After Market Power Cables - Gold or Snake Oil?

M_Cassar - there is one other possible benefit of a power cable and that is filtering. This filtering can be only on the ground wire or the current-carrying wires. Ground-wire filtering makes a lot of sense, since there should not be any AC current on the ground anyway, since this constitutes ground-loop noise. Filtering on the current-carrying wires, hot and neutral is another matter. I personally do not believe in it (and my designs do have hot/neutral filtering), but I suppose some components with poorly designed power supplies could benefit from this. Certainly not amplifiers though.

Oy Mate, my point is simple - I do not know "why" PCs make a difference, but they do. If I gave you a "why", then that does not prove anything. No matter how plausible the "why" I give you, it does not assure you of ANYTHING.

What has a greater chance of being relevant is this. I have heard the difference so many times both between different PCs and between after-market PCs and stock PCs that there is no room for doubt in my mind. Others here will tell you the same. A very few others have said they hear no difference. That is all folks - the rest is up to you to try it for yourself, or not to.

Debates as to "why" will get you nowhere. If you don't believe me then look up the archives and find how your question has been asked here many times before, that many explanations have been put forward, but that this proved nothing to anybody, simply proving my point that we are all none the wiser unless the discussion causes you to try it for yourself.

I'm an engineer but my emag and circuit theory is way too rusty to even begin to argue one way or the other on the technical details. I'm sure folks could use Maxwell's equations, Lenz and Faraday laws etc. up the ying-yang to prove there was or was not an effect to substantiate their arguments either way.

I do believe that there are factors, such as washing machines, rheostats, hair dryers, RF or whatever, that can add noise/distortion and corrupt the power that sits on the power line circuits of your house. Filtering/regeneration can absolutely improve upon the power being fed to your components in ways that are measurable and audible/visible. To me however, I find it tough to believe that the electricity that started it's journey far away at some power station somewhere, traveling through miles and miles of power lines, transformers, distribution stations etc., all manufactured by the lowest bidder, can be measurably improved in some way by a special cable in the last 4 feet before it enters a component.

But with as open a mind as I could have, I've listened to equipment with stock cables and listened to that same equipment with "upgraded" power cables. I can't honestly say I heard a difference much less an improvement.

In the end though, all the statistics and measuring and equations don't really matter. If you think you hear an improved sound from your system because of a power cord then good for you, they're gold. If you don't think you hear an improvement, power cables fall into the snake oil category. I don't hear an improvement from power cords so for me they are not worth it.

Just so you know, I'm not a fanatic who needs everything proven to him before accepting it. For example, I wear a copper bracelet on my wrist because I experience less joint pain in my fingers and wrists when I wear it. I haven't seen any credible scientific evidence to explain why that is, though I'm sure there are folks that will claim to be able to explain it to me. I'm equally sure that there are people out there that will claim to have scientific evidence to disprove the copper has any beneficial effect. To me it doesn't really matter whether it can be scientifically explained or is totally psychosomatic. I feel better when I wear it. For me the bracelet is worth it.

Same with cables. Some folks think they improve the sound, others do not. Your mileage may vary.

I'm trying to understand. If the expensive cords DON'T help, it's becuse I can't hear, or my equipment is too lousy to be improved by a cord, and of course the answer to that one is that I need to buy more expensive equipment so I can then purchase more expensive power cords and then I will hear the difference. I think it's all been said in this thread. Everything is system dependent, so something expensive purchased may not be an improvement. This of course lets the seller off the hook completely. It just didn't work in my system. What to do? Go get some more cords. Certainly something should work. If anyone should know what the proper power cord is for a give piece of equipment is, it's the manufacturer. Are they cheating us with crappy cords? If not, then why can't they give us something that we won't have to change right away. Or at the very least, they would know what the ultimate upgrade would be, thus saving us a lot of time and money. If this stuff was cheap I'd have no complaint, but we're talking very expensive electronics. I think that the Emperor is stark naked.

If 18 gauge cable floats your boat then use it. As for me, I admit to other motives beyond demonstrable sonic return. I want minimum 12 gauge shielded power cord and good strong connections to hospital grade outlets. It is just basic good grooming.