The Truth About Power Cords and there "Real" Price to Performance

I think there is more practical value in dodgealum's post than most other posts in this thread. What you are plugging into is going to make a much bigger difference than anything w.r.t. equipment interactions. Some observations:

• Good shielding is never going to hurt a power cord.
• A good ground between equipment is almost never going to hurt.
• You can make a better ground connection between your equipment with $100 of braided copper strapping and $5.00 of serrated washers than $10,000 of cables.
• A lower resistance AC (line/neutral) connection will result in More EMI
• A lower resistance AC (L/N) connection will likely result in More high frequency noise generated on the DC rails of the equipment
  
• A lower resistance AC (L/N) connection will likely result in less low frequency ripple on the power rails of a power amplifier.
  
• The power supply rails of a low power piece of equipment will probably have less total noise on them with a more resistive AC (L/N) connection.
• A low resistance AC connection (L/N) between your power amplifier and your other equipment will allow the power amplifier to dirty the AC more on your other equipment, than a high resistance between the two (but you want the ground to be low resistance).
• A low resistance (heavier gauge) wire from your main breaker panel to your equipment/power amplifier will reduce the amount of lower frequency AC line noise your power amplifier will generate (where your equipment is) but will increase the high frequency noise.
• There is no guarantee that an engineer/designer at a boutique audio company is highly competent at power supply design or even knows/understands all the points made above.
• If you are wondering where the bottleneck is in your system, it is highly likely that it is your speakers or the room, and maybe your source.

dodgealum1,030 posts11-13-2019 5:09pm

So, what I learned from this experience is that the price-performance ratio depends on more than the cable alone--that the design of what you are plugging into (and probably the quality of the power coming out of your outlet) can alter the performance considerably, skewing the ratio depending on the application.

Super-expensive power cords with fancy schmancy dressing. LoL!

Forgive me, no offense. Each to his/her own.

I would rather spend that money on an amp, preamp, source or speakers, or something for my family

The capacity of Humans for self-delusion is apparently unlimited - Mr.Spock

In many cases people seek nirvana from the last 6ft powering their systems. As a homeowner, I had a dedicated 20 amp line installed when I first moved in. And while it certainly helped, I can still hear the differences between power conditioners, power cords, interconnects, and speaker cables, so it’s hard for me to wrap my brain around David Bernings power supply negating the many things I’ve done before a components internal (or external) PS. Now, I did replace the Oppo 105 oem POS power supply with an aftermarket toroid based PS from eBay to great improvement, but when I inserted Geoff’s New Dark Matter onto the 105 tray my jaw dropped, much like it did after replacing expensive component iso devices with Machina Dynamica springs, a common sense, and inexpensive answer.to internal and external vibrations

I owned a PSA Premier Power Plant for far too long, buying into the ’regeneration’ hype. I also had several Furmans and BPTs. These days I am using a Core Power 1800, which I am told improves the sound even better with the addition of their new companion, Deep Core, which goes between the wall and the PLC: it could likely improve the potential benefits of a lot of PLCs

Seems a lot of people are raving about the Yeti battery supply with LI-ion battery. I’d like to try one. Also the PPT products that go inside ones electrical panel sound promising (see Agon thread). But that's because I have tried other things taped to the inside door, that to my ears work

As to whose PCs, speaker cables, and interconnects, I have swapped out far too many. I probably have several thousand dollars of cables in the closet, most have little to no resale value. For the past 2 years I have upgraded to WireWorld and am enjoying the best sound to date: seems his mini-series are the best bargains. My point being spending a little more up front (for properly engineered cables) can save thousands in the long run.

hth

For those wondering about using a generator to power their system. I have done it but not on a voluntary basis. We have several power outages every year so I have a whole house generator. During one extended outage a friend and I listened to my system. The incoming voltage was a spot on 120 volts but there was noticeable background noise coming out of my speakers even though my Synergistic Research and Equi-Tech units were being used. The noise was similar to someone in your house  running a blender or mixer and you had no power conditioning being used. It was noticeable in soft music passages or between songs but most music masked it.