Pre-amps with seperate power supplies .....

I am not an electrical engineer and I do not pretend to be one nor do I play one on TV.....

But....did you stay at a Holiday Inn last night? Because apparently, that may qualify you as an EE. LOL!!

I also have a preamp with a separate power supply, and have considered the same path. I own a Cary SLP-98P F1, and I know of one company that makes an upgraded umbilical cord for the Cary. Revelation Audio Labs (RAL). I even know one guy who owns the RAL and swears by it, I have also seen a couple of SLP-98's list on Audiogon with the upgraded RAL cord.
I also have heard a rumor that Cardas also supplies and upgraded umbilical cord for the Cary, but I did not check with Cardas to verify this.

I did go so far as to buy a used RAL umbilical cord, that was used on a Supratek and according to RAL was also compatible with the Cary, but it did not fit, so I sent it back. At this point I'm just listening to the preamp with the stock umbilical, but upgraded tubes and power cord to the power supply. I have never actually heard an 'upgraded' umbilical cord.

I think a lot of people confuse the word "change" with the word "upgrade". So, you seek out some of the best equipment designed by the best engineers around, but you are not satisfied or you need a fix.

It is getting to the point that buying used equipment is very scary. Maybe it would be better to have sellers send equipment to the manufacturer. After the manufacturer has given the equipment a clean bill of health payment will be sent to the seller and the manufacturer can forward the equipment to the buyer.

Hello Rrog...thank you for your comment. I bought the Classe' CP-700 new and I am very satisfied with it and listened to some real good pre-amps prior to buying this one. The qustion that I proposed was ; ''the umbilical cord is only handling DC current ...right....and if you changed out the stock cord to another cord, would there be any sonic improvement ? '' Now, Classe' has already told me; no. There has to be somebody out there that has done this or also looked at this option who has some comments....and if someone was an actual electrical engineer said - your right, it is just DC current and the cord won't matter - there you have it ! Just looking form some input from others........

Also, nice to hear from you John!

Everything matters!

My preamp does not have an external power supply, but I used to use a Modwright Oppo 83 as my main source and it came with a separate power supply. I upgraded this umbilical cord and it was a significant improvement over the stock. I say go for it.