TT Power Cord

I know Stringreen - many people swear by the improvement they hear with a change of power cords. My ears just aren't good enough or trained enough or they're just partly/mostly made of tin - I just can't hear it! :-(

Now I HAVE experienced a big change with power conditioning equipment, or glorified surge protectors, whatever you want to consider them. I had put a Balanced Power Tech Clean Power Center (CPC) into the mix, plugging all of my 2 channel system components into it. There was an immediate change in the sound - and I didn't like it. It sounded flat, lifeless, even seemed to strangle the volume. I took it out of the system and put in a Furutech E--TP80, what they call an "AC Power Distributor." Again, immediate change, but for the better - the sound opened up, sounded dynamic and full, it sounded RIGHT.

Rather differetnt from the experience of the reviewer at 6Moons:

On balance, and being excused for generalizations, I'd characterize the e-TP80 as a somewhat valve-reminiscent component that shaves off edge, increases glow and expands things to slightly larger-than-life size which, if you add it all up, makes it the perfect antidote for many affordable systems suffering the exact opposite. And affordable systems are most likely to be the natural mates for this affordable conditioner that offers enough outlets to accommodate a complete such setup. Which brings us to the BPT CPC. Despite its affordability, it seems tailor-made for truly expensive systems where its greater honesty, finer-boned finesse, greater rhythmic time keeping ability and stronger focus not on the grande gestures but minuscule constituents all fall into the service of resolution enhancement which, let's face it, tends to be the cornerstone that expensive systems are built upon and assembled around.

(http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/furutech2/1.html)

So, as you can see, my ears are suspect...or I just don't have the expensive system needed to appreciate what the CPC - and perhaps power cords -can bring to the table!

Holly

Moonglum,
I was not in the least offended by anything you wrote before my post. Skepticism is a needed commodity in this hobby. In your last post, you wrote:

"A similarly opposite benefit can come from the braided Kimber cables i.e if used on switch-mode power supplies they prevent their characteristic hash from getting back into your local mains supply, so not only suppressing incoming interference but the outgoing stuff as well."

What would be the mechanism for that effect of the Kimber cable, which I noted previously is easily converted to PC use? Do you think it's just the capacitance? Along those lines, I think one of the main benefits of an outboard tt motor controller that re-synthesizes AC is the same, motor noise is prevented from going backward into your local AC circuits.

Yes...capacitance was their primary mechanism, Lew. BTW...quite a few years ago, did the Industry Standards folk in the U.S not ban the braided cables so they (Kimber) ended up re-jigging their entire mains cable product line?

It's a pity because I'm convinced they were a better product. (Don't tell anyone but I've got about 6 of them(!) 4 are of the high current variety.) Their effect can be pretty much matched by using good transient suppressors and mains cleaning devices except that the cable's lifespan is much greater ;^)

My defensive position is that I don't think you can possibly do any harm to your gear by reducing Mains interference using such a non-invasive method and may even prolong the equipment's life.
I also have extensive lightning strike protection although the chance of a near or direct strike is zero :o)

Revisiting the OP's original question, I actually spoke from experience : We're going back a lot of years but I tried a Reference Kimber Cable on the LP12 and heard no difference. In fact I felt the Linn's original cable was a better choice as it was light, thin and flexible and conveyed less vibration to the TT.
All the best,

Do you mean to say that Kimber 8TC, braided form, has been "banned"? I've got a lot of it here and there, all being used as PC, not as speaker wire.

But to your other point, I have found empirically that I prefer high capacitance cables probably because they typically have a low characteristic impedance (Zc). Zc is directly related to the square root of inductance divided by capacitance. I similarly like Goertz cables as speaker wire, and the better Transparent and MIT cables, as well. The latter two simply add a capacitance inside the little boxes at the distal end of the cable. My Atma amps very much seem to like cables with low Zc. They really did not like Nordost cables, for one example, which have an unusually high Zc, because mostly inductive.

But if braided Kimber is banned, why? Can't be because of capacitance per se, else MIT, Transparent and others would also have been banned.