powercords

EVERY cable including unbilicals and, digital, USB, Ethernet, etc. Is critical if you want to do more than play at it. 

@williewonka in your experience have you found any difference in the optimum power cords for digital front end v analog?

@jw944ts - My Source DIY cables are designed to perform to their very best abilities regardless of the type of source component.

They use...
- Insulation(s) on the live wire that have very low dielectric constant
- a solid silver wire for the live conductor
- a geometry that minimizes cables distortions and noise
- a larger gauge silver plated copper neutral wire(s)

I can see that with other cable geometries, some cables may in fact perform better on digital sources, compared to analogue sources.

Whilst some people may offer an opinion that the mains signal is constant at 50/60Hz, so it should make NO difference as to which source you use a specific cable for, I believe that the current drawn by a component contributes to cable noise and therefore the geometry, type of metal used in the wire and the insulation could render one cable more affective for a given source.

A digital component would have a current draw peaks that coincide with the digital signal + analogue signal peaks, whereas analogue components would have current peaks only in the audible frequency range

Unfortunately I cannot provide any concrete proof of this and with conventional cables it is impossible to "forecast" which cable might work better for either type of source component.

I have compared my own DIY cables having an 18 gauge solid silver live wire to an almost identical cable with a 2 x 18 gauge solid copper and found them to make no difference on my streamer, but I have not tried the same test on my phono stage as yet.But I pprefer solid silver wire for the live conductor in my cables used on source components

But please note - the wires I use in my cables are extremely high quality, so my observations may not be the case with commercially available products.

When it comes to power cables I think it is very important to have the quietest cable, which is probably the In-akustik for a commercial brand, or a brand that uses a similar spacing geometry

Nordost has a fine range cables that may well prove more beneficial for digital vs. analogue sources

Hope that helps - Steve..

The Law of Diminishing Returns applies especially in this category. That’s all I’m gonna say. 🙄

@williewonka , I remain appreciative of your time....there a some In-Akustik on US Audio Mart, that will hopefully be there when I am ready to purchase, as I await my new phono preamp