantity to allow your device to operate properly. Inside your component, the power supply converts the alternating current to direct current. The direct current is then sent to power your circuitry. The power supply is where the filtering of your power occurs. Manufacturers use large capacitors and/or voltage regulators in the power supply to filter any residual AC or noise. The power supply design of your equipment is much more critical than an expensive power cord. The cleaner you make the direct current voltage feeding the audio circuits in your equipment the better your equipment will perform. The only exception to this is if the power cord is not of sufficient gage to supply the current necessary for your piece of gear to operate or if the power cord does not provide a good enough ground path to avoid voltage drops which causes system noise due to ground loops, assuming your AC wall outlet is grounded properly.
The fallacy of ac treatment
I see a lot of threads related to managing and tweaking the ac powerout end of electronic systems. Much has been said about dedicated wiring, termination and even the right kind of extension cords to use. I work for an electric utility; and that's the extent of my credibilty here. The majority of you will no doubt be far more erudite wrt music hardware. Just a thought, though: domestic ac distribution goes thus: power station-step up-city-step down-subdivision-final step down. As far as the utility is concerned, you and all your neigbours are collectively the load for the step down tranformer. Any inductance/capacitance created by your neigbour running motors/tubelights, etc is felt by the lot of you. Additionally, the voltage frequency will almost always move around a tolerance from 50hz as the whole country turns on the air, off the lights - changes all the time as peaker plants ramp up etc. Nothing can change that- the frequency of the grid supplying your city is the frequency in the mains at your house. So what's my point? Well only that how much difference can the last 10 feet of cabling, etc make when the other hundreds of miles are outside of your control? And more importantly, frequency is one of the most imp parameters for measuring electricity quality (your expensive hand-coiled toroids are entirely subject to the f in the primaries) and nothing other than running an f generator can shield you from that. Methinks all the improvements you see from ac cord treatments are pyschosomatic. But that's cool.
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- 68 posts total
- 68 posts total