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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
cbozdog OP
63 posts
 
... and conversely, if my system is at 60% (my "zero"), Brownsfan improvement of 0.9% (a petty 2.3% in my frame of reference) would make no financial sense to me whatsoever. I'd have to take my system to 80% to perceive the same audible benefit he's getting from his upgrade.

(taking Brownsfan's example as an example, of course).
brownsfan
1,508 posts
 
Dog, I think you catch my drift. however, diminishing returns applies, and each has to determine for himself where to draw the line. I think the way this thread has turned shows that it is devilishly hard to quantify improvements once a system attains a pretty high level of performance.

I can't tell Onhwy he is wrong in pointing out that the differences one might expect from a PC swap is something short of "transformational." In the first place, I didn't not hear what he didn't hear, and he didn't hear what I heard. Even if we had heard or not heard what the other did or didn't hear, we might very well value the difference heard differently.

Im swapping out PCs, I have at least achieved the same level of improvement, maybe more, that I have achieved by tube rolling. Maybe I've evaluated the wrong tubes or someone else hasn't found the PC that makes things work for them with their equipment. Who can say with certainty?
jmcgrogan2's avatar
jmcgrogan2
6,346 posts
 
One person's "0.2%" increase in performance is another person's "night and day". I never understood how people could quantify differences anyway.

I either think it sounds better or worse. Then there are varying degrees of better or worse. How can anyone say this power cord offers a 3.14159265359% better performance over that power cord???
bo1972's avatar
bo1972
2,789 posts
 
You Judge sound for more different parts. You need to understand all these parts. In 16 years of time I have done thousends of test with cables, sources, amps, speakers, conditioners etc.

I can hear all these parts in a few seconds with my own music. Most people can only focus on a few of the parts to Judge for.

So what I do for these people is to explain what the difference is. I do one part at a time. So it becomes a lot more easier also for those who have less experience.

When you do it right, it is even for people who have not a lot of knowledge very clear. You only need a normal working hearing.

When people say: I don't hear the difference. At a show I don't think it is that good. Often it is not that good in real.

My experience is that when all parts are there in a set it is convincing for every person. When a part is missing. At shows many people make mistakes ( they don't know what the f.. they are doing0) or what I said parts are missing.

When is sound convincing for every single person?

when all these parts are in a set.....

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?rcabl&1393266431

read my story about total sound
ptss
1,964 posts
 
You r right.. Power cords r magic--thank goodness ..
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