Why do I need power management if I have a great power cord?

raysmtb1,i

"inner K’NEX" ?

Congrats! That's a new one.

@nonoise Agreed. Are you ready for none of them to answer my two questions? They won’t, I predict. (Bracing for powerful challenge in 3...2...1...)

Queue the response, 1…2…3…<and>…4

People who say it’s all snake oil raise two questions for me:

1. Do you think that these cords and conditioners have just been fooling everyone for decades? And they are too stupid to realize it and too deluded to know that they are not hearing a difference? If your answer is "yes" then you have a very low opinion of thousands of audiophiles.

2. Have you tried it? And if you had and it made no difference *to you* are you then just willing to extrapolate from one example to everyone else who does hear a difference?

People spruicking power conditioners have the onus on them to show that their product does something.

It is not intellectually appropriate to do a Greco Roman reversal, set up a Kafka’esque trail for the non-believers to offer some testimonial based counter point against the largely testimonial group that likes the power conditioners.

For one it is hard to disprove/prove a negative.

The ifi, for instance, shows the wall noise decreasing with one of their units.

How hard is it to show that some product works as described?

Everybody wants to sell more stuff. But if a power conditioner comes with a 14 gauge cord on it, then I would suggest passing, it isn’t designed to provide power for the spikes. The exception would be if a power conditioner has provisions to store power internally to address the spikes. Need to makes sure impedance doesn’t limit the ability to address fast spikes.

Note to future self @holmz
“When you make a product, then use a large cable, so it looks like it should really work.”

 

Naysayers’ reasons include:

1) they don’t know what they don’t know

2) they think they know more than they know

3) arrogance

4) ignorance

5) savior complex

6) fear - that their structured world will come crashing down if they’re wrong

7) poor hearing

8) low resolution audio system

9) old guy ’get off my lawn’ stubbornness

10) learning something new requires curiosity and humility

11) they don’t really understand what ’noise’ and/or ’black background’ is

12) they think that proper wire gauge is a panacea

13) ?

^This broad ad hominem attack^ is really nice. It shotguns out wide, and points out all the possible flaws that one can have. Plus it stays emotional, which is more powerful than facts.

It is so encompassing that it also hit the OP, so he is either (pick 1-13) , or needs the gear to be in the “in crowd”.

At least a few people just want to have a factual way to know if something will work before buying it. And I assume that the OP may be somewhat in that group.

But instead of offering any reason or fact, y’all convert it into a circling of the wagons against a naysayer attack, before the attack even began. It is pretty intellectually shameful, but it is great psychology to get everyone in locked step and the coherent message out early.

I’m going to go ahead and cautiously hazard that invoking the works of Kafka in this context is a bit, um… ambitious? 
 

I’m going to go ahead and cautiously hazard that invoking the works of Kafka in this context is a bit, um… ambitious? 

I would agree on general principle @rfnoise.

At least by providing the list of the 13 reasons is appearing like more than Kafka got during his trial.
And Kafka was the one trail “without reason”, whereas what we have here is a trail, but no actual dependent having been nominated.

So maybe it’s just forward thinking to come up with the arguments against the naysayer(s), before they had even appeared in the thread?

I am sure that there are a few people somewhere in the middle, that want to know if the devices work, and when they are needed… Rather than reading vilifications against people who discount the devices who are not yet even present. It seems like it sets a bad tone for dialogue to start out with an attack using the baker’s dozen.

• How are we to know when to use a device?
• How are we to know which style of device to use?
• How are the devices designed to work?
  • Noise suppression
  • Voltage stability / reshaping
  • Under/over voltage protection
  • etc
• How does one know when they do not need such a device?

I assume that I do not need one because I have a lack of any noise/hiss etc when it is on, but not playing any music.

And when it is playing simple sounds it is clear and sounds pretty good.
Or is there more to it?
And if so what is it?

@holmz     "I assume that I do not need one because I have a lack of any noise/hiss etc when it is on, but not playing any music."

Thank you Holmz, brilliant point, assuming you run it loud.  You are quite lucky if you hear nothing at all at top volume setting.  My system and most others has a little low level white noise at that level.  One can measure how far down it is.  And test if a $1500 power cord removes or reduces it.  It won't, so try a $15,000 cord.  A mains conditioner might.

Changing a power cord can do nothing apart from deplete your bank balance.  It makes no measurable difference to the power entering your amplifier.

Adding a conditioner can clean up your power if it is dirty.  In such case it can make a measurable difference evidenced by removal of low-level noise artifacts.  In extreme cases such difference can be heard, like if you're running a fridge on the same circuit.

All else is hogwash.  And a lot of hogs are getting washed.