Power cords

I agree you need to find out for yourself. And if you're happy with your system with $10 interconnects and OEM power cords that is fine. It does seem though that a lot of the unbelievers have never really seriously tried. If you do try, ignore the price. I recently replace a $1600 cable with a $250 between my preamp and amp simply because it sounds better to me.

Cords make a difference.Though there is a point of diminishing return.
www.diycable.com has a cord that gets you 98% of the way there for under 75.00

Many power line filters are placed "in series" with the existing wiring also. Their benefits are easily noticeable under specific conditions and measurable if you have the proper test equipment.

As such, a smaller amount of "filter action" can be designed and built into a power cord. This too SHOULD be measurable. One of these days, i'll finish up the mods that i need to do to my Audioprism AC Sniffer and do just that. Until then, i do not doubt that a power cord can effect the quality of AC being fed into the component. I too was a skeptic until i tried it for myself. Sean
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I doubted. I tried with the option to return. I was convinced. I added another with the option to return. I was convinced. It is certainly worth a test drive.

The only measurement that is truely relevant to this discussion (and that is almost never performed because of its cost) is a statistical analysis of a psycho-acoustic experiment properly designed and executed. All our electrical test equipment only gives us a hint of what our ears and minds are capable of perceiving. -- And yes I have an MA in psycophysics specializing in acoustics. That leads me to believe that anecdotal evidence, based on perception, even without an experiment is worth paying attention to. In fact, I would guess that many designers of high end equipment base what is unique about their designs, in the final analysis, on listening rather than electronic measurement (what good is it if you can measure it but cannot hear it).

I don't mean to suggest that we haven't learned a lot from these imperfect measuring tools or the mathematics that go with them. I'm a strong believer in correcting room anomolies as much as possible and even use digital eq to good effect (so much better than the old filter approach). But ultimately we're talking about music/sound which is perceived by a listener, and the listener is what counts.

What I find strange about many of these kinds of discussions, is that participants often pit electronic measurements against human anecdotal evidence. If your skeptical about anecdotal evidence, the answer isn't to turn to a useful but imperfect machine but rather to properly perform psycho-acoustic experimentation.