Power Cords - Just Say Yes

Well, really, what's the point of listening to anything at all if we can't trust our
ears?

Should we instead simply rely on double-blind listening tests conducted and
published by people hostile to subjective evaluation, or just skip right to
Jaxwired's pronouncements and listen only through what he approves as
practical and cost-effective?

Wow, talk about an inability to think clearly. The point of listening to music is to enjoy it. That has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not our ears are infallable measuring devices of sound quality.

My premise is pretty simple. Listening tests as the sole indicator of sound quality improvements is unreliable. People that put full trust in their ears to detect sound quality improvements will likely end up spending money on products that actually offer zero improvements. That's it, my entire premise.

If you disagree with this premise, then you feel that your ears are infallable at detecting sound quality improvements and that you would never be fooled by a snake oil type product. Good for you. You're entitled to beleive that if you like. Many people seem to agree with you. I think that is a misguided view point and is contrary to available evidence.

And no, I do not claim to be the god like arbiter of all things worthy in hifi. I do however suggest that people use common sense, reason, and logic along with listening tests. Be aware that you can be fooled and proceed with caution to avoid being cheated. The list of ridiculous products claiming to improve sound quality is very long and every snake oil product ever sold had true believers buying it. Why? Because they "trusted their ears".

I should be getting a Nordost Vishnu 2M power cord and 4 Nordost Blue Heaven 1M power cords tues and will hook them up 1 by 1 to hear the differences before letting them settle in. Soon I'll have a Nordost QB4 hooked up for a further experiment in sound differences, if any, and finally an octet of Gold Lion KT-88 tubes that I'll run on one side of my amp, leaving the stock ones on the other side running my tuner in mono and stereo modes. I've done this with speaker wires and speakers (one left side one right side) to really hear if there is enough of a difference. The tubes will be equally biased. I hope 2,015.00 make some improvement, even though the prices of the individual parts were better than retail cost. I've been hearing how much difference power cords make I figured I'd give it a try. Stay tuned.

Peter,

Who cares whether it passes code or not? The point is to see if there's an improvement in eliminating power cords from the equation. It's a test. But, if I hard wired my components and it made my system sound better, I would deal with code which would never be an issue anyway. Nobody would ever see it. It's your house, you can do what you want.

Your tests look interesting. I look forward to reading your conclusions!

Polk432 ....

Not wishing to sensationalize the obvious or trivialize the important.... but does this upgrade pathg also involve a pathway (now or later) for swapping in quality audiophile grade wall power plugs and/or a dedicated power line?

The effects of these other tweaks individually and together -- as prominent as to the insertion of a quality power chord -- are not subtle.

I've used HUBBELL hospital grade wall plugs as well as eventually migrating up to the goldplated all-Cu FURUTECHs. The improvements from the HUBBELLs to the FURUTECHs are incremental and "bang-fer-yer-buck" depends on how revealing your system is.

I would start with the HUBBELLs or equivalents: they are the inexpensive and logical first step minimum "ying and yang" extension to the insertion of any upgraded new power cord.