Why does an audiophile grade power cord matter?

No doubt in my mind that a PC makes a difference. You must have good plugs too AND replace that cheap contractor grade outlet.

For your Memorial Day enjoyment.....

One day there will be a measurement that will explain why power cords "can" change the sound (theories have sprouted). It will come as a surprise and there will still be disbelievers.

Similar to the distortion spec race back in the 70's.....

Amps, back when, had 1% distortion. Now that's High Fidelity!!!!!
Better amps came along that had half that, then a tenth of a % and life was good. Of course an amp with 10 times less distortion is going to sound better. Right??? :-)

Then, with gobs of "negative feedback" (the circuit, not the reputation, smile), we now have amps with .005%. They are the best of course because they have a thousand times less distortion. :-)

But then life got confusing when tube amps made a comeback and sounded better (some think) yet had 100 times "more" distortion. WTF??? Then a Civil War broke out (well, not so civil) between the "spec" believers and the "ear" believers.

"But" (the pause, not the pa-donka-donk one) then a new measurement came along that showed us amounts of odd and even ordered distortion and, as it turns out, the dreaded "higher order" distortion.

It didn't end the war but a lot of middle ground was formed. We still have polar opposite extremists, I suppose to keep the force in balance (you don't mess with the force!). Like the icecaps, they seem to be shrinking in size though.

Open mind = nice.
Fertile mind = not so much.

I also have a 1U Furman Elite 15 I bought back in 2004 which all these pc's are plugged into.

My Bryston owner's manual says to plug the amp directly into the wall that one of these power filter/conditioners will not improve the sound?

Photonman,

I would tend to agree with Bryston about plugging your amp directly into the wall. Amps have some pretty good filtering already BUT there is always a chance that "your" electricity and/or environment may be so bad the it "could" benefit by being in the Furman. I really doubt it but you can't damage anything by trying both ways and see/hear what's best.

The Pangea 9 is a 7 gauge cable and very heavy. Make sure that both ends are not going to strain what they are plugged into.

Photonman - when current is dumped from the amplifier to the load, the amplifier reserve has to be re-charged, and the quicker it can be re-charged the faster it can dump current. This is the reason a power cord matters. Audition a high silver content conductor, and for sure the geometry has to be twisted to prevent RF.

More surprisingly, and I'm not sure how this works yet, try placing a VPI brick near your outlet where your audio power cords enter the wall. Have someone move the brick away while you are listening, and then move it back to the floor approximately 6" away from the outlet. Hear the incredible change in the sound stage. Don't know why it happens but boy is it an eye opener. While I agree with plugging a power amp directly into the wall - it appears some kind of filtering is advised. The VPI brick won't affect high current flow and seems to improve the situation somewhat. But this is why they sell $6000 power conditioners I'm sure. (Not that I can afford one.)

As onemug states - all of this is probably greatly affected by the quality of your power. I live in an apartment in NYC :-(.