Why Expensive power Cables when Romex behind Wall?

"It's in the very last feet that the electric particles/waveform gets shaped prior to entering the audio component. As such, there will be a profound influence on sonics."

This is nonsense and technically incorrect. Just because some saleman says does not make it true. The network created by the conductors from the transformer and then from the panel to the outlet and then from outlet to the component all contributes. You can easily perform a SPICE simulation on this simple model.

There is nothing magical about the last 6-10 feet of wire unless perhaps it has a transmission-line termination in the plug or on the cord. An added network of this sort COULD prevent/reduce high-frequency reflections or resonance on the overall wired network. Whether transmission-line effects occur and if so, whether they would affect the delivery of power is debatable and difficult to prove.

¿Nonsense?

1) I'm hearing it.
2) I thoroughly read Bybee's website and non-mathematical explanation.
3) This is also congruent with George Tice's viewpoints.

I have no electrical background, but I had a Materials Science Engineering roommate in college. Everything they do is related to crystal structure. Cryogenics deals with ordering (reducing the entropy) of the crystal structure. Electrons behave both as particles and as waves. Noise floor in the conductor lowers as a result of rearranging the particles in space--that's a no brainer to me. There's a lot we don't know for sure...

A few weeks ago I was studying for a pre-employment chemistry test and while reading about orbitals and crystal structure it all clicked in place.

What are the basic scientific activities?

1) Observation (hearing, smelling, etc)
2) Search for regularities
3) Investigating the why
4) Communicating findings

Will, just send one of your power cords that you have two of for cryo and do your own experiment. Other people have been doing it and posting their results in other forums.

Now that Sean has a ONEAC noise reading device we'll be able to conduct some experiments on noise control tactics and get numerical data.

Until then, don't knock it 'till you try it...

Hi Albert. You are correct, I did not read your entire post. I got to where you were explaining the lengths you had gone to improve your service, and stopped there. Now that I have read the entire post, I have a couple of questions for you. Is your private transformer a pole or slab transformer? Can you tell me the manufacturer and model number of the unit. The reason I ask is that I was a custom home builder, built a home for a Doctor who had about a $150k system a few years back. This guy was driving me nuts trying to get me to change his transformer because he was having to spend thousands of dollars on hi end power cords, and he blamed the transformer (also private, but because of his location). I spent an entire evening at his home listening very carefully to his system, while he switched power cords to prove his point. And he was right, the expensive power cords did make the system sound better. But his argument was that he did not previously need them. Finally I called in a favor with a friend at FL Power, and had a new transformer installed for the Doc. It was by a different manufacturer. Not even a day passed and the Doc was on the phone to me inviting me for dinner and thanking me over and over. He wanted to prove to me that he was not nuts, so I accepted. We went through the identical listening tests as with the other transformer, switching pc's, but this time - NO DIFFERENCE could be distinguished between the expensive pc's and the stock Levinson pc's. And I have to say that his system just sounded better over all. There was one pc that did seem to sound different out of the 10 or more we listened to, but I can't honestly say it was better. At the end of the evening, the Doc gave me a $500.00 tip and told me I had "saved his system". So, if you have a room full of people that all hear when you switch pc's, I would say that it is very possible that you have a bad transformer. I don't mean defective, as FL Power tested his old transformer, found nothing wrong with it and installed it on another street. Jerry, my friend at FL P did tell me confidentially that the difference between the two transformers was aluminum. One used some, the other did not. So, if you can tell me the brand and model of yours, I will drive up to the Doc's home (he no longer lives there, but I can still check the transformer). And it just so happens that the very next home I built has the same type of transformer (I had become keen to noticing this by now) as the one I replaced on the Doc's home, so I can check it too. I doubt there are that many manufacturers of transformers commonly used by power companies, so I've got a feeling you may not have even heard your system at it's best yet.

Trich, I have absolutely no doubt that your comments are true. My years of listening and testing have shown me that the only absolute is "we don't really know anything."

I have no idea about the transformer, it is a 25K VA model supplied by TU Electric, and is the third one on my home in the last few years.

Between the wet tree limbs, squirrels and Texas weather, this neighborhood is hell on transformers. That being said, the last two sounded identical as far as I could tell.

Florida is not to kind weatherwise either, sounds just like yours. Maybe FL Power had to change his transformer too and it drove him out? Who knows? The guy drove me nuts for 6 months, but anything I know about hospital grade wiring, I know from him. He even went in and red chalked the slab with notes to the drywallers where he wanted the drywall glued and not screwed. He drove my electricians crazy too, but they made a mint off of him. He was paying the installers all kinds of money for "electrical favors". At first I was charging him when I saw things I wasn't making a markup on, but there came a point I gave up as my electricians charged me only the bid amount. Just one question though, being as that you went to such extremes to make your supply the best it could be; wouldn't a power plant of ample size been a better move? So that no matter what transformer you ended up with, voltage drops, spikes, etc, the power was cleaned and constant?