Power Cord Question

As Knowthing responded it is both liability issue and a choosing sides issue. If they recommend one brand over another then you will have some mfg. happy with you and others not. If they are not aligned with any cable mfg. it is easiest to stay neutral.

Knownothing, your recommendations are noted. Thanks.

1. My speakers are set up within space constraints but they sound very good anyway. Especially my living room system. It is on a rare occasion that I hear any sound coming from them. They are very large but look as if they are only sitting there doing nothing. All the sound is between the speakers and at times beyond the outsides of them. These speakers do not present themselves as point sources at all in their present position. Before your mentioning proper speaker setup I had noticed many of the systems displayed here on Audiogon show extremely large speakers placed next to walls in very small rooms in relation to the speaker size. I found that odd. All of my speakers, with the exception of one in my living room are at least 30 inches from the side wall and at least 15 inches from the rear walls. The best I can do in my current space.

2. I will have to work at resolving the isolation issues.

3. I feel that I use decent interconnect and speaker cables, which total approximately 10% of the cost of my audio systems. 10% seems to be the standard guideline. I use Audioquest Diamondbacks IC’s along with Audioquest Bedrock (bi-wired) and Audioquest Type 6 speaker cables. Adding these cables to my system made a huge improvement in sound quality in my budget system.

4. Far as a CD player I purchased the Onkyo DX-7555 based on a positive review in Stereophile. This was also before I became aware of Audiogon as a source of information. This CD player sounds good in my opinion but I have aspirations to try out tube equipment in the future, especially amplification.

5. I have never experienced a noise problem from any electronics in my home. I agree with your observation about smoothing or what I want to call balancing out the sound but did not hear any loss in dynamics. I realize my power conditioner valued at $500 is budget gear by Audiogon standards but in my opinion it improved the sound. However, I will try the new power cord directly in the wall. Although I like the sound improvement after including the power condition, it was a change of the sound, which you indicated that a power conditioner should not do.

I appreciate the information you provided as well as everyone else who provided information. I have learned quite a bit in a short time. I now have a lot of experimenting to do.

Back to my original question. I still walk away from this with the opinion that you all feel that it is not a hazard or not necessarily a detriment to the sound by replacing a stock IEC styled power cord of the two prong type with an after market IEC power cord constructed with the three prong type end. The third prong on the after market power cord is simply a ground and should not create a problem for me. ( Recapping what I learned here on Audiogon)

Thanks again for your help.

Darkkeys,

To answer your last question first. Yes, I think it is fine to use a grounded power cord with your two prong ungrounded IEC outlet from your electronic equipment.

The Onkyo is a fine CD player and probably provides a significant boost in quality over the Oppo.

You have the same interconnects as me, and I have AQ Type 4 speaker cable. At least decent, yes.

Good luck with your effort to sort out the effects of the power cords. I realize my preference is for resolution and dynamics over a smoother and softer presentation - why I dumped the power conditioner in favor of a straight shot quality power strip. I don't have any background noise in my system so I can get away with this.

Regardless of the quality of your AC power from the wall, I think there is a possibility for your digital components to cause trouble by feeding interference back into the AC system. I sometimes think cleaning this up is the most important role for a good power condition. Wiremold and Naim recommend plugging your amplifier in the socket closest to the cable feeding the current from the wall and your CD player and other digital components furthest away - a fairly simple electromechanical method of trying to get clean power to your amp.

In any case, good luck sorting out your power cord stuff.

Knownothing, I agree that the power cord directly to the wall sounds better. No compression effect and more resolution especially notable in the treble ranges. Guitar riffs sound clean along with cymbals and other sibilant sounds.

I suppose one of the difficulties of the pursuit of better sounds is that when you add something new into the audio chain, the difference in sound caused by the new addition automatically gives the perception of something better. I think that interconnects may cause the same kind of perceptions. I have seen the debates here over interconnects.

I have a feeling that the ear can adapt to any clean sounding stereo and can distinguish one that sounds like absolute junk. Reminds me of the Hammond organ. Everyone I have played sounds different but most of them sound good. As with stereo, the change in sound is effected by room acoustics as well as the speaker cabinets used with the Hammond.

I suppose the bottom line is to enjoy the art form of music. The enjoyment comes from skill and passion of the artist/musician, not the Hammond or the audio equipment. A song from an artist you can not relate to will sound like trash no matter the quality of of the equipment. A song you love sounds good no matter what you listen to it on. Bottom line in the audio chain is the artist but yeah, nothing like your favorite song on a awesome system.

Agree with all your points. I have done many things to my system and was happy with myself at first because I could hear a difference, but later on decided it was not a "good" difference and reversed the change or changed things again in a different way. Sometimes we can get caught up in the minutia and forget why we are tweaking our systems in the first place, to actually listen to music! Enjoy.