Which Cable Makes the Biggest Impact?

I have to agree with Douglas and Tvad that the quality of your system can make evaluating the effect of cables possible or impossible. My own system does a fairly good job but I have heard others do much better.

I have little patience with the skeptical search for a "logical" explanation for the differences cables make, especially power cords. All the jawing in the world won't change reality a bit, it is acrobatics for an audience of one. I remain interested in reading about experiments that start from the position that there is an audible difference rather than the opposite.

Finally, this one is not in the OP's list, but I use a digital interconnect and I have found this cable's length and quality to make a great difference.

"Interesting. Re power cords, how is it that after that electricity is generated at the plant it goes through numerous wires, transformers, taps, circuit breakers, cables, wires, meters, protections devices, etc. before it gets to your house and then somehow a power cord cleans all this up and upgrades the sound?

I'm not denying a power cord makes a difference just trying to understand the rationale. I would believe a power conditioner of some sort would have an effect but a power cord, I just don't see the logic.

regards, David"

Wireless200,

I share your logic, or "logic-gap" on this. My answer is that I think there is something going on in the back of the average stereo system with EMFs set up around our cables and the circuits in our equipment that makes delivery of clean power from the wall or power conditioner, and a clean signal from one box to the other a much bigger challenge than we might at first appreciate.

The better the equipment (larger power supplies, greater current delivery, larger capacitors, higher sampling rates, etc.), the greater the potential EMF "pollution" in the vicinity of our rigs. So it is a catch 22, more powerful and sophisticated gear makes for a more challenging environment for signals to pass into and out of our gear undisturbed, while at the same time providing much greater ability to resolve and detect line hash and other electrical interference in the signal path that can ultimately affect what we hear out of our speakers. Perhaps why the folks with the best equipment report the largest improvements from different power cords.

So after market power cords don't "upgrade the sound", really good ones prevent it from being degraded further in a very challenging EMF environment.

Douglas,

From your post: (and not to get into a pissing match)

"It really does seem counter-intuitive, but I wholeheartedly subscribe to the "Front End Influence" theory that high quality power cords must be used if one is going to have a fighting chance at reaching Hi-Fi."

So, based on that thought, all the tens of thousands of dollars that (we) spend on equipment isn't "reaching Hi-Fi" because we didn't invest money in a 6 foot power cord?

Without good PC's, our equipment isn't much better then Circuit City type of equipment.

That doesn't seem logical to me.