Why Power Cables Affect Sound


I just bought a new CD player and was underwhelmed with it compared to my cheaper, lower quality CD player. That’s when it hit me that my cheaper CD player is using an upgraded power cable. When I put an upgraded power cable on my new CD player, the sound was instantly transformed: the treble was tamed, the music was more dynamic and lifelike, and overall more musical. 

This got me thinking as to how in the world a power cable can affect sound. I want to hear all of your ideas. Here’s one of my ideas:

I have heard from many sources that a good power cable is made of multiple gauge conductors from large gauge to small gauge. The electrons in a power cable are like a train with each electron acting as a train car. When a treble note is played, for example, the small gauge wires can react quickly because that “train” has much less mass than a large gauge conductor. If you only had one large gauge conductor, you would need to accelerate a very large train for a small, quick treble note, and this leads to poor dynamics. A similar analogy might be water in a pipe. A small pipe can react much quicker to higher frequencies than a large pipe due to the decreased mass/momentum of the water in the pipe. 

That’s one of my ideas. Now I want to hear your thoughts and have a general discussion of why power cables matter. 

If you don’t think power cables matter at all, please refrain from derailing the conversation with antagonism. There a time and place for that but not in this thread please. 
128x128mkgus
The power cable thing is too funny. So much nonsense and "woo". And the money spent has really no sane connection with reality. Talk about a bad value, cables are the ultimate sucker buy.
PT Barnum was also attributed with the saying "There's a sucker born every minute."

Some say he never said it and attribute it to either one of his rivals or a famous con man. Either way, the shoe fits.


Nope, he never said it. What’s the matter with you, don’t like the Circus? Afraid of the clowns? 🤡 One womders why naysayers think PT Barnum was a con artist. He was actually a very savvy marketing genius.
cables are the ultimate sucker buy.

@2010challenger I want that to be the case. I really do. Let me share my experience with you that led me to this crazy path:

On the advice of an internet forum, I changed my generic, cheapo stranded core speaker cables to generic, cheapo solid core speaker cables and appreciated the change in sound - particularly the increase in treble detail. Cost to me: a few bucks. After hearing that, I wondered what solid core RCA cables would do to the sound. I considered building my own but opted to spend around $60 for a pair of well-shielded, solidly-build solid core RCA cables that got 5 star reviews. I heard a significant improvement and I liked what it did to the sound. At this point, I was actually upset because I came to know that cables matter. I didn’t want to spend money on cables. I didn’t want them to matter, but they do for better or worse. After my speaker cable and interconnect escapade, I read many 5 star reviews on a power cable made by the same company as my interconnects. The interconnect reviews were accurate which made me put some trust in the power cable reviews. I figured the worst that could happen is that they wouldn’t do anything and I could return them for the cost of shipping. I recieved the garden hose, err, I mean, power cable in the mail and put them on my amplifier... the improvement was unmistakeable. Did my system sound good before the power cable? Yes. Did it sound better after the cable. Absolutely! So here I am questioning how in the hell a cable that isn’t even in the signal chain improves the sound and watching as forum members take snipes at each other akin to religious furor, thinking “what have I gotten myself into?” Happy listening!
In my experience....power cables matter - sometimes.   There was absolutely no difference in swapping power cords on the power supply to my turntables, or my Vandersteen speakers.....but they made a difference for the positive on my Ayre electronics.