I used to have a colleague who was fond of trekking the story that even he got married, he and his wife settled for an amount of pocket money for him out of the household budget. Unfortunately, he didn’t negotiate for yearly indexation. This way, he could get away with any suggestion for an unforeseen expense. Always with that triumphfant smile, telling this.
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I don’t know if we know. I think his side job is at DePaul then he still tours and Kyomi Audio is a side job/hobby. There is no doubt he only curates audio equipment that sounds as close to real music playing live and that equipment has a substantial price. Jamie Audio Experience and George at Kyomi are only 25 minutes apart so I’m very lucky I could be at either within an hour of my house and hear reference quality Ultrafi.
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So basically the placebo effect in reverse. You strongly believe there should be no differences in power cords, therefore that is what your ears/brain perceive.
Audio components run from DC power, not AC. Inside your amp, DAC or whatever component you are using, there is an AC to DC converter. If noise is making it from the AC side to the DC side, then your device is a poor design or there is something wrong with it. The power cable is not the solution to a poorly designed component. If you heard an improvement in sound, wether real or imaginary, maybe look at how well your component was designed.
Just out of curiosity, this past year I sought and and tabulated many polls taken from the Internet, some of the polls from reputable sites like Steve Hoffman. I don’t know if ASR had a poll so I did’t pull any finding from there.
Some of the polls indicate 1 in 3 claim power cords make a difference, other forums give it 1 in 4, and in all fairness, I found a poll that was almost evenly split that power cords make a difference.
This is only my opinion and I’m not forcing it onto anyone. YMMV.
A well expressed opinion if that’s what you believe. Thanks for sharing.
I personally don’t agree, but I respect your opinion.
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I have not spent a ton in power cables. But I have a few good rest are Pandora and work very well.
It may not be a power cable but I just upgraded my USB from silver sphere to silver 8. And with only 5 hours on it I would call it smoother.
So in the end when you hit a certain point I think these things make a difference. Again IMO.
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Well there could be some truth to the statement that properly designed gear is not vulnerable to AC noise. I believe Jay of Jay’s Audio Lab discovered that his ultra expensive Boulder amplifiers didn’t benefit much if at all from expensive power cords. But in this example we’re talking about gear north of 100K, of which I have no personal experience with.
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ASSUMING that components in a higher range (priced over 100KU$ so to speak but not necessarily) might be immune to different cables because of their specific internal design (frankly I never had the opportunity to test personally), it means that components under that range/price might benefit from different cables. And probably at a different degree components in a much lower range might be less prone to benefit from them too. Different leagues, different ways to respond.
The championship where I use to play brings me to a conclusion, it works for me.
I tend to consider cables, fuses and tubes as essential parts of a specific component, able to be configured in the same way as car optionals: leather, navigator, air conditioning, lane assistant, stop and go and cruise control, connectivity… all things that can change my driving experience!
The big difference in stereo gear is that I can always choose configuration and optionals not only when I purchase a component. And IMO it’s an enjoyable and amazing part of this hobby.
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I have only heard of non-cable believers turn into cable believers (or fanatics in my case); I have never heard of the other way around. I personally believe power cords make as much difference as any other type of cable, if not more.
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And you are still waiting for a Omega USB to change your order of importance in cable championship!
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I was at an Audioquest power cord demonstration 4 years ago. I got into the room about 20 minutes after they started, and they started playing music soon after I arrived. The chairs in the room were mostly taken, so I stood further back, and positioned myself at the center axis of the room. They put on a female vocal track, let us listen for a minute, put the song on pause, switched off the power amps, switched the power cords, turned the amps back on, and continued the music. With the 1st power cord in the system, everything sounded fine, with good bloom to the female vocals. With the 2nd power cord, the music sounded cleaner, but with less bloom. I preferred the 1st over the 2nd. They then paused the music again so that power cords could be switched again, and with the 3rd set of power cords the vocals sounded cleaner like the 2nd, but with a similar vocal bloom as the 1st power cord. The 4th power cord sounded smoother than the others, but could not fully compare vocal bloom as that later part of the song was different than the earlier parts of the song. Turns out that #1 was the stock power cord, #2 was Audioquest’s lower cost power cord, #3 was their medium price level and #4 was their most expensive. I saw other people in the room who sat far off to one side of the room and behind other attendees that blocked a clear sonic path to the speakers and they claimed to not hear any difference between the power cables.
I went in to the demonstration with no pre-determined bias either for being able to hear a difference or against being able to hear a difference. I’ve been in other demonstrations by other vendors where I was not able to hear any differences with the product they were selling, though I admit that standing at the back of the room or off to the sides was not ideal for hearing the differences they were demonstrating in those other rooms. I’ve been in demonstrations with $100,000+ speakers and have been blown away with certain kinds of music being played and being completely disappointed with other types of music on the same impressive speakers/system. I’ve been in demonstrations with a pair of $1000 speakers and have been blown away. I’ve been to demonstrations with Sony speakers, expecting them to not sound good and being completely blown away and impressed with their smooth sound. Trained audiophiles are a hard group to please. We are continually evaluating our own systems, adjusting speaker location, modifying listening chair location, rearranging furniture, adjusting speaker toe-in, trying different audio interconnect and speaker cables and power cords, anything to get that last ounce of sound from the systems we have. We are also seeking out great sounding music of great performances, and we like to hear all the improvements others describe, and we can tell when someone isn’t telling the truth (sometimes others will describe the sound of certain items in relation to something else, and we instinctively know something’s not right).
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I agree that in theory it can be handled in the power supply. But no manufacturer adequately does for cost reasons unless you spend six figures like in the Boulder anecdote.
So we modify what we can with inferior electronics like 99.6% of the audio universe is, and settle for better power cords.
If we all had 400 lb and $150k Boulder amps, then yeah, power cords don’t matter, just use the stock one at 2 inch diameter, haha
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Steve Hoffman has said many times on his site that power cords can make a difference in sound.
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I didn’t give you Steve Hoffman’s opinion. I’ll spell it out slowly. I went to a variety of sites that had poles. One of those sites was Steve Hoffman’s. If you are familiar with a ‘pole’, it is like a vote where members or frequenters of a site cast a vote. It has nothing to do with Steve Hoffman or his opinions unless you think he intentionally sensors his viewers.
There are a compelling number of ‘nays’ stacked up against the ‘yays’ that I don’t feel so alone in my position.
Back to your OP, I have a strong belief based on science backed up buy thousands of people over many years that share the same view.
Drawing on what I have accumulated over a 20-year history in IT, I have power cords almost as thick as broom handles used to power large enterprise data servers. I even have a pair of cables from a large power backup system that must have 10 ga wire as the overall cable is larger than the 12 ga cables. I experimented with these cables in my Mc preamp and amp with no noticeable difference
I bet most of the people in the polls never even tried high end power cords.
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Safe bet,and makes one wonder what the system consists of in general.
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Well said
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OMG I wish I didn’t hear differences in power cables. I could buy a new component or two if I didn’t and hadn’t begin experiencing different power cords.
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Anecdotal reports of yeah or nay do not establish whether power cords make a discernible difference or not.
The variety of opinions only point to a tweak which might increase your enjoyment of your system. Of course, if one is convinced a power cord cannot possibly make no difference, do not waste your time and money on one.
There is no right or wrong, just a variety of approaches.
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