I think what Randy and I and other realists are saying is that once some
very basic and inexpensive length/guage requirements are met, nothing
is to be gained by spending sometimes insane amounts on aftermarket
cabling...wasting money on them is ludicrous. If better performing power
cables were really necessary, audio component manufacturers would
surely provide better cables with their equipment. To not do so would
make no sense. I don’t know how many different ways there are to say
this..."exotic" cables are designed, marketed and sold to fix problems
that do not exist.
(quote from dynaquest14).
And this is the exact reason why dynaquest4 and the like will never "get it". The reason why manufacturers don't provide "upmarket power cables" is the same reason why manufacturers don't provide upmarket Interconnects and generally don't provide upmarket tubes. Imagine the added cost to a component. There are hundreds of Interconnect manufacturers and a fair percentage of Power Cable manufacturers. The chief designer says to his R&D team "We're going to supply upmarket Interconnects, Power Cables and Tubes for our components. Now get to work and find the best matching IC's, PC's, Tubes". R&D come back 12 months later. "Yep we found the right matching cables & tubes". "How much did that cost?" "$200k in component costs for testing all the different cables and $200k in labour for hundreds of hours of listening tests". Said $5K component now costs $9K. Doesn't make economic sense.
Even if they just threw in random $100 cables & $200 of tubes. That $400 by the time it gets to the middleman and then the retailer becomes closer to $1K. Once again makes no economic sense. The majority of passionate audio buyers will want to swap out their own cables, tubes anyway to get their own signature sound and synergy with the rest of their system. Remember one sound doesn't suit all.
A great example of this recently was when I A/B'd two CD Players from the same manufacturer, the Vincent CD-S8 & Vincent CD-S7DAC, both very fine sounding CD Players. I placed some Silver XLR's (which sounded nice on the CD-S8 but sounded "too bright" on the CD-S7DAC).If Vincent included these with all their CD Players, there would be some disappointed CD-S7DAC owners who've paid for a cable that doesn't match well.
Some years ago I purchased a Power Amp which had an upmarket (not expensive but better than the throwaway PC) Power cable hard wired. About four years ago I had the cable replaced with an IEC socket .And guess what, I found a better matching Power Cable which increased the sound quality of the Power Amp.
I've done extensive testing of Power Cables. Some that match well with certain Pre-Amps, don't fare quite as well with certain CD Players and vice-versa. Yep a well made, well engineered, well matched Power Cable accompanied with good Power Treatment/Conditioning will undoubtedly allow good quality Audio Components to perform closer to their potential. Absolutely no question. And it doesn't need to cost a king's ransom.
