After Market Power Cables - Gold or Snake Oil?

Junking the 18 ga cables that come in the box for 10-12ga shielded cables with better connectors is a good idea for basic physical reasons, and doing so should cost under $50 a cord to make. Go to audioasylum.com for some great DIY cables. With adding a $500-$5000 power cord, now there's where the snake oil starts to really flow. Adding a power conditioner will drop the noise floor and filter more then any cable will ever be able to, and will show definite results, good, bad or ugly, whereas big buck powercable swaps will have a person without unlimited funds struggling to justify the expense beyond a sufficient 12ga p/c....

People who argue against the sonic benefits of powercords either, in my opinion, haven't tried them, or have equipment designed such that they don't make much difference (either because they don't resolve the information or are designed with spectacular power supplies: I gather this is true to some extent with certain brands of electronics such as Bryston). In my system, which includes Audio Research electronics and Transparent cabling, the differences between power cables and the improvements they can offer are both shocking (to me, a former skeptic) and instantly obvious to anyone. It's not subtle. Forget electronic logic on this one. Bumblebees can't fly either, according to aeronautics. The history of science is the recognition of clear phenomena, and trying to find a way to explain apparently anomalous conclusions after the fact.

Indeed, in medicine, particularly in Britain, there's a movement towards what's called "evidence-based medicine." When I naively suggested to a group of doctors at a party that I assumed all medicine was "evidence based" they could barely contain their laughter. Figure out what works first, they said, figure out why later... or maybe not at all (no one really understands even now why aspirin works, an analogy I've cited in these forums [fora?] before). Same here (if towards less serious ends).

I personally use cheap Cardas power cords ($79) only for mechanical superiority to computer grade power cords. I've
tried some $200+ power cords in the past. They appears to make a difference but it largely disappears with time or during a blind test. Have you ever wonder why your system sometimes sounds good but not other time even without any
change in your system? You must do reliable listening test to determine the difference. I am not so called audio objectivist since I do own audiophile brand name equipment and cables but PC is where I draw the line.

My advise, try it before buying it. Most systems will get a
modest improvement with a good quality power cable like
PS Audio Mini Lab, 10 awg shielded cable for around $150.00 . Unless you have very exotic or power hungry amps
you won't need an expensive power cord(>1K). Like others have said before you must start with dedicated lines, isolated ground preferred, and quality outlets. In the past
I have tried different power cords, on some brands of amps
(Krell) they did made a noticeable difference, on others like Linn the difference was very subtle, Linn do have great transformers, shielded in the case of the Klout amp.
I took one of my Klouts to an audio store to try one really
expensive power cord, the salesman gave a lecture on the big difference this cord will make with it's 8 awg wires, at
that point I removed the cover of the amp to show him that the amp was internally wired with 18 awg cable from the power connector to the transformer. I asked him why would I need a 8 awg power cord when the amp only draw 6.3 amps, he
had no anwser for my question. Anyhow the expensive cord didn't improve over the $150.00 one. So please be advised that I am not telling that you will not get an improvement,
all I am saying is that because someone says that he or she got a huge improvement in their gear it may not do the same on yours. Like I said, try them first, if you hear an improvement buy them. Select the brand you like and start with the cheapest model, you will find that you will reach
a point where the next model will not sound better than the
previous, the previous will be a good match to your system.