Ideal power cord lengths?

@soix 

I'm not missing the fact that an expensive power cord adds to cost.

I am extremely skeptical that the power cord supplied with a Marantz Ruby, to continue the example, is a detriment at all to its audible performance.

Hey, if it makes one feel better to swap out a cord to a more expensive one, well then do it and feel better.  That's fine, I guess...  but I don't believe it's a wise efficient use of funds when it comes to upgrading for sonic performance, unless it's the one thing that would make one feel better, sleep better, whatever, and that's on you and it's fine.

However, I stand by my overall message of high skepticism, except maybe in extreme cases of crappy or lower level products in the first place but then why would anybody invest more into an inferior poorly-designed overall product?  If the power cord is a problem, why would you trust the product or the company in the first place?  

I suppose one possibility, but it would be a relatively rare one, is if there is some extraordinary electrical weirdness in your home and you need some sort of super shielding, but I've lived in many places of this country in a variety of towns and cities and have never seen it personally except for one house where I had subwoofer hum.  And, if you do detect weirdness, try just plugging in to a different plug, which is a simple solution that instantly solved a subwoofer hum problem that I used to have when watching TV.  I just used a modest "indoor/outdoor" extension cord of adequate length to get the subwoofer onto a separate circuit in the house, a plug controlled by a different breaker than the TV was on, and voila, problem solved.

@curtdr

Welcome to the world of high end audio. Many of us started with highly skeptical thoughts on effects of various components. Then pretty quickly ran into objective reality… it doesn’t conform to logical thought. Power cords, interconnects, cables make small to huge differences. I was a practicing scientist when I first got into high end audio and quickly learned to listening to determine what made a difference and what didn’t. Hint, it all does.

My $17K to $22K Audio Research products ship with heavy duty 20 amp power cords. Replacing with a number of good quality power cords made large improvements in the sound. I spent nearly a year finding the best, and it was worth the effort. My system sounds significantly (and cost effectively) better.

@ghdprentice Well said.  You’re a good example of someone benefitting from keeping an open mind and letting your ears being the final arbiter versus just sticking head in sand and calling it a day.  Ignorance is bliss, to each his/her own, etc.

@soix 

👍😊

Early in your journey, when you are stretching just to get into what may be barely considered “HiFi”, speaking from my own experience at least, your mindset is just on obtaining the gear you can barely afford. The last thing you want to hear is that you should allocate a portion of your budget for cabling, including power cords..  It’s far more convenient to believe it’s ridiculous that power cords have an effect, and it IS a ridiculous concept.

I believe this is partly what has driven people to be so passionate about this debate for so many years, using the same common-sense based arguments that don’t apply, and passionately doubling down while refusing to find out for themselves by doing a simple blind test in their local HiFi shop. It’s far more convenient, budget wise, to believe that aftermarket cords make no difference. Very few people won’t hear an improvement with premium cords in a blind test when they actually get to doing it, and you absolutely don’t need to be an audiophile to hear the difference (my wife and daughter hear obvious differences but couldn’t care less).