Power cord upgrade

I originally had Nordost Red Dawn on my streamer then upgraded to the Tornado source cable. I just upgraded from that to a Snake River Audio cables. I bought 2 different ones. One is the Signature which is a hybrid of 24K gold and silver. The other is the Cottonmouth which is 24k gold. In my setup, the cottonmouth sounded better on the streamer and the hybrid on my phono. Couldn’t be happier with the results. Highly recommend giving them a look. (SRA runs some pretty good deals now and then).

@vetsc5 I like the article you referenced and have three comments.

1.  Just about everybody assumes that exotic power cables fix up the power coming from the wall.  Why that last six feet has that effect is beyond me.  Instead, I would suggest that power cables may reduce noise coming from your own components!

2.  The article was written some time ago, when transformers were near ubiquitous. Now we have switch-mode or switching power supplies in many components. Switch mode works from the high voltage spike produced when you suddenly switch off current.  Class D amplifiers use this principle.  A high frequency chopped square-wave contains lots of very high frequency harmonics!

3.  I have personal, objective, repeatable evidence of the dramatic effect changing a power cord can have on a digital source.  I live in a marginal reception area for digital TV and have a small motorhome with a domestic AV stack.  The TV aerial is on the roof above the stack, and a powered KEF Class D subwoofer is at the bottom.  TV reception is perfect until the subwoofer is switched on, which totally annihilates the picture.  The solution, as mentioned in your article, is a couple of cheap ferrites clamped around the subwoofer's power cord.  What is happening is that the Class D amplifier in the KEF in injecting high frequency electrical noise into the power cable.  The obvious effect is interference with low-level broadcast digital signals, but equally this noise is injected into other components on the same circuit.

@skids - so many cable options, no easy answers.  My personal list of PC based upon others positive reviews (prices not current):

• 0.4 Black Cat Silverline
• 0.4 LAVRiCABLES Grand 30 CORE Silver Mains
• 0.6 Morrow Map4
• 1.4 Transparent Reference
• 1.7-1.9 PowerKord Kimber PK10/PK14
• 1.0 Zavfino OCC Silver Dart Graphene
• 2.0 Siltech Classic Legend 880P
• 2.5 ZenWave PSR-14,11.   
• 2.5 RSX Beyond 
• 3.0 Synergistic Research Atmosphere UEF Level 3
• 3.2 VooDoo Phoenix, Dragon, Tesla 
• 3.5 Synergistic Research Atmosphere SX Euphoria
• 3.5 Audioquest FireBird
• 4.0 QSA Lanedri Gamma Infinity 
• 4.0 NanoFlo Superconductor Holographic 3D6
• 4.8 Hemingway Audio Z-core Beta
• 5.5 Audioquest Dragon

Audio Bacon 2019 PC shootout here

To classicrockfan:

You are 100% correct.

As long as a power cord is thick enough to handle high current, any such a cord is good. The cheaper, the better. Power code can not affect audio sound quality (maybe 1 - 2%?).

I have Vienna Mahler speakers. My pre, power amp is very old and relatively cheap. Onkyo pre, Yamaha 200W power. Cheap but thick power cords, $20 interconnect everywhere. The sound? Awesome!!!

Please, do not waste your money, just get higher end speakers as you can afford.

I used to think components were more important cables.

I now have done a 180 and am sure that cables are more important than components.

 Have a modest system compared with most of my friends in our audio club.  Many of them have spent well north of $500k on their rigs.

 Have now rotated many sets of high end power cables, interconnects and speaker cables through my sub $50k system and I can tell you without reservation that a set of $100k cables makes my system sound better than the best $750k rig I have heard.