Do powercords make a difference in sound?

09-07-11: Tbg
Rwwear, no one owes you proof. I doubt seriously if many audiophiles avoid trying different power cords because several people, imbued with the "laws of EE," claim they could make no difference.

let me give you a hypothetical: a person goes to an audio store, spends $50,000 to buy a power amplifier and later concludes: "i'll gladly spend another $2,500 to get a power cord that will make my amplifier sound even better!" i would think that most people hearing that hypothetical would conclude that the buyer was a fool, one who maybe had a bit too much money on his hands. you would think if the buyer discovered the undeniable sonic benefits of this alternative cable, that he would go back to the maker of the amplifier and angrily demand to know why they sold a $50,000 amplifier with a sub-standard power cord.

to bring the discussion to the present discussion; if you really are so convinced of the putative benefits of power cords, then you and the rest of the "believers" in this stuff, should be calling the makers of high end audio equipment to account for shipping sub-standard products at super-standard prices.

of course, if you go to the makers with these kinds of allegations, you're going to have to substantiate them, but i am not expecting you, or anyone in the "audiophile reviewer" community to initiate such a line of inquiry. the fact that there has been no such inquiry points to reasons to be suspicious of the claims of "dramatic" sonic benefits based on cable/cord selection. let's face it, cable is probably the most lucrative product line in the "audio tweaks" product category. and the thing is, when people are spending tens of thousands of dollars (or more) on audio systems, its easy to drop a few hundred (or thousand) bucks more on "tweaks" because comparatively speaking, it looks like a relatively small amount of money.

Paperw8, why do you care? It is not your money nor your listening. It sounds like you are offended for others, why would that be?

09-07-11: Tbg
Paperw8, why do you care? It is not your money nor your listening. It sounds like you are offended for others, why would that be?

i engage in these discussions for the following reasons:

1)intellectual interest: i sometimes learn stuff from debating others' points of view (that hasn't been the case so much in this discussion, but i do pick up information);

2)personal interest: i actually do want to see better, more reliable, information on audio equipment choices. i actually have gripes about the quality of information in general, not just about cable matters. but my thinking is that by challenging the information out there that it will hopefully result in better information;

3)general consumer interest: there is a lot of bs out there about audio products that is being passed off as information. as i mentioned, audio equipment is often sold by people who know a lot about electronics to people who know little about electronics. that's fertile ground for being taken advantage of. i really think that people are getting snookered out of a lot of money on the basis of questionable claims, and i feel that someone should challenge the bs.

Paperw8, I appreciate the civility of your post. These are my responses to each:

1) intellectual interest: I guess this debate has been going on for years and has no resolution. Listen or accept EE laws which suggest little difference.

2) personal interest: this is related to the above. Apparently you want measures such as resistance, THD, efficiency, wattage, etc. I would say that is fine, but personally I think our measures leave much to be desired as they fail to assess what matters.

3)general consumer interest: yes, capitalism and advertising does result in every effort being made to sell product. Hype sells! Unless you want to do away with private enterprise, it will always be there. I am sure many would question why you volunteer to save them from advertising or buying what they want. I suppose one could demand double blind tests for everything, but I doubt if there would be much interest and how would you do that for cars, etc.

Frankly, I think you guys are tilting at windmills.

>>09-08-11: Paperw8
1)intellectual interest:<<

Well you can skip tbg's contributions if that's the case.