TT Power Cord

I think if your turntable has a mains regenerative power supply (the LP12 was possibly the first to use this principle) then it's likely that the power cord won't make a blind bit of difference.

Similarly any well designed power supply "should" be immune to the vagaries of the Mains but in practice the realities are somewhat different - and older classic gear can have more problems than recently manufactured stuff due to the fact that components have deteriorated over time.
This said, 110V supplies are a different story from 240V supplies such as we use here in the UK.

I remember, a while back, Rod Elliot of ESP Sound Systems doing an investigative study on this subject and seem to recall he found that braided "RFI suppressing" cables could have some benefit by reducing Mains noise but found no real evidence to support the claims of the others.
If you choose to access the following link, Rod is very passionate about de-bunking myths so you have been warned! :)

http://sound.westhost.com/cables-p4.htm#power

Mains cables with a ground sheath might well be worthwhile too for the above reason (important to note that won't have any effect on the embedded noise though) but I'm probably grasping at straws here. Exactly what form such interference might have on your listening pleasure is up for debate. With the advent of the possibility of transmitting RF data via the Mains the emphasis on well designed power supplies is increased.
Hope this helps.

No difference at all on the turntable....but what I thought was very interesting was that the entire audio spectrum was improved with audiophile power cables on my Vandersteen 5A speakers, even though only the woofers are powered...ODD....

Tim (Pryso): Great minds think alike. I have been using Kimber 8TC as power cord for maybe 10 years. Each of my Atma-sphere monoblocks is connected to the wall socket with 8TC power cord. That product is uniquely suited to PC use, because of its construction. I also use a pair of Goertz copper speaker wires as power cords. Those are more difficult, because fitting the ribbon conductor into the clips in the typical plug or IEC connector is no mean feat.

Moonglum, Believe me, I am no cult worshiper. I come to the table with a bias that most of our gospel audio truths are BS. It makes no sense that PCs should make a difference in many instances, such as the one you cite. The only way I can see that they do is if you are using a device that makes large and variable current demands. And in such cases, gauge rules, the more copper the better. Also, there may be the issue of noise on the AC line. For that reason, conductors that employ some sort of HF filtering may be helpful. Otherwise, one has to make one's own decisions. I stopped worrying about it long ago, when I started to make my own cords from speaker wires, as mentioned above, or from just heavy gauge AC cord. I did find that a certain brand of PC using ribbon conductors really sounded best on my Sound Lab ESL bias supplies, and I have no idea why. Several other boutique cords sounded awful, less good than standard cords supplied by Sound Labs.

Good points by Lew and Moonglum, IMO.

Also, a common sense point that seems worth mentioning is that the turntable's power cord should be kept as far away as possible from the phono cable, to minimize coupling of EMI or RFI from the power cord to the phono cable. It wouldn't surprise me if the main reason some people report benefits from upgrading the power cord of a turntable were that the shielding of the upgraded cord reduced that effect, as Lew alluded to. The magnitude of that effect, btw, figures to be highly dependent on the design of the particular phono stage, on the characteristics of the cartridge that is being used, and on the shielding provided by the phono cable.

And, seconding another point that Lew made, a well shielded power cord does not have to cost a great deal of money.

Regards,
-- Al