audiozen:
Power Cord magic believers will scoff at science because all that matters is what their ears tell them. Not what they hear, but what their ears tell them. They purchase a $1000.00 power cord; get behind their "stack" and replace the cord. Takes about 15 minutes. Then they listen and Holy Jesus!!! It is jaw droppingly better....absolutely game changing. You hear this over and over!
Two things. Any actual difference the new PC could/would make will be subtle. Any reasonable audiophile knows that's true. Second, audio memory is extremely perishable. In the 15 min it took to change the PC, your cranial encased audio processing/memory will be unable to recall an accurate audio reference for comparison with the new PC's performance. Instantaneous switching back and forth (while not knowing which is which) is the only way to compare subtle differences. And doing that (A/B switching) to test a power cord is nearly impossible for a home audiophile.
A recording engineer I know did, however, set up a blind A/B test pitting a $1.50 Benchmark power cord (that they recommend) vs a $3000.00 IEC cord in his studio. He used two Benchmark DAC 2s set up so that a single button push would switch between the two. The listening group were professional audio engineers that worked in the building (including a Grammy winner). None could tell any difference. No one heard any fidelity change.
We all want to have our gear sound better, but if I ranked things that were likely to make any improvement, power cords would be pretty much on the bottom...right above Geoff's green pens. Top three are almost always ranked as the quality of the recording, the acoustic environment and speakers.
I'll now push my keyboard away and stand by for clearthunk's veiled insults.
Power Cord magic believers will scoff at science because all that matters is what their ears tell them. Not what they hear, but what their ears tell them. They purchase a $1000.00 power cord; get behind their "stack" and replace the cord. Takes about 15 minutes. Then they listen and Holy Jesus!!! It is jaw droppingly better....absolutely game changing. You hear this over and over!
Two things. Any actual difference the new PC could/would make will be subtle. Any reasonable audiophile knows that's true. Second, audio memory is extremely perishable. In the 15 min it took to change the PC, your cranial encased audio processing/memory will be unable to recall an accurate audio reference for comparison with the new PC's performance. Instantaneous switching back and forth (while not knowing which is which) is the only way to compare subtle differences. And doing that (A/B switching) to test a power cord is nearly impossible for a home audiophile.
A recording engineer I know did, however, set up a blind A/B test pitting a $1.50 Benchmark power cord (that they recommend) vs a $3000.00 IEC cord in his studio. He used two Benchmark DAC 2s set up so that a single button push would switch between the two. The listening group were professional audio engineers that worked in the building (including a Grammy winner). None could tell any difference. No one heard any fidelity change.
We all want to have our gear sound better, but if I ranked things that were likely to make any improvement, power cords would be pretty much on the bottom...right above Geoff's green pens. Top three are almost always ranked as the quality of the recording, the acoustic environment and speakers.
I'll now push my keyboard away and stand by for clearthunk's veiled insults.