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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
brownsfan
1,508 posts
 
Pops, Interesting. Some of the best tweaks I have made involve PC's and Audio Magic Pulse Gens, which are supposed to cancel out EMI/RFI. I must be located in an area particularly subject to that problem. In the absence of strong RFI/EMI fields, I could see how a stock PC might be preferred. After all, that is presumably the PC used when the equipment was designed.
I't could be that since your system is not suffering from digititis, your tolerance threshold for RFI/EMI is higher. Who knows?
I tend to tune out ; ) the "don't confuse me with the facts, my mind is made up" crowd. As I and others have stated, it"s not possible to predict a priori the effect, if any, particular PC will have. It can certainly be a frustrating and expensive process.
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dayglow
1,890 posts
 
Until the vast majority of audiophiles consider all cables as another audio component, this nonsense will continue!
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bo1972's avatar
bo1972
2,789 posts
 
I started testing many powercables in 2002. I had and still have a lot of fun testing them. That time I worked in a speciality shop in sound and vision. I wanted people to understand how big the influence was of a powercable. So I started blind tests. I Always used a very expensive powercable and our most sold one of about 100 dollar. Most of the time I used sources, but also I did it with amps. For example a source of 2000 euro with a powercable of 2500 euro. I compared it with a source of 5000 euro with a powercable of 100 euro. It was a lot easier to get a better end result with the use of an expensive powercable. People Always were very surprised. This is how you can people make aware how big the influence is. That is why you need to keep things as simple as possible!
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