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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
spatialking's avatar
spatialking
610 posts
 
Please explain how the noise of the switching of a full wave rectifier in a power supply can pass back through the primary winding of the power transformer and through the power cord and end up on the AC mains.
I can answer this question - what happens is the spike is transmitted both via radiation and by conduction through the transformer.   Power transformers do have a bandwidth and it is surprisingly wide.  I don't believe I have ever measured a line isolation transformer with less than 100KHz of bandwidth, although they are not always flat.  

So, the diode switching on and off creates a current surge when it turns on and another when it turns off.   Given we have inductance in the transformer as well as the line itself, the current starting and stopping abruptly causes a spike in noise on the line.   That spike is sent out through the power cord and will affect anything susceptible nearby on that line. Some amplifiers designs have components to squash that spike internally when it is created, others do not. 

The voltage spike is dependent upon the change in current divided by the change in time times the inductance.  That is, the bigger change in current when the diodes turn on or off creates a bigger spike.  The change in time is dependent on the turn on or turn off time of the diode, determined internally by the design of the diode.   The inductance is both the transformer and grid together.   

erik_squires is right, one does not want that noise coupling into audio equipment.   If one has a transparent power cord connected then that equipment has to deal with the noise.   If one has a power cord connected that doesn't conduct the noise, then the equipment doesn't have to deal with it.  
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fleschler
2,021 posts
 
jea48  The Curl/Parasound incident occurred numerous times.  He designed the equipment and they modified it to a price point which diminished the resulting product sound quality.  

My own PCs are GroverHuffman.com Empress and Pharoahs which are laboriously made as you can read on his site, patented and priced at $400 to $900 1 to 2 meters.  I am the beta tester for his cables for the past several decades.  His PC designs haven't changed much, about a half dozen retailed designs over 15 year period. 

His ICs have had 100 iterations with many retailed designs.  Low voltage signals are very tricky to design. 

His speaker cable also has had maybe four or five retailed designs over 15 years.  No one does what he does to wire such as his embossing and pressure flattening the wire or triple coating his first layer of insulation with nickel, carbon and tungsten powder in a solvent based binder.  His wiring is generally low capacitance.  Just some information why his cables perform so well on a wide range of equipment.
boxer12
8,656 posts
 
analogluvr,
" The nerve of him!  He probably doesn’t have a clue what he is talking about!  And neither do all the science based individuals who study confirmation bias."

I disagree & suspect they are all very smart people, just ignorant in this regard. 

"Just trust your ears 🙄"

Will do / Thanks!
erik_squires
16,233 posts
 
If you visit the Cable Asylum forum you can read where many members build their own DIY power cords. You don't have to spend a fortune for a good power cord.


@jea45
I think if you care, this is a great idea! :)

I move stuff around far too often. I can't see myself making the perfect power cord that I would use for long, but DIY is the smartest approach I think.
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