Power Cord for Power Conditioner

In skimming the detailed arguments about power cords, I have not noticed anyone addressing the issue of the quality of the power line behind the electrical outlet. One might spend hundreds on a nifty power cable, but its merits may be moot if the AC feed in the wall is insufficient or degraded.

Having re-wired several photo studios and my own 99-year-old house, I can comfortably warn you folks that you MAY be wasting money on a limp piece of 6-foot cable, when you should be putting your dough into upgrading the line from the service panel to your listening area. I am not denying that some people can hear differences in cables: I'm simply suggesting there might be other ways to upgrade before you jump into wasting money on power cables.

For starters, upgrading the service panel itself may improve things. Beyond that, we are all at the mercy of our local power companies who control the size and quality of lines between the ultimate source - which might by miles away - and our buildings.

Numerous things can degrade the quality and integrity of power between the service panel and the listening room outlet: cable age, cable size, length of cable run, cable kinks, additional loads between the service panel and your listening room (anything with motors, such as wine coolers and dehumidifiers play havoc), proximity to aberrant and spurious radio frequency signals, even the quality of connectors within junction boxes and the grade of the outlet itself.

I've not even addressed the problem of hum-induced polarity amongst various components - but that's for another forum.

Only after you have looked into these issues and eliminated possible causes of power degradation should you begin to consider putting 10% of your equipment budget into a stupid power cable! Once you fix any problems mentioned, you might find a generic power cable works just fine, so long as its rating matches that of your conditioner and equipment.

Tarjin, No question, for those that are able to have over-rated dedicated lines installed that should always be the priority, before power distribution or after-market power cords are considered. Having two separate 20A dedicated lines is a great base-line because you increase current availability for the system from 15A or 20A to 40A and you can isolate high-current (amps) from low-current electronics on separate lines. Ground loop hum can be avoided by making sure each AC line is of equal distance going back to the panel (this avoids impedance to ground differential that causes hum). For those with dedicated lines, the benefits of decent power-ditribution and AC cords becomes even more noticeable than for those without. This can be explained.

Regardless of whether there are dedicated lines installed or not, whatever the available peak-current measurement is at your wall outlet, you will lose in the neighborhood of 50% of peak current and voltage going through a cheap 14,16 or 18 gauge power cord. There are several reasons for this. Primary among them are the way molded cords are terminated and their insufficient gauge.

Stock AC cords are not crimped or soldered at either end. The blades behind the AC pins in molded cords merely cut through the insulation and scarcely make contact with the wire. This is fine if you are powering a toaster or a light, but AV electronic power supplies pull power dynamically off the peak and trough of the wave-form. Contact integrity at the initial outward AC junctions of an amp for instance, is of paramount importance to preserving peak-current availability to the rectifiers. The longer the rectifiers stay open in order to fill storage caps, the greater potential for high-frequency noise contamination to the power supply (that part is educated theory).

AC delivery to AV gear is a dynamic, two-way process. Components don't sit at the end of a power hose. They represent the inception of an electrical interface. Therefore, near field contact integrity matters as much as contact points and over-rated AC mains downstream from the system.

Large amounts of money need not be spent to make power cord connections with electronics better. There are less expensive DIY options using good connectors and 12 gauge or better wire. There are also less expensive commercial power cords available that don't cost "hundreds of dollars" from any number of companies. This isn't to say that the only purpose of a better power cord is to improve peak-current transfer, but because stock cords are SO poor at this one aspect, it is a fundamental reason people report hearing improvements when using them.

None of this is meant to infer that after-market cords are more critical than dedicated lines; they are not. However, if you consider AC delivery from a "system" approach, power cords are the first outward link in your AC chain, not the last. Whatever sits behind your wall, whatever it might be, is what it is. Better to have a decent cord to the amp (at least) than to measurably lose 50% of whatever peak-current you have available at your outlet. By the way, that is also a reason to spend $25 on a Hubbel 5362 spec grade outlet than the el-cheapo hardware-store special. Huge difference in metal to metal contact area eliminates still more points of near-field resistance.

