John Dunlavy On "Cable Nonsense"

Abe, the majority of my "fancy" power cords are all homebrew designs with the exception of a few TG Audio's, LAT's and a Kimber. While this might sound like ALL of my power cords are "bought and paid for", keep in mind that i have five complete systems set up in my house. That is a LOT of power cords. As such, the ones that were "bought and paid for" were all "snagged" via Audiogon, Audioweb, Audioshopper, Audioreview, etc.... for pennies on the dollar. As such, i have learned quite a bit via first hand experimentation with the resultant experience that comes with it WITHOUT going broke or spending much at all.

As to my hum problem, there is some type of strange reactance between two components that i can't seem to get rid of. Believe me, i've taken all of the normal "prescribed" routes with no luck at all. The fact that changing power cords even remotely affects the sonic output at the speakers DOES verify that they have more influence on what we hear than what most EE's would ever admit to.

As to you labeling them "tone controls", i think of them more as "filters". While they are both doing the same thing in terms of affecting amplitude, bandwidth, linearity, etc... the end result IS measurable in terms of a lower noise floor, improved s/n ratio, differences in frequency response, etc....

Like i said, break out the test equipment and learn something from all of this. It takes NOTHING to sit on ones' laurels and repeat what you've been told and "believe" to be correct. On the other hand, doing and learning can only benefit you in the future. Who knows, it might end up opening new avenues of thought for you OR simply reaffirm the beliefs that you already have. Are you afraid to put your beliefs to the test or challenge your "faith" ???

As i mentioned before, i WAS in the same shoes that you're in now. Trying to disprove the "idiots" using the same arguements that you've posted, i found out that the "idiots" actually new more than i did. Romex or not, power cords DO change the performance characteristics of a system. Sean
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Sean, if you've purchased "high-end" AC cords for pennies on the dollar I should commend you for being reasonable where you spend your money on this crazy hobby. If we had limitless funds, we would all spend several thousand dollars on each component and every cable to get the false sense that we've spent enough money to have a "better" system than one that costs much less. Expensive interconnects are not always better than cheap ones, expensive speaker wires aren't always better than modest wires. In many cases they are just different or just sound different and not necessarily better.

I agree that a good power cord is essential but as I've stated before, I completely disagree that the AC power cord should even be considered as an area of experimentation for altering the overall "tone" of a system (as written about in the other thread). You mention that you prefer to think of the power cord as a "filter" instead of a tone control. Well, what is a filter? A filter passes certain frequencies and attenuates others - you're still essentially calling it a tone control! But I argue that the 60-cycle "tone" coming from your AC mains should hopefully be nearly eliminated through the filtering in the power supply section of your equipment. Why would one try to alter the supposedly audible characteristics of the AC power source when the goal is to eliminate it completely by turning it into pure DC current within the equipment? A good solid high-current capable power cord with decent low contact resistance to the AC outlet is sufficient in my book. I don't subscribe to the bogus claims from mega-buck power cord makers that their AC cords have some magical "sonic signature". So I reassert my opinion that spending more than $50 or so on an AC power cord is wasteful.

Abe, how many mega-buck power cables have you tried?

Abe, you're just flat wrong, the magic number for power cords is $72 and 17 cents, not $50. What are you thinking man? BTW, what power cord do you know of that sells for $50? I can think of only one. Which cords you got? Or are you talking about $50 worth of parts, someone still has to put together?

Ok that sucks, It didn't post the last sentence, maybe because I was in the middle of writing it when my computer made a unilateral decision to post. Anyway, ABE (cont'd): I am dying to know what power cord you regard as an essential upgrade from the stock power cord, but only costs $50.