What powercords do you use? Stock, middle budget aftermarket, best you can afford?

Haven't tried any aftermarket power cords yet, but haven't ruled it out either. Seems counterintuitive to have miles of wire outside home, many feet of wire between breaker box and outlet, and expect the last 2-5 ft of cord outside of wall make that much difference in what goes into speakers, your ears. But if you consider the last few feet can be a filter of sorts to take the power input and filter it in some way, then I start to consider yes, could make an auditory difference. But then this line of thinking doesn't say much for the filtering portion internal to the devices we're plugging in though does it? Would suggest these amps and other audio electronics have power filtering circuits that are not very effective in doing what they are supposed to do.

We'll see.

 

Just a thought(and in no way intended to be a "smartarse")....could it be that the Uk power grid is better than the U.S equivalent? Whilst interconnects are featured strongly in most of the widely read Hi-Fi magazines in Blighty, there is rarely a section devoted to power cords. The occasional "conditioner" block, but rarely anything else.

 

Intuitively, it doesn't make any seance to me either. If spending thousands of dollars on a new piece of gear, why wouldn't they give you the cable that would make it work the best? If the equipment is getting the electricity it needs to operate, what more could you ask for? I do not have these answers but I have found that the $.40 stock cables that come with equipment can be beat without much investment. It's weird but it works.

 

Perhaps they don't know they can? If say a manufacturer of $3k amps knew they could buy these power cords in bulk for pennies to include with their amps:
Crystal Cable Ultimate Dream and Siltech Triple Crown - The Audio Beat - www.TheAudioBeat.com »
Someone should let them know.

 

I sympathize with the skeptics - I was once one too, especially when it came to power cables and the like. As I detailed in this thread, the improvements gained from a relatively high end power cable were clearly noticeable. Even neutral participants (my wife and son), who were forced to do some comparative listening, agreed unanimously that there was a difference in sound quality.

Cable used: Transparent Premium Powerlink.

 

I used to work for a technology company that serviced a lot of servers and computers. They had a massive inventory of power cables to the point where they would throw some away. I was able to find a few Volex power cables in the discarded pile and use them instead of stock. I do think there is a difference in audio quality with these cables. And they seem to be significantly better built than many stock cables. Other than this, I don't think I will be put any more focus on power cables. Instead I find room treatments are much better ROI.

 

Stock all the way baby!

 

Would if I could. $60 is the lowest price cable on there today, $15K at the other end of the spectrum.

 

You can get a Pangea AC-14 for as little as $30 and AC-14SE for $50 brand new. I'm not the biggest fan of Pangea but they're better than stock.

Amazon.com: pangea power cord »

 

There may be some truth to this observation. The power grid in the Northeastern part of the United States, which is about 60% of the country's population, is a complete and utter technological mess. Tons of noise on our lines in certain parts of the country.

It's a patchwork of networks that have been built up since the time of Edison and have never been completely rebuilt from the ground up. That is why countries with less technological progress often have newer, better infrastructure than the richest country on the planet. There is very little political will in tearing up our existing power infrastructure when it currently gets the job done.

 

The dU/dT limitations will always be at power transformer and power caps. That´s the reason for them getting a bit warm. Normally even rather thin power cords don´t get warm, which means they aren´t limiting the current.

 

Trying an inexpensive Pangea may not yield the benefits that a higher end cable yields, so it's difficult to draw conclusions. Could still be worth a shot. Borrowing a cable from a dealer for an in-home trial might be preferable (not everyone has one of these near by of course).

In any case, I happen to think that any improvements may not always be audible. As I mentioned, I currently run a Class A amp. I've upgraded the power cord before on a previous amp and did not hear the amount of change I do with this one. Unfortunately, it's the first amp I have used this cable on but I suspect that has a lot to do with it.

 

I ran a dedicated circuit direct from my main panel using 10 gauge wire to hospital grade outlets. I am also using hospital grade power cords, 14 gauge, to the equipment. Hospital grade cords really grip well into the hospital grade outlets so I feel pretty good about the connection. I do not know if it made any difference in sound, I started off just wanting clean power to my dedicated audio room. I have Less than $100 into the whole power project.

 

The last 2-5 ft of cord outside the wall is the first 2-5 ft of cord your gear interacts with, quality can make a difference.

