How can power cords make a difference?

stevemj, i'm sure all here will be innerested in yer li'l test. re: science, i'm not arguing that it hasn't gotten us this far, all i'm saying is it's *only* gotten us this far. it obviously hasn't gotten us far enuff to explain differences heard in cabling.

myself, i also don't have fancy powercords, except for the two that came w/my vansevers unlimiters, one currently (ha-ha!) used for my amps, the other for my sources. not that i don't tink fancy cords wood help my system, but it's not in my budget. until i get the other components where i want 'em (gettin' real close, now), i've felt i shoodn't spend the bucks on powercords. but, stimulated to do cable research, based upon the hoopla over the relatively cheap absolute powercord, i've recently come up w/the source of cabling that tek line uses (http://www.teklineaudio.com/). their powercords, which, at ~$400 retail for a 6' cord, are supposed to be excellent at the price, in their own right. well, i can buy the cabling @ $3.55/ft, get hospital-grade plugs-n-iec's for ~$10-$15 apiece, so i tink isle roll my own for my amps, pre, tuna, & fono-stage. if there's no earth-shattering improvement, i'm not gonna be upset about the minimal inwestment...

regards, doug s.

Frap and Dekay - The system distortion has to have something to do with the ability to hear the contribution of line cord doesn't it? I mean, if you put a killer line cord on a boom box, would that gain you something? Maybe I have it upside down. I used to manufacture power inverters. Most of them put out a modified squarewave - lots of harmonics. Cheap equipment would buzz. Good gear sounded OK.

Doug - Makes sense to me. Nothing wrong with well put together line cords.

Steven: I cannot see that it does with my setup. I do not have the spec's for my amp, but have to guess that the distortion is fairly high considering the output tubes used and the sensativity of the speakers. With the right tubes the 300B amp also offers more detail (except in the bass) than my Musical Fidelity amp which is solid state. This again seems to go against the grain. The distortion spec's on the Musical Fidelity amp are outstanding as far as spec's go.

Steve, The boombox example does not apply here. We are dealing with the top 3% of the market here. My amp distortion could approach 1 percent, and these differences will still be clearly audible. Ran old McIntosh MC-60s and PILOT tube gear from the 50s with distortion levels that were sky high. Same result.
BTW. I have never said that expensive meant better, just that a change in sonic character occurs. As far as the 50 or 100 foot extention cord idea, get ready for huge losses in resolution and dynamics.

A week ago I pulled the Absolute Power Cords out of my system and visiting my brother put these into his system. As I was installing them he asked how much they cost. I told him $40 each, he could not understand why someone would spend so much on power cords. My brother has a very nice system but is only nominally interested in the equipment involved. He has purchased all of his components based on my advice and has done no research of his own other than listening to some of these in my system.

Back to the power cords, after listening for a short while he was extremely impressed, describing the sound with the new power cords as "a lot cleaner" and stating "the difference is huge". After listening for an hour or so we left and as we did I pulled the cords out of his system. He asked me what I was doing and I told him I was going to let someone else audition them. When we dropped off the cables my brother found out that I was loaning these out for two weeks until I was scheduled to return to the area.

I was very surprised by my brothers reaction when he found out that these cables were not going back in his system that day (which he somehow got the impression was going to happen, and thinkig permanently as well). As we left I could see by his countenance and his comments that I had somehow betrayed him by not leaving the cables with him. I got the distinct impression that some "blood is thicker than water" type mindset was operating in him and it did not make a lot of sense for me to leave these with a non-family member, especially for two weeks. He got over it soon afterward, but it was really apparent how disappointed he really was.

Reading Trellja's and Albert Porter's last comments on this thread also brought to mind how I have felt about being without my cords for this period. I have hardly listened to my own system at all, and there has been no excitement when I have done so. Tonight (Thursday) is one of the few nights during the week that I am able to listen at length to my system and I have listened to anything yet. This is completely contrary to a principle that I choose to live by which is to try to be content in whatever circumstance I find myself in. My username, in fact, refers to this principle which is written about in the Bible. God bless.