about to jump into the power cord foray

Good advice from Kotta. The only reason you would need a new power cord is if the old one is frayed, the female end has become loose, or it is drastically undersized. Paying more than a total of $20 or so $ for a power cord is a complete waste of money. It is one thing for someone to throw money away that has no budget concers but when someone states that they have to wait to purchase equipment due to funds, it is a shame if they waste money. A 20 dollar power cord, whether bought or put together from home depot as Kotta suggested will do everything that a $500 dollar power cord will do or a power cord made for the space shuttle for that matter. I have heard too many ridiculous claims about power cords and cable. My undergrad was BSEE and I spent years in the field of electronics. If you approached any group of degreed engineer (that did not have a pecuniary stake in selling the cables and cords) with the stuff that gets posted about improvement in audio due to power cords and cables, you would have to wait for them to stop laughing to get a response. I recently read a post where a person suggested that a three wire power cord with the female end plugged into a two wire socket through an adapter was a good idea because the ground wire provided a partial shield. This is hogwash. To the OP -take Kotta's advice - if you need new power cords buy a bunch of 12/3 and some plugs and make your own. Put the money saved into something that makes a difference other than feeding the seller a large profit margin.

I really like Virtual Dynamics power chords which I have used 2002 - I have Signatures (discontinued) and Nites. There is a significant improvement with these cables. I have tried others, some more expensive and not been as impressed by the VDs. There is a Nite 3.0 on Audigon for $299. That is a steal and you would not be disappointed. Unless you really don't want to put out that amount right now, I would strongly recommend getting a Nite or a David ($200 used) and put it on your LS-7. If you buy both put the second one on your ADCOM Cd player or your MAC amp. I am so confident about the Nite that I would buy it from you if you are not estatic about the improvement. IMHO people who make their own cables are kidding themselves unless they are very serious electrical engineers.

If you can’t hear the difference… don’t pay the difference. Period. Some folks can, so they do.

I was an electronics tech for the U.S. Govt., and an industiral electriciain thereafter for some years. Disbelieving the talk of cables being a valid part of a system cost me a couple years worth of time & energy, and some good bit of money by not addressing cable needs throughout the system.

Folks who base their daily lives on imperical evidence tend to hold onto spec sheets and measurementsas the sole verifiable result. Attributing any said audible changes as mere illusion, or accounting them to a ‘placebo effect.

My own since experiences, has shown me the greater the resolution of one’s system the more easily the diffs of wires can be distinguished. A lesser resolving system will yield lesser significance to wire changes.

Sometimes the diffs are simply that… different. Not necessarily betterment. Although diffs can and are good things now and then too.

At this stage of the game my recommendation would be also the Power line from VD, the entry level cords from VooDoo, the Acoustic Zen Tsunami, or a VA Flavor cord. Once your system is improved upon, this rhetoric on wires either making improvements or not, will more easily be a call you will make for yourself routinely.

Always though when trying out any item you’re hot for or interested in, always put back in the original thing last… then decide.

Change any of the parameters of a cable… resistance, impedance, capacitance, inductance, or even the diaelectric of the insulating body, and changes have to be acknowledged… as all are measureable quantities. By both the human ear and insturcmnets.

Naturally, instruments will be by far the more sensitive of the two accounting sources.

Many so called ‘’digital power cords’ have higher capacitance figures than standard application power cords. Hence they afford a far greater tendency to be both darker and softer sounding, attenuating the artifacts on the power line itself or being introduced into the system from the digital components they attach to.

All the models I mentioned I believe have trial periods… so try and see for yourself. In the end it’s your ears that have to decide anyhow.

Basing your decisions on other than empirical evidence is not a very intelligent way to go about anything that is subject to science. People do it all the time, visit fortune tellers, try to treat disease through the use of herbs and 'liniments', avoid the use of the number '13', 'spot' reduce fat by doing situps, avoid housing near high voltage power lines, and a host of other useless practices. In an area where the science is well defined it makes no sense to base decisions on other than emperical evidence (as opposed to one's imagination). Science as applied to the field of audio reproduction and effects of various parts of a system is well defined. A field where there is less clear definition is that of medicine when it comes to many diseases. Yet would you go to a physician licensed to practice medicine who tells you "the only treatment for your cervical spine disc disease is surgery which will reduce the range of motion" as opposed to paying a "healer" or other witch doctor who suggests waving chicken bones near your neck, because although there isn't emperical evidence that the chicken bones work, science does not know everything about arthritis and the chicken bones really do work. The first choice is rational and based in science and emperical evidence, but doesn't give you the answwer you would like. The second choice gives you the answer you would like but is hogwash. Buying a new power cord promises to improve your sound system, but is hogwash. What is not defined in the audio hobby are things like the choices made by a conductor - whether it is more authentic to play Mozart on period instruments, or what Beethoven was conveying with notes to his works. The effect of cables and power cords is not subject to other than emperical evidence. The rest is akin to two headed babies, aliens from Alpha Centauri, and the treatment of arthritis with chicken bones. Basing your decisions on other than emperical evidence backed by scientific theory was the whole basis for the old sideshow - and the buyers of the tickets were referred to as 'rubes'. The only benefit to high priced power cords and speaker cable is to the seller.

Guys,

Thanks for all of the advice. It is appreciated.

Foster 9: Your comments seem to echo what one of my buddies has been telling me for quite some time. He’s been begging me to try his Cambridge 840C for a couple weeks, to open my eyes to a better source. I guess since I’ve had this changer since college, I’ve always liked the convenience of loading five great discs and put the changer on random. The only changer that I probably would replace it with, would be the Mac MC-205. Another option would be to audition a music server.

Kotta: Thanks for the tip on building your own cables. I’d probably be more comfortable at first by putting one together on my tuner.

Musicnoise: I guess that everyone has their own threshold on wasting money. I don’t feel that spending up to $150/cable is really considered a waste. If anything, I can always reseller here on the site and only be out some pocket change. While I certainly could afford spending up to $500 for a power cord, I still am in the juvenile stage of this hobby. I figure that I’ve got a good 30 years of upgrading/swapping out components and cable a head of me. That’s assuming my fiancé doesn’t put her foot down.

Jimyork/ Blindjim: thanks for the suggestions on cable mfg’s. The try before you buy route seems to be the way to go. I’ve also seen a lot of great comments on VD cables and I might give them a whirl.