Power cords - a BASIC question

You'll never know the true capabilities of your present components until you find the right cabling to optimize them. Learned this from much experience, after being a "cable skeptic" for too many wasted years.

Bob hat Recht mit allem was er sagt. To my ears and experience he is right on the money. So do be curious and experiment, it's www.highendmarkt.de of course, not wwww, put one in too many. One word of caution with very expensive power cables at $1000 plus, the law of diminishing returns sets in rather early here. Since you are probably operating with Schukostecker, you can order those also from most US manufacturers, but some will rip you off for this special service, charging a ridiculous extra. So what I have done is to get the PC's in their original configuration and have installed US high grade receptacles in some of my wall outlets. It ain't exactly legal, but it is safe if you do it right and it saves you money. I even tend to think to have heard an improvement in sound with my preamps. Viele Gruesse!

Wow, no nay-sayers yet. Fritz, after playing with designing power cords, it seems that good power cords need to have decent guage, good purity of conductor, good dialectric, shielding and a geometry that provides common mode rejection. The effect seems to be similar to a power conditioner, yet without the limiting of dynamics that you get with most conditioners. If indeed there is a conditioning effect then this might explain why there is a beneficial effect when changing the last meter. Either way, the effect is noticeable and as reported above, not always beneficial.

Fritz, every post has good info - I'll just add by saying I have no idea why they make a difference but they do. My first pc was 2 years ago, went on a transport into a panamax extension cord and the improvement was unbelievable, and the rest of the components had stock cords. I now have aftermarket cords on all components except my preamp which is captured. Even one on my amp, an Eel reference, which btw is an unbelievable cord, made a huge improvement. It does seem that the transport or cd player makes the biggest difference so start at the top and work down to the amp IMO.

The DIY cords mentioned are a Bob Crump/TG Audio design. Bob sanctioned this project as a public-domain gift to the audiophile community. Bob is quite the cable guru; the design is well-engineered, simple and effective, as Elizabeth reported. The husband and wife team are attempting to adopt a little girl from Guatemala via the proceeds of these fine power cords. They offer the recommended matching Pass and Seymour outlets as well. An easy recommendation for both tyros And more experienced 'philes. The prices are very reasonable, especially for the excellent performance, particularly on source components and lower-powered amps. For the cost-conscious, No brand of cable has a lower mark-up, and the cause is highly righteous. Happy to email contact info for those interested.