about to jump into the power cord foray

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.

Musicnoise-" 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."

I guess the entire Audigon community can go find something else to do with their time and money.

Wait.........failed to factor in that hearing is mechanical and listening is mental.

Iggyminn-best of luck in your power cord quest. Blindjim gave you the best advise!.

Well so much for system synergy, all the revealed nuances with my new speaker cables, and the improvement with my new interconnects, not to mention the jaw dropping affect from my new power cords! I'm actually thrilled I can imagine big improvements into my system, boy did I save some money today!!!!

Listen to Blindjim (well put BTW Jim) VH Audio is a great place to start with your level of gear. Plus you can DIY all his Flavor series cords.

Get a good single disc player OR the new Wadia iPod docking port (sweet and pretty inexpensive) then you can have your cake and eat it too!

In an attempt to bring a bit of balance...
From a sheer science point of view, Musicnoise is quite right; the science (electronic theory) behind audio electronics is well defined and documented; if it wasn't, no audio gear would work, and designers would have no starting point to improve things.

I do believe good shielded IC's can make a difference over the cheap free cords often packaged with components, but remember they have to deliver a fairly fragile, low level signal, and they are the entire chain from one component to another.
That's not the case with power cords, which simply form a very short extension of your house wiring, carrying high voltage AC, hence a higher level of skepticism from many here.

However, to me the biggest problem is that we often get sucked in to thinking that "expensive" must always be better (not just in audio). It's so easy in a passion like this to get carried away trying to squeeze every last drop out of a system, and plenty of people out there are happy to take advantage of that.
The retail price of any consumer electronics is not based on just quality; it's largely to do with brand-name positioning, status, demand and so on. Any small scale or niche product (eg super-duper Power cords) has to be expensive to keep the maker afloat, given his low sales volume.
So does a $200 PC "sound better" (whatever that means) than a $20 PC? Probably not, but if the buyer thinks they hear a change, then I guess it's their money to spend as they please.

Final thought... my $500 Seiko keeps worse time than my $80 Casio, but it's build quality and finish is much better.