 

And why is that? The last 10 miles or last 5 feet makes ZERO difference to a piece of equipment. What matters is proper line voltage which a power cord will not alter unless it's woefully too thin which unless the unit is from the 1970's or earlier the supplied cord should be of sufficient gauge, and clean power, which a power cord can not clean up, if anyone claims they can with power cord design it's just BS. It takes a lot more than fancy winding on a power cord to deal with dirty line voltages.

 

That's pretty much what we all thought, but there has been some nice work done by companies like Shunyata that show that there is more to the interaction between power supplies and the cord that connects to the outlet than was previously thought. It's not really about "dirty line voltages".

 

I agree and have two analogies:

Even very expensive cars don't come with tires that will let them work their best.

My expensive camera also did not come with the best accessory neck strap.

I suspect lots of product categories leave accessories or components sub-optimal with the intent that either the end user doesn't care, won't notice, or will care and notice and swap it out themselves. ESPECIALLY when what is best for an accessory is a matter of taste and trade offs. I don't know if you can get consensus on the best tires, neck straps, or power cords from any of their respective enthusiast groups.

 

Power cords are overrated !!!!!!!!

More important are power conditioners.

 

Of course Shunyata is going to say those things, they sell power cords.

 

Unless the power conditioner is very stout ($$$$$) most are actually going to actually limit the power to big power amps not being able to handle the heavy demands of a large amplifier, not a recommenced situation.

 

I don't see much if any value in these analogies.

Example, "expensive cars", and I'll assume we are talking about ultra high performance and not just mega expensive ones (where performance is not a main consideration), well those ultra high performance cars have tires that are many times if not always designed specifically for THAT car, needing ultra high speed ratings and such, I don't think a super car like a Bugatti Veyron would benefit from a "tire upgrade", I would guess in fact it is required to have the specific tires it came with with from the factory.

To compare these examples with a piece of audio equipment is useless. In this day and age audio component designers would certainly put more thought and design into the simple power cord if it truly had some level of reasonable sonic improvement value and/or could show marked improvement in the rated specifications/testing results of said component.

Instead the component designers already know chasing that is not going to do much if anything, hence no fancy weave garden hose size power cords come stock on most components, the power supply side of the component is designed around the component's circuitry and it's needs with consideration to the typical wall supply power, certainly the point of diminishing returns is a factor to keep costs in line with the component's target cost, so for example they are usually not going to put excessively larger than needed transformers, caps and such into a unit when the net results would be a higher price with little to no real improvement.

It is just so darn easy for us as humans to simply claim something improves sonics in an audio system, all you have to do is say it does, but in all honesty it is impossible to prove it in hard, factual evidence. It almost always turns this part of audio into a belief/trust thing which is never a good place to be when purchasing something.

The real hard cold fact is the chances of an owner of an audio component ever being able to perform a repeatable, foolproof listening test to truly verify the sonic improvement or degradation of a modification such as a power cord is zero. There are just too many other variables, the simple repeat-ability of the listener to be in the exact same listening position is one huge issue, just a slight changing of body posture, head tilt and such is going to make a fairly big difference in what the listener is hearing, so unless one has a device to clamp ones body and head in an exact repeatable position for listening all bets are off to the listening results tests of the modification as already there is a serious variable introduced into the "test".

And any test "proof" of improvements coming from any manufacturer of an item intended to modify a component such as a power cord has to be taken with a grain of salt as the manufacturer has a committed self interest to prove their product's value. They have one goal, sales of said product and they will do and say whatever they can to get a consumer to buy their product.

In not sure there is any other "hobby" that is as bad as audio is which is so fraught with countless spurious product claims that simply can't be proven to do what they are claimed to do.

 

I have listened to power cords from $200 to $8.000. No difference!!! But I could hear differences, when I used different power conditioners or power stripes.

A fat power cable just looks better as a thin stock cable.... must be better!

 

• BMI Whale Elite
• BMI Whale Supreme
• Shunyata Sidewinder

I have extensive experience with the Shunyata pcs; King Cobra, Cobra, Viper, Mamba, Sidewinder. The best cords I've used were the David Elrod cords [pictured].

No one in this thread uses Grover Huffman pcs? That would be my next pc upgrade on my line conditioner [for the stock Sidewinder].