Power Cord for Power Conditioner

I have to disagree, Jeff, this thread can go on as long as there are two opposing viewpoints.

I personally don't expect you or any other person to experience what I experience, in my system and with whatever power cords I have at hand.

All I can do is relate my experiences to you and others.
Whether you believe them or not, that's not the issue.
I am not trying to impose my point of view on you.

But in the interest of equality and fairplay,you should afford me and the rest of us who do hear audible improvemnts the same courtesy.

In other words, I don't doubt that you can not hear the same things that I hear.
But you can't for certain deny that I can hear the things I claim to hear .

You should not be exempt from supplying the rest of us with the scientific proof that"I"can not hear what I claim to hear.
Is that not being fair?
Is this now putting the same burden of proof on the denier as it is on the believer?

You know I started in this hobby years ago, about 40.
I have also been a musician for close to 50 years.
I've got a pretty decent aural imprint of what music sounds like, from real up close on stage, and from a few feet away from my listening chair.

I don't claim to have any super ears(especially not in my advancing age)but the ears that I have were self taught to be able to distinguish certain things regarding music that perhaps lesser trained ears may not zero in on.

I don't claim to be better than you,or superior(as some folks may imply)I just can distinguish things that some folks may not, or have not been shown how to.

I was also mentored, by folks who knew more than i did in my early years.
They guided me and told me what to listen for and how to listen to music in critcial mode and to distinguish between that type of active listening to just passive, listening for entertainment sake.

I value the latter more than the former, but to really get the most enjoyment you have to start with critical listening.You have to have a foundation.

Which, if I am accused of anything related to beliefs, is believing that this is becoming a lost art.

So much is printed about how audio today is too fixated on the details etc, and that the essence of the music has been lost.That the gear from bygone eras is more akin to the real thing than what is hoisted upon us by the high end and all their shills(as some contemporaries of mine like to say) that old vintage gear should be all that anyone with a sane mind needs.

The rest of the stuff like expensive aftermarket power cords is just for show and to impress the "boys".

Well, that's not the reason I bought expensive power cords(yes the power cord to my DecWare amp costs twice as much as the amp), I bought the power cords(Shunyata, but try any of the others)because my ears heard the improvement.

What creeps me out, is that there are folks who say that I didn't hear those improvements in my system ,in my home and with my ears!

What science can back up those claims?

It's beyond the realm of any science I have ever read about.

More like the paranormal.

I have absolutely no problem with you believing what you want Lacee. I do have a problem being vilified because I don't.
But the burden of proof has to be on the person making the claim. If not anything could be true just because a few people say so.
Look at it from this point of view. There are thousands of religions in the world. If you believe in one all the others have to be wrong. There may be millions of people that think each one is the only one and they have proof and you are an idiot because you don't believe. You can't prove any of them are wrong. I can't prove the Easter Bunny doesn't exist but I am very doubtful. There must be some audio tweek you don't believe. Try and prove it's not true. So, my point is; the burden of proof has to be on the individual making the claim. So much in the audio world is driven by perception. How many times have you heard silver wire is brighter sounding than copper?
Unless you do true blind testing your claim can't be proven to me. Blind testing means you have to be able to choose the better power cord over 70 percent of the time without knowing which is connected. Try at least 10 times. True blind testing really means the person changing the PC shouldn't know either. But that's too difficult, so you not knowing is enough for me as long as there no visual or auditory .

But I'm not trying to prove it to you.

You are asking me to prove it to you.

There is a difference.

I am not seeking validation, or approval for that matter.

I am just stating what my ears are telling me.

I can never prove that my ears can hear things that yours may not.

I can only state that I hear, not believe ,that I hear improvemnts in power cords.

Stock power cords in my system and with my ears work.

There's no denying that fact.

You or others may prefer the sound of the stock cords to more expensive power cords.
That's no reflection on you or your taste.

You have a set of preferences, arrived at over time,for the sound of music in a hifi system.

That your preferences and mine should be the same, is as hard to get my head around as it is for you to think that one power cord can be different from another.

The stock power cord may emphaisi the bass,you may like that.
I may prefer a cord that emphaisies the treble detail.

No one is right no one is wrong, we can both agree.
We are talking about how to solve the debt crisis.

Audio is all about preferences and making choices that are dependant on having our preferances met.

If a stock power cord ticks all the right boxes for you, who am I to say that you are incorrect, or need to buy specialty cables?

I have no right to do so, nor is it my intent to persuade you to change your way of thinking and come over to "myside'.

There really shouldn't be any sides in this hobby .

No one should have to prove or disprove anything to anyone.

All the proof I need from you is that you enjoy the sound of your system using the gear that you chose to do the job .In other words, your system meets your expectations, and you are happy.

All the rest of us with aftermaket cords, fuses, etc, really want is to be able to express our experiences without being condemned or forced to prove them.

If we have found something that meets or exceeds our expectations and we are happy, and we haven't asked you to foot the bill, then why do you feel we need to provide some kind of proof for our happiness?

If I find something that has improved my system and want to share the experience with someonelse who may also try the item, where;'s the harm in that?

In my mind that's trying to further the hobby, it has hidden agenda, there's no monetary gain in doing so for me.

The only thing in it for me is the satifaction of someonelse discovering that the item did work for them too.

I fail to see what benefit it is to anyone who constantly denies that some things in audio can make a difference and make an improvemnt in sound and enjoyment.

Like I said 40 years I got into this hobby because of my love for music.
And to this day, it's still the reason I look for things to increase that enjoyment.

But then I am old and perhaps out of fashion.

I just took my BMI Hammerhead MK5 power cord over to a friends house and without him knowing I swapped his Analysis Plus power oval with my BMI on his amp. I had his wife take him out of the room for a minute and told her I had a surprise for him. When he came back into the room he asked what was going on. I didn't say a thing and hit play on his cdp. He just sat there and listened to a song that he has heard a million times and just laughed and said what are you doing? He didn't notice a thing until the middle of the song and then it hit him. Back up vocals kicked in and he said ok what just happened here? Is this a different cd? Is this a high rez cd or something? Then his wife spoke up and said ok what did you do to the stereo system it sounds a lot better. I reached under the couch and pulled his old power cord out and held it up and said I just swapped a power cord out. My friend got up and played the song again and was amazed with the differences. He said I did not notice at first because I really was not paying attention for a couple of minutes and then I realized I had heard something in the song that I had not heard before or it was masked. I then had his wife take him out of the room again and when he came back in I hit play and he said it sounds the same. why is that? I said I didn't do anything but made you believe I was going to and you noticed zero change. This experience has made him a bigger believer in power cords and there ability to change the musical enjoyment. The biggest change came when we were able to swap out his cord on the cdp. However, I don't think his wife is going to let him buy another power cord for a while. In the end I was the bad guy.

Lacee: I think perhaps that it would be more correct to say that it is beyond the realm of science available to the audio industry. Keep in mind that science costs money. If you have a couple million bucks and a climate controlled facility (few million more) you can measure several hundred channels of information down to the pico/femto level at many gigahertz. Problem is that this costs more than the small/medium guys can afford and the big players like Sony dont want to spend the money for such a limited use. Now that said these test machine vendors only spec the gauge of power cord (large, to handle 480 3-phase -most of them that is) and not the vendor or characteristics. Implies that either the cord does not matter or that the power systems are designed to make the cord not matter. The latter would explain much of the hear vs. not hear argument. Personally I'm open. I thought speaker cables were bunk until I tried one with a good recording. I thought usb cables were bunk until I got to try several on a really good system. Now I'm gonna keep my mouth shut because I dont know as much as I thought!