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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. 
mkgus
Post removed 
gpgr4blu
1,096 posts
 
mzkmxcv:
You can build your system based upon measurements. I’ll build mine, as I have over the past 40+ years, based to some extent on measurements, but to a greater extent on what I hear.  As for the science you believe to be definitively on point, I disagree with your characterization of how the measurements you present relate to how the sounds measured are processed by the human ear.  But let's assume you are correct, well, then --if the current science cannot measure why I hear differences in PCs and ICs , then I submit that it is not measuring everything. Or as a scribe once said:
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
fleschler
2,046 posts
 
@ elizabeth  As to the kitchen magnets, I tried six of them and they are worthless as to affecting my audio and video systems. On the contrary, the E-Mats, full size, one dozen, greatly improve my sonics. Just one on the main power box significantly improved the video picture with enhanced color and brightness on my 75" Sony 940D. My wife does not want me to remove it.  Since 100s have tried and purchased the E-Mats and found the same results, why knock it?  I would have returned them unless they provided a very significant benefit for the cost.  Again, the E-Mat is NOT a kitchen magnet.  The kitchen magnet has a low level magnetism and helps hold it to some metal products.  It is being used only as a convenient way to hold the inside "mystery" product that Tim Mrock uses to achieve the sonic enhancement.  I don't know what the "mystery" product is but it works.   As to TC product, I reserve judgement although I have applied it liberally last year.  I prefer the E-Mats.
jetter
3,114 posts
 
Regardless, all of us have our persons whose opinions we value and for me you don’t often hear them bragging about how much they have, know or their great hearing. They don’t need to.
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
People! We already established that magnetism is strictly for attaching the mat to a ferrous metal object. The principle involved has absolutely nothing to do with magnetism 🧲. That’s why the newer smaller cards are not (rpt not) magnetic. In fact we also know magnetism per se is generally bad for sound. That’s why we see preferences for non-magnetic chassis, non-magnetic screws, transformers wrapped with mu metal, etc. He-loo! Try to keep up, people! We need scamps like Elizabeth and Jitter to keep everyone straight. 😛
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