Hope that clears up more of the "mystery"

Regards,

Grant
Shunyata

I have three dedicated lines,two 30 amp and one 20 amp.

I run less than ten feet of 10 guage Romex to two Shunyata receptacles and one FIM.The panel is in my dedicated listening room, no HT., only 2 channel.

I use 3 Annaconda power cords and one Python CX, and use Shunyata Hydra 2 and 8.Also one DIY power cord using the top of the line Furutech recptacles and wires.

My sound has improved,and I don't need to have any measuring devices to prove by how much.
My best indicator is that I listen a lot longer, and my grin is perhaps wider than before I started cleaning up my power.
I should also add that I use HiFi Supremme fuses in all my electronics.

Yes power is a big deal to me.

It never used to be,I was unaware of how much it matters, and I never used power conditioners or upgraded power cords never mind dedicated lines, up until about seven years ago.

But I was happy,and used to scoff at the high cost of this stuff and the claims that were made about it.Things sounded great to my ears.In this case,my ears were playing tricks on me.Or perhaps I had just convinced myself that this was as good as it gets.I think we are all guilty of that from time to time.
Sometimes you need to be exposed to better sounding systems to really get a take on what you are missing out on.

For example,when I heard what paying attention to these things could do for the very first time.

I have a friend with some very expensive electronics and speakers .His system always was way above the rest of our group of audiophile friend's set ups.In fact the total cost of our gear wouldn't come close to his system, and we have some respectable products.
One evening it was sounding even better to all of us,yet nothing we could see had changed.

When pressed for an answer my friend revealed his use of Shunyata power cords and conditioning and a new dedicated line just for the electronics.

This was quite a number of years ago, and at first I thought such improvements would only be noticed on systems costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, as I had just experienced.

After borrowing some of the power cords and conditioners from a Shunyata dealer, I discovered that even a system much humbler could also benefit from improving the power to the gear.

And so began my journey, starting at the panel and ending at the fuse.

In my experience everytime you do something to improve the delivery of power to your gear, the sound improves along with it.
And having said that, it's cumulative.

Take one of the links out of the chain, anywhere in the chain, and the sound will not be as good as when all the pieces fit.
They work together and now for me, are as important as the speaker amp link. To my ears, improving the power cords make more of an audible improvement than spending large on upscale interconnects and speaker wires.

I presume that some folks think the substitution of a single power cord is all they need to do and if that doesn't knock their socks off they think it's all bunk.

A single power cord will improve the sound of what it's connected to, but you still have other gear in the chain.
If that gear uses standard plugs and receptacles and non dedicated lines,then the improvemnt that a single power cord makes will be less pronounced.

This is my take on why some folks are so anti power cord,they just don't go far enough.

If you can't afford to replace all your power cords with top grade ones, then the next best thing to do is make your own,using decent wire and nice upgraded plugs,make them all the same and upgrade your wall receptacles to at least Hubell industry or hospital grade.

If you then notice an improvement(and you should even at such a modest cash outlay)then you'll understand that taking it to the next level isn't just the stuff of fairy tales.

You can quit there or go forward and spend what you like.

Hi all ! Hate to sound a little harsh here...but anyone who cant hear a change in powercords is wasting their money. I would recommend they go buy an all-in-one system and cut their losses . Btw , I live in the Tampa Bay area...any nay sayers can PM me and I can prove it. (just dont ask WHY IT WORKS , I dont know) brad

Bradluke0 - Noticed on a couple of other posts that you are also concerned about cable resonances if cable elevators are not spaced correctly and believe that cables have a grain structure which dictates a best direction for the cables.
It is your privilege to believe what you wish, but sometimes when the listening results are consistently outside of the boundaries of explanation it might be worth re-evaluating the listening methods.