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the magic of power cords

We need a bit of magic in our lives. It might be the reason why audiophilia has such traction among people from all walks of life.

The neophyte's skepticism is likely proportional to the level of technical training - the more you think you know, the stronger the conviction that, for example, the power cable business is a sham: "electrons are electrons" and "if the house cabling is bad, why would the last 3 feet matter?". The stronger the conviction, the more humbling the experience of hearing the power cord magic in action.

A few years back a Sophia Electric amp came into my hands with what looked like a generic power cord. The few non-generic cords I tried (Audioquest AC15, Audio Magic XSteam, Shunyata Research Diamondback) made a significant difference for the worse. The thin, black, generic-looking original cable allowed for a clarity and definition of voice and instruments that got totally washed out with the aftermarket cables. A night-and-day difference. No doubt - the power cord made a huge difference - but not in the expected direction. The Audioquest AC15 was particularly bad.

For awhile, I kept trying them around on all incoming equipment (be it DACs, preamps or amps). The AC15 sounded so bad every time that after awhile I wasn't even trying it out.

Many years and few amps later - something seemed not quite right with the presentation of my KAV-300i: slightly dull upper bass. Power cord: Zu Birth. Finally (after multiple interconnects and few speaker cable swaps) I pull out the power cord stash (same as above). This time around the AC15 was the great surprise: it allowed for clarity and macro dynamics well above the others.

What do I learn? Nothing, really. When is shielding important? When is gauge? How about the conductor or the insulation? How come there isn't one "best" design?

The magic continues.
cbozdog
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,563 posts
 
See my system thread for my recent experience dabbling with a new power cord upgrade.
czarivey
5,946 posts
 
Man I'm too cheap to spend even $20 for aftermarket PC unless my stock breaks. There's certainly a difference between Night and Day vs. marginal improvement(if certainly any)
The fact is I haven't seen them being used at recording studios where noise floor is more of the important factor than in home audio. I bet them don't even know what is Shaniata or Voortual Doonamics. Did anyone ever ask one self why? Because smart should not and cannot be fooled. Following studio gear standards, you can achieve fantastic sound performance for money spent smart.
cbozdog OP
63 posts
 
"night and day"... on my end, it means simply "pleasure vs. lack thereof" when listening to the same tune.

To Onhwy61: "magic is applied technology that I don't understand". Thank you for your condescending remark my friend.

I'm proposing that magic is good. If there was a formula that actually worked, then the mystery would vanish and audiophilia would... (shock)... die off? No more cable-filled closets, mix and match gear etc...
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mapman's avatar
mapman
22,563 posts
 
Two concrete reasons why some power cords might work better than others:

1) EM shielding, which can work both ways.
2) current delivery, which may be beneficial for high power amps in some cases, but probably not all.

Power conditioning often helps as well, but I do not view that as part of a power cords job. Other devices better suited for that if needed.

Night and Day is a strong yet ambiguous term. It really only means there appears to be a discernible difference as opposed to not. It will likely be small on the grand scale of things with power tweaks in most cases, but enough to be significant for those whose ears are very well tuned in, which tends to be the case with most "audiofiles". Beyond that, when a difference is heard, it can be hard to attribute to the known change versus perhaps some other unknown factor, like changes in our own physiology day to day and how that might affect what we hear.

I preach the approach to try tweaks if there is a good value proposition and some clear reason to expect it might work. But go easy, don't flush a lot of money down the drain. Look for value and good customer service/return policies if not satisfied.

"Magic" or even pseudo-science alone is not a good reason to try something.

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