How can power cords make a difference?

Yes, we discovered that the IC that sounded best for playback did not sound the same for recording as it did in playback mode. We're still deciding which is "best".

One of the IC's gave less record surface noise on the CDR. The other gave less record surface noise on playback mode?

Good info to have as it will encourage me to play around with it even more. I suspect that the HT Truthlinks, that I sold, would have been nice for the job. Too late now.

Albertporter. I dont know that people who buy Krell or any other super high end componet would have a problem with seeing a nice fat cord included with their hardware. I dont see many people saying that these aftermarket cords "hurt" performance; only that it does nothing, or it sounds better.
The mindset of most consumers is not "oh my god"! "look, I'm paying for this nice looking cord, and I dont need it". I would guess that most consumers would say "cool, look at this nice cord they "included" with my gear"! This is (in my opinion) the response most tech geeks(lovers) have to a product feature.

Or perhaps I'm the only one who feels this way?

Mhubbard. As long as it was included and the price did not suddenly rise to cover the expense to Krell for supplying it. The price the factory pays for any given part is usually five times that amount at retail ( to the end user ).

Even assuming that the Krell people can purchase a great aftermarket cord at one fourth of what we pay, the price still turns out to be more than retail at the check out counter.

There are those who would object if the cost were even a few hundred dollars more, and those who did not object to the price, would likely have their own idea as to which brand they preferred at that price level.

I am glad I do not have to make the decision as to which cord to include. My guess is no matter what you choose, someone would be unhappy. Better to include a decent quality Belden that cost $4.00 and keep the price low. You are probably already paying $20.00 for that stock Belden that is included for "free."

Hello Bruce,

I myself have been wondering very much about this topic and have found myself having a similar conversation with my father. I am quite new to HiFi and take about all the advice I can get (so anyone reading this please feel free to share your opinions). You could even say my interest in HiFi was sparked by my pop's interest. Anyways, my dad in his younger days loved music and became an electrical engineer out of his interest for acoustics. He was fortunate enough to land a job using some very ridiculously expensive test equipment, bruer and kerr (I think is how you spell it phonetically), supposedly its the best. I can't say from first hand experience because I chose to study computer science instead of following old pop's footsteps. Anyways, from what he has told me, this is the same brand of test equipment that McIntosh (I'm sure other companies as well) uses to design, measure and calibrate their amplifiers. This same brand also builds exteremly precise amplifiers (greatly exceeding the technical specifications of those used for HiFi audio) for vibration tables used in scientific research. Ok, whats the moral of the story? The equipment I mentioned earlier in the post all use "regular" or "stock" power cables.