TT Power Cord

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

I had three different AC cords on my Walker Proscenium turntable, all sounded different. The Omega Micro AC cable that Lloyd Walker recommended (at that time) proved to be best.

AC cables proved different on my Basis Debut Gold MK4 and MK5 and even the older Versa Dynamics. It seems motors do like being fed with better AC supply cable for whatever reason.

With my Technics MK2 and current MK3 in my system I've had at least five AC cords on the motor controller/power supply. Each cable provided a different level of performance.

The one I kept is a more moderate investment but in the future, after I recover from Stillpoints Ultra 5 and other recent purchases I'll upgrade this AC cable as well.

Perhaps even more strange is the effect of the AC cord on my Focal Grande EM power supply. All this does is turn the woofer into a field coil. It's not an amp nor does it power the crossover. I tried four different AC cords and got four completely different levels of performance.

Unfortunately the most expensive option was too much performance gain for me to pass it up.

I know cables are a bone of contention for many and that's to be expected. I remember a number of years ago when lots of people claimed amplifiers all sounded the same.

More recently people claim all wire (interconnect and speaker) sound the same. Anyone claiming they could hear an interconnect were delusional.

There are some converts since then and I think AC cables will be sorted out as time goes on. In my experience an AC cable can be a bigger upgrade than an interconnect. You have to test and listen for yourself.