How come a power cable changes the sound?

I agree with Timber, it is impossible to build decent power cords with Belden or any other cheap faximile. I've tried myself! I've spent more on special wire, (a whole roll of Nippon), trying to 'better' the professionals. Just so you know, Nippon 14 gauge costs around $5.50 per foot. Imagine 14 runs at 10 feet each for speaker cables. That's $770.00 per side BEFORE termination, shielding, and heat shrink! (And they sounded like hell) Not as bad as cheap Belden or cheap ass solid core, but it wasn't anywhere close to the 'better' manufactured cables. Sorry, don't hate me because I purchase REAL cables. I'm not about to lose the information lost without them. I have too much invested!

Redkiwi:Thank you. Perhaps we should both apologize. If there becomes convincing proof, I would want to, no, have to, find a tangible way for me to accept it. For if the change is in fact real, then it should also be apparent under controlled conditions. These ubiquitous discussions concerning subjective/objective views at times must be considered, for some, a matter of faith. Since faith is belief absent evidence. When I reference evidence in support of these positions, I cite experience which also involves the hearing process. By no means do all components sound the same (but under identical conditions, many will) and many heard subtleties are real.And certainly, no two disparate systems will sound the same. We're having difficulty in areas in which science and some experience conflicts with other experience sans hard evidence. Through the years there have been many controlled tests of questionable claims. Every one I'm aware of has failed to coroborate. If you know of one of record. Please tell me. Proving a null hypothesis can be difficult. So, if the positive cannot be proven, there is no need to prove the null. If you doubted a claim which I had made, I would hope to demonstrate its validity to you with evidence and would understand (truly) a reluctance to simply take my word. Unfortunately, we probably are not neighbors. So all we have is words.

Sorry, I have been in the islands again and the internet is not so good there. The philosophy I have developed (through trial and error) is probably still very flawed - but is I think different from yours Waldhorner. But as with any other philosophical differences it is futile to expect to win such an argument (which I am guilty of in this case). I think I understand where you are coming from Waldhorner, and I find it very interesting to understand how things work too (ie. how come different power cables sound different). In fact I spend a lot of time finding out how things (and people) work. But I believe that following that kind of path exclusively, and deducing knowledge from it is very limiting, and inducing knowledge from it is very dangerous, when persuing this audiphile quest we share. I bristle when I see/hear people say "I don't hear a difference so the rest of you are deluded", and I bristle when I see/hear "Science [as understood by me] does not support your opinion so your opinion is wrong", and I bristle when I see/hear people say "Until you provide irrefutable evidence to support your opinion then I dismiss your opinion". Why do I bristle so? Because I find it closes down possibilities, and that in this hobby at least, exploring possibilities has often rendered discoveries before people have proven their cause. I remember a debate I had with another Audiogon poster about a particular cable that I expressed a liking for (in this case Wireworld Gold Eclipse I think) - principally because of its neutrality. The other poster argued it could not be a good cable because all strands were coated with a lacquer and lacquer is a poor dialectric, and furthermore all strands were of the same diameter - and therefore Cardas Golden Cross had to be a better cable since the strands were of varying thicknesses and were not individually coated. Apologies to that other poster if my description of their point is unfair, but I use it to illustrate that even though knowing about dialectrics and resonances due to strand thickness is really interesting, one cannot induce knowledge from it in the way this other poster attempted to. And it seems so unnecessary too (unless you are a cable designer) since trying the two cables in one's system is not that difficult to achieve. I find the nay-saying about differences to be unhelpful. I find the free expression of one's experiences and opinions to be what is great about Audiogon. We are all free to judge the credibility of individual posters - but condemning them for lack of scientific proof will discourage a free and open discourse.

if you want to test an expensive power cable be SURE you can return it - and then use a double blind test

insulting people that DO hear a difference is less than helpful, but people that think they hear a difference are highly likely to be victims of confirmation bias and are insulting everyone else

writing about speculative notions as to why something could possibly sound different is of use only to engineers who want to test those hypotheses - not to consumers

cognitive psychologists have clearly established the effects of visual and other biases on sensory perception - either guard against that or waste your money