@nyev: I guess your equipment now is placed in the hallway, 2m from your fuse box?
Ideal power cord lengths?
A quick Google search suggests there is consensus that the ideal power cord length is 2m. 1m cords sound “harsher” and 3m cords sound “smoother”, with 2m being the sweet spot. The PS Audio dude suggests that the reason is that the reason is that all cords have an impact on the power, and the greater the length, the greater the impact, good or bad.
I know many will say there is no difference between a 1m cord and a 3m cord. But my question is, who here has tried like model power cords of different lengths, and what were the differences?
Second question: How does length factor into the equation when you have a cord feeding a conditioner, then other cords feeding components? If 2m cords are in fact the ideal, would 1m cords be ideal when using conditioners?
I tend to believe those that say that power cord lengths matter. While I’ve not been able to do this test myself, I’ve had these two experiences:
- Testing Audioquest Diamond and Nordost Valhalla 2 USB cables, the cables shorter than 1.5m sounded TERRIBLE by comparison. Especially the .75m Audioquest Diamond vs the 1.5m version. But the 1m Valhalla 2 also sounded awful in comparison to the 2m version. In general this opened my eyes to how much cable length matters, and counterintuitively in the case of digital cables.
- I have a 2019 2m AudioQuest Hurricane Source cable from back when AQ braided their cables, and I also have the newer non-braided Hurricane Source, but 3m in length. The new Hurricane sounds vastly superior to my old 2m Hurricane. In comparison the older cord compresses the soundstage depth. I don’t know if the differences are due to the differences in length, or if it’s due to a design change by Audioquest.
Very interested in learning of others experiences with power cord lengths.
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@tablejockey, I actually know of specific people doing this in the US! Or at least, convincingly local power companies to upgrade their pole transformer at their cost! I do draw the line somewhere, and some point long before this type of upgrade…. That said, I hear it definitely helps! I’m not planning on going out and buying more cables of differing lengths. It’s more just a curiosity to me, based on a few experiences I noted above. Seriously, if you have a highly resolving system with upgraded cables, especially speaker cables, if you can manage to get a high quality 1m USB cord and the same cord in a 2m version, I think you will be shocked at the difference. As I said I’m not stressing at all over my system or the next upgrade. I’m totally happy with my system, to the extent I want to learn more about it, the impact of components including cable lengths. Looks like no one really has had the direct experience of objective comparisons. I just love obsessing over this stuff. I’m FINALLY through with always trying to fix some sort of sonic fault in my system. Any change from now on would only be to improve something, rather than to fix something, which is just awesome. That said I’m just mesmerized by how awesome my system sounds as-is. All thanks to that 10AWG wire in my wall, surely!!! |
@nyev I recall having read that there was a minimum length for power cords, and that would be roughly 1,5m. Under that length some of the benefits would be lost. I just go with that recommandation every time I buy a power cord, but I haven't directly compared. |
- 126 posts total