Have you been surprised by power cable changes? s

Hi, I have recently upgraded my systems and cables. System is in region of usd 30k. Through the journey, i can affirm that cables, power cables, interconnects, speaker cables, digital cables, n even fuses all audible differences. The extend of difference they make also depends very much  on the quality of yr system n the items one buys. 
Cables can range fm tens of dollars to thousands of dollars. 
As budget is finite for many people, in my personal view, its important to make the max out of it by spending first on amp, speaker, cd player /streamers first. Then get the cables that makes proportional sense to yr overall spent. 
I hv been rather happy upgrading cables recently, costing thousands. But its money well spent for the SQ upgrade. 
There are many brands in the mkt, so it can be very daunting trying to find out which brand, systems, cables gives you max value. And remember the law of diminishing returns too. 
To certain extend, the audiogon forum helped me in my journey of audio upgrades. Thks to audiogon. :) 

I have learned rather recently the sound is considerably better without power cords. And without cables, fuses, transformers, and big honking capacitors. A simple ultralight battery-powered headphone system is the way to go if you’re looking for the lowest possible noise and distortion in your musical waveform. There’s no substitute for signal to noise + distortion ratio! 🤗

I was a power cable none believer for years, (its a piece of wire bringing electricity to my components) how could it possibly make any difference?

Then several years back Paul Speltz came to my house with speaker cables I was interested in trying, and also brought one of his Level 3 power cords. During our listening session we replaced the stock power cable on my Oppo disk player with his and then played the same song we were listening to again...…. well lets just say I became a believer at that moment.

I have found that taking my system one piece at a time, trying different power and interconnect cable combinations till happy with the sound. Then on to the next component till all have been updated, to work quite effectively. I have done this several times and may find it necessary to do again.

Enjoy the tweeks that bring your system to the next level!

Gary

gakman

I was a power cable none believer for years, (its a piece of wire bringing electricity to my components) how could it possibly make any difference? Then several years back ... During our listening session we replaced the stock power cable on my Oppo disk player with his and then played the same song we were listening to again...…. well lets just say I became a believer at that moment.

It seems to be common that many who've discovered the benefits of improved cable started as skeptics. That really frustrates the measurementalists who claim "placebo effect" to explain why some prefer better cables.

sleepwalker65:

The power cord only comes into play on amplifiers if of insufficient gauge for the current draw.

So maybe you will explain to me why changing power cords makes so much difference on my CD player. It draws only a few amps. Yet power cords make a huge difference on every single CD player I've ever heard.

Or why power cords make such a huge difference on my phono stage. Which draws even less power than my CD player. Yet the power cords make a huge difference on every single phono stage I've tried them on.

Come to think of it, my Synergistic Research Master Control Center, which powers active shielding on my interconnects, draws the least power of anything, yet power cords still work on it. Why?

Without power conditioning, power cords can bring noise from switch-mode power supplies into the audio chain if filtering on each component is inadequate.

D'oh. I coulda had a V8!

Except, wait a minute! All the stuff above was with power conditioning. So just for the sake of the argument we will assume that I (and everyone else of the zillions who have compared) have one of those crummy conditioners that can't do ... whatever it is you think they do. So why then do power cords also make a difference even being used between the wall and the power conditioner????