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
Those AES dudes couldn’t hear anything if their life depended on it. Cut me some slack, Jack! 
@thyname

I’ve bought stuff on Audiogon, but they were local so I paid them in cash when I met them.

None of those people in the study who were musicians/sound engineers could either. So, if they couldn’t on >$20,000 worth of gear in a near perfect room with lots of treatment, what makes you say you can? As I’ve said, hearing a difference doesn’t mean there is one, that’s all I’m trying to prove.

Measurements do tell you pretty much everything if you were listening in a double-blind study (average joe likes more bass than a sound engineer), but once you see/know the gear, measurements are far less meaningful.

Mesurements dictate the KEF Blade/2 sounds better than anything Wilson puts out, and I’ve recommended people who were eyeing Wilson to look at the KEF Blade/2 and others, and every single one agreed and chose not to get Wilson as they sounded the worse. This is not conclusive data at all, but it is worth stating. 
 
@geoffkait 
 
Some were sound engineers, so I hope they can, for their sake.
mzkmxcv
@geoffkait 

Bias is always present for everyone regarding evaluating speakers/DACs/etc., it’s just unavoidable. People claim benefits in going 24/192 over 16/44.1, and the only reason is because you think it’s better, the simple factual truth is 44.1kHz is enough unless your DACs filter is garbage, and 16Bit is enough as it’s almost always a lower noise floor than what you can hear. Same reason DSD has no benefits, and MQA is worse than CD (it’s half lossy by definition).

>>>>Experienced listeners are not swayed by these silly psychological effects, whether they be placebo effect, reverse placebo effect, expectation bias, or just psyching yourself out. They may be great in the pharmacutical industry but have little use for advanced audiophiles. Maybe if you’re trying to convince a gullible newbie.... Speaking of DSD, I have some DSD CDs, they sound spectacular. Maybe I’m the victim of the placebo vortex. OMG! 😮
@geoffkait

They scored better than the musicians though...

Any song offered in DSD likely has better mastering, so that’s a factor. I also believe that DXD (format used to make DSD) is just a high-rez PCM anyway, and then it’s converted to DSD on export.