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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
prof
3,474 posts
 

mrdecibel,

What you or others believe, particularly in high end audio, makes little difference to me.


But the problem is you will still come here and comment on what you think my position is. And because you "don't care" you will continually misunderstand and hence make posts imply a position I explicitly don't hold.
For instance you wrote:

The fact that you claim to not hear differences, does not mean that differences do not exist,



Now, if you had "cared" for a moment what I ACTUALLY have argued, you would have noticed post after post I was explicit in not making that claim.  A selection from my posts in this very thread:


Now...that ISN’T to say other explanations aren’t correct, and that the power cord did in fact alter the signal audibly in the way you perceived
.

and:

As I already stated: I am not claiming everyone here is just experiencing a bias or placebo effect.

and:

Nor do I claim from my own tests, of course, "therefore NO audible differences exist between AC cables, and every positive anecdote is due to subjective bias." That would be far too rash and unwarranted.

again:
I have been very careful to say, explicitly, that I’m not claiming from my own results "AC cables make no sonic difference" and I have NEVER claimed that nonoise or you or anyone else DID NOT hear a REAL sonic difference.


Again:

I have no problem whatsoever with accepting I may be wrong.As I stated early on, I’m open to the possibility AC cables can change the sound of an audio system.


Again:

I could be utterly in error in most of what I've written.   I'm open to the idea cables, including AC cables, can make audible differences.



So, mrdecibel, if you "don't care" enough about my position to actually bother reading it, you could at least refrain from commenting on it since you are bound to misunderstand and misrepresent it.

Answer honestly:  Which of us has been intellectually honest and actually done more in this thread to concede "I May Be Wrong?" 

When you honestly contemplate this, reflect upon your desire to continually castigate others for being obstinate in their viewpoint.









Post removed 
yang_hong
13 posts
 
@prof  I just love your posts. Everything I want to say you said it better. I hold exactly same position as yours. First, I don't believe an expensive AC cable makes a difference. Second, I welcome ideas that are scientifically sound explaining how AC cable can make an audible difference. Haven't seen anything solid on the latter. 
boxer12
8,656 posts
 
prof,
You missed a couple of your recent quotes in your post above, so I'll add them:
" Or, an alternative possibility is that you have wasted money on a product whose performance was oversold to you"
"And we are getting just as great results without wasting money"

That stated, "wasted money" is a rather harsh statement for those of us who do hear an improvement in sound quality from power cords even though you don't, especially since the OP specifically asked that " If you don’t think power cables matter at all, please refrain from derailing the conversation with antagonism"
boxer12
8,656 posts
 
Kosst, 
" Why not spend $1500 on a power cord that would do the same job as a $5 length of 14g lamp cord and $10 worth of caps, resistors, and inductors! If your goal is to clean up the power supply, THEN FIX THE POWER SUPPLY. This isn't rocket surgery!"
A couple things here:
1. There is no such thing as "rocket surgery"
2. You don't need to spend $1500 to get an improvement from a power cord
3. The power supply of an amplifier is not the end all to sound quality.  
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