Upgrading power cord.. proven upgrade? or crap?


The thing i cannot understand is how a new high quality cable will enhance the quality of the flow of electricity that previously went into cheap house electrical wires ?

it's like saying that with good equipment u'll get a higher than CD sound from a FM stereo source or a cheap Mp3 ..

please help me understand .. :)
jinmtvt
Ezmerelda presure has no effect on the flow of a liquid.You can not compress a liquid.
If wire has no effect then explain why a kettle with the standard cord on it takes 3 minutes to boil water and the same kettle with 14Gauge cord and a good quality plug will boil the water in 1 minute.
There are miles and miles of wire comming from the power station.So why does it boil faster.
Do the experiment yourself.
Once you have done it you can remove both your feet from your mouth.
Ezmerelda11, Rod presents his OPINIONS on a lot of subjects as being "facts". Simply because nobody has taken him up on some of his offers does NOT mean that he is "right" or "unchallenged" in the scientific community. There are plenty of other EE's and Audio Engineers that have points of view that differ from his. Quite considerably i might add.

I do admit that he TYPICALLY tries to cover his comments by putting in well worded disclaimers. As is the case with his dissertation on power cords, he covered himself by stating that his comments do not apply to cords using some type of "built in filter".

With that in mind, MANY good aftermarket or homebrew power cords DO have some type of "built in" filtering action taking place. This is done / can be achieved by using simple geometrical changes to the existing power cables that anybody & everybody is already using or by adding a few inexpensive parts to what is already there. One need not use "fancy" or "expensive" materials to do this.

Depending on the extremes that one is willing to go to, you can measure increased capacitance, a large reduction in the area of inductance, minimized magnetic fields around the cords themselves, less radiated field strength to interfere with nearby low level interconnects and speaker cables, lower noise levels, a reduction in RFI or susceptability to such, lower impedances & line loss, etc... As to whether or not this is audible CAN be debated. None the less, i think that most avid audiophiles are of the opinion that a small gain in one area may have a cumulative effect towards the positive when all are added up as a whole within the system.

As Rod stated in the articles that i read by him, NO cord or PLC can correct for the distortion that is a result of the generators, transformers, power lines, etc.. coming into the house. You literally need some type of power generator or re-generator ( PS Audio ) to do so. However, a well designed power cord CAN reduce OTHER outside influences to a minimum courtesy of built in shunts, traps, tuned circuits, calculated impedance mismatches, etc... If someone is paying big money for cables that do not offer any of these types of circuit innovations, they ARE wasting their money.

Having said that, i think most of you know where i stand on "fancy wires". I really AM a believer in wire & cabling having the potential to alter the performance of a system ( good or bad ). I am also a believer that there is a limit to what can be done in this area and think that there is a definite point of diminishing returns. I think that Rod feels the same way, but has MUCH lower levels of expectations from "fine tuning" wire and cables than i and many others do.

As such, I have to agree with him that most "hi-end" wire & cable companies are nothing more than con artists peddling their wares to the unsuspecting and gullible. Like it or not, that is MY perspective on things. You can love me or hate me for stating such and agree or disagree with me. Either way, we've already been down this road more than a few times with similar results to where this thread is going. That's why we have archives and the Audiogon search engine. Sean
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Another good example is the typical cheap internal wire used in speaker systems, how then can $10k speaker cables improve the sound? A similar comparision can be drawn for a power cord plus some filtering action.
Too much has been said on this topic already, but...

"Those who believe in the benifits are those who have tried. Those who say it can't don't know."

I've read countless articals on wires, cables, Opp amps all trying to explain something one hears but is not able to measure. If you can not measure it with todays technology that only means it has not been measured, not that it didn't effect the sound. The audio community has a tough road in that alot of what we hear is symply not explained with our 1950's measuring techniques. If you want to do yourself a favor, try everything, keep what you like and stop trying to explain beyond "it works". If you need an explanation than your not hear to find the best quality sound reproduction, you may want to try a scientific site!

My experience is that all cables make a difference, sometimes good, sometimes bad. I have found the old rule of 10% of the system budget is far short of a correct number. For me it's been 50% plus befor the benifits are outweighed by the cost. In audio I think we must remain open to the possabilities if we want the very best from our investment.

J.D.
Yes indeed power cords do make a difference, maybe some folks systems are not high enough resolution to pull the extra detail out of the upgrade. The question is, are they a good value? Most major power cords have less then $100 of materials in them the rest is all marketing, and these cables go for a few thousand dollars! that is crazy! Buy one take it apart and build a few clones and then sell the original, you’ll get the same improvement but will have 1/10 the cost into it. Not for everyone but I know more then a few folks who have had great luck with such upgrades, besides it keeps the WAF low, I think there is an additional 10% surcharge on the WAF when crazy high buck cables are purchased