"One of the weakest links that many audiophiles overlook is the AC power source. Oh, yes, audiophiles love their sexy high-end power cables and AC power conditioners, and salespeople love selling these products, but wouldn’t it make more sense to eliminate a problem rather than spending money to compensate for it?
Since it affects your entire system, upgrading the AC power source that feeds your system may be one of the most impactful upgrades you can make. But first, take my advice: before you spend big money to upgrade power cables or install a fancy AC power conditioner or regenerator, install dedicated AC lines and a low-resistance ground. I’ll be writing about this topic in a forthcoming blog, but for now, let me say that you can hire a licensed electrical contractor to install dedicated AC lines in your home for less money than many audiophiles spend on a single high-end power cable.
Don’t Fall for Attractive Distortions
When I consult for friends and customers who complain that their audio system is either too hard, harsh, and fatiguing, or too soft, laid back, and veiled, the solution in nearly every case is to improve the quality of their source components and to upgrade their AC power source. Most of these audiophiles had followed the advice of salespeople and bought products that either filtered, equalized, veiled, or brought a false liveliness to their systems rather than resolving the cause of their actual problems.
Have you heard the children’s song about the old lady who swallowed a fly? She swallowed a spider to catch the fly, a bird to catch the spider, and a cat to catch the bird. Much in the same way, many audiophiles buy one product after another in hopes that the next one will eradicate the source(s) of trouble and finally make their system sound musical and balanced.
Some salespeople love when audiophiles purchase aftermarket products to fix flaws in their systems because they know they’ve found customers they can manipulate into spending more and more money. A whole genre of products in the audiophile industry is engineered for just this purpose. I’ll make my point as simply as possible by dividing these purposely colored products into two categories: “more than” or “less than.” I use these terms because these products either have more or less bass, treble, and midrange so they can be used like an equalizer. Or they’re veiled to mask fatiguing sounds, pumped up to give more life to a system that’s too laid back, or have some other form of “attractive distortion” that enhances the audio illusion, such as an unnaturally spacious image.
The problem with any cable or component that is more or less than neutral is that most of the time the engineer that designed it had to sacrifice time, tune, and/or harmonic coherency to get the attractive distortion. When any one of these is sacrificed, it can never be regained later in the system."
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https://mojoaudiofiles.wordpress.com/find-the-weak-links-in-your-audio-system/My equipment is plugged into a dedicated circuit wired with 12G solid copper. My small town has its own power company, I can hear the difference between some of the crap ICs that came with certain equipment and some $25 AQ Towers. Not so much between the Towers and some $110 WireWorlds. This may be because my power is good or my system not so much; but it sounds real good to me. Phono cables are another story. I certainly hear differences. Not huge; but worth a reasonable investment.
Last week I made a power cord from 14G solid copper (12 is too stiff). I didn't make an audible difference (although I haven't burned it in) and since it's as close to the circuit cable as practical I don't think any other power cable can improve on what comes out of the wall.
I may try some Blue Jeans speaker cable. What do you think would sound better, $20 Belden 10g or Canare 4S11 bi-wired for $30?
