Power Cord Question

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.