Power cords

Bottomsup: a fool and his money are easily parted indeed. Your electronics aquaintance is not misleading you on wasting money and you should search the archives. Most of these expensive power cords acts as filters (limiting musical extension), tone controls and/or spatial enhancers.

If you provide your system clean and abundant AC power, then cords in the $50-$75 range like the Absolute Power Cord (cryo'ed) and the Chris VenHaus (cryo'ed, too!) will be outstanding. The cryo'ed Absolute has outperformed $500-600 power cords. What a joke! I tried the VenHaus Flavor 4 in my Clear Image T4 power filter and it simply outshined. It's something I want to have.

As to your questions:

I guess what I am asking is: is there definitive proof that past a good reasonable power cord, can you make a difference? Can a cord be tested with any equipment to show that it is better? Thanks in advance.

1) Yes, but you need the proper setup that will allow you to tell it's the power cords that you're actually listening to. In Lak's system we tried two Flavor 4 one with cryo'ed and one gold plated Wattgate connectors (non cryo'ed) on his transport and there was a noticeable improvement in the music with the gold plated. That's how resolving Lak's system is...

2) No.

I spent a grand on cords without treating my room!

Here we go again. I surrender. Go with your ears. If you do that, you can send me a thank you. later. Hey is that neutral enough? YOu can go anywhere with that. My ears detect a difference. YOur ears? PA's ears? It's all in the tympanics. After you get your ACs, try a pair that you've read about that have been doing it for other 'goners. See what you think. If your system and pockets can handle some deep $$, try one of the so called "Elrod" killers, and the like. See what your tympanics say. They may say "wow, I never thought that 6 feet of wire could make a difference. Gee, do I want to spend all that money for that difference?" Or you may say, hey forget that, PA can tell you what you might say. Have a great holiday my fellow audiophools. We're wild and electric. peace, warren

Warrenh: appreciate the advice. I think you are right. I will try to borrow some PC from a local high end shop and see if I can hear a difference. Thanks, Gary.

Regarding your friend: Just because a person knows how to eat doesn't mean they know how to dine.

Try virtualdynamics.com

Good luck,

Yes, if you are new do not go and dump ANY money on cables except to get something decent which can be had for about $50. Instead focus on speakers and room acoustics as this will save you much in terms of money down the road. Spend at least as much on music as you do for any upgrade and you'll have tons of music laying around to distract you from contemplating your next component purchase. You'll be two steps ahead of most around here if you do that. And please, do not let it turn into some compulsion or demented gear fetish. Remember this is about the music so if you do not support your local schools and artists there will be nothing left to use all that pretty gear with except some lame copy of "Pet Sounds."

Now that should get all the baby boomers stirred up:)
Remember to enjoy yourself also and not to take any of this stuff real serious especially the marketing or the hype. Sage advice is that the latest and greatest thing usually isn't.