After Market Power Cables - Gold or Snake Oil?


Myself and a collegue of mine have been discussing the potential benefit(s) of using after market power cables with hifi equipment. I claim that since the majority of home owners gain their power from the everyday wall socket, how does the addition of a short length of 'expensive' cabling make any appreciable difference to the sound quality. Are we kidding ourselves and buying into marketing hype or is there some scientific truth to the matter? I am a musician/recordist who understands the fundamentals of electricity and sound reproduction.
checkmate110
Elmuncy, SOME manufacturers go to the trouble of buying nice 2x14AWG Chinese or domestic 5' cables for about $8. Yet the rubber or PVC-insulated wires in these costs about six cents per foot! Said manufacturers need to multiply their raw goods costs to make a profit.
A great "high end" wire like Belden 83802 costs $1.55/ft in 1000' spools, or about TWENTY-FIVE times as much! A manufacturer simply will not spend that kind of money on a power cord. Yet you can make yourself a mighty nice PC for very little investment if you wire it yourself. As a convenience I assemble all the components (and instructions...NO SOLDERING required) for a DIY 5' PC Kit for only $33 + $7 shipping. Sorry to plug here, but you probably WILL hear a difference with good clean 12AWG copper sitting in nothing but pure Teflon, surrounded by a full, braided-shield. Quietness, detail, and dynamics all improve. If you can't hear it then yes your system is simply NOT a highly resolving one, and thus not capable of high-performance musical reproduction. But that doesn't mean you can't dance or sing along. That's what automobiles are for, eh? Cheers.
For the record, I've made power cords for most of my components out of Carol industrial cord, 12 gauge, with hospital grade connectors on each end. That makes sense to me and it's as far as I'm willing to go.
Nothing WRONG with that, but clean copper in pure Teflon WILL almost always sounds better, and it's quite cheap. Maybe someday you'll open your mind to it. Happy holidays.