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
The easy thing is that you can hear what is there and what is missing. That is Always clear and Obvious. Even if you do not know the equipment.

The first time I listend to clasical music in real I was stunned by the intimate sound of it. The voice of a female singer was very small and direct. With my eyes closed I used 2 fingers to make a proportion of her voice. That evening I changed the place were I sat. But the intimate sound of her voice stayed the same.

These days an intimate image and realistic proportion of instruments and voices are Always in every single set I sell or adapt. When voices and instruments become bigger the emotion is less involving. When I let people compare an intimate stage with a stage were instruments and voices are too big ( many f... idiots at shows do it. When I ask them how big you think an instrument or voice is in real? They say; we don't know) people prefer the intimate and reaistic image. Because the music pulls you into it. When the image is bigger the distance between you and the music gets bigger. And there is less emotion.

The other important part what influence our emotion in music is how deep the freq. response of an audio system goes. When it goes deeper there will be more emotion. I demo this by using a subwoofer and switching between on and off.

I am a big fan of the class A sound of Pass Labs. Why because it can let you hear the tmebre of a voice or even instrument much easier. This part is also very important for how much emotion people feel when you play there beloved music.

When there is a deeper and wider stage, voices and instruments become more loose from eachother. When I do a changement with cables and people hear it they often give a big smile. I Always say: smiles on people there faces and tapping with there feet during a show gives a good impression what they think about your demo.

The art of sound is what can make a system play emotion and give a sound to die for.

These days I can get a good endresult with Pro roomcorrection even in the worst rooms on this planet.

I Always try to find solutions for limitations in sound. I don't take no for an answer
When it comes to the thread, I forgot to say that gauge matters. :)

For amps it is very important how thick the cable is. More control and grip. Also more dynamics.

When I compared different cables with different gauge I also had big differences. When you have a highend digital source thick cables like Purist Audio matters a lot.

I compared powercables from Nordost with Purist Audio in the past and with poweramps the Purist were far superior. Also for digital sources the Limited outperformed the Valhalla with ease!!