The analogy I use for power cords has to do with our residential water supply. The usual argument made by power cord naysayers is what difference does the last 6’ make when the electrical power has already travelled perhaps hundreds of miles to reach you? My response has been do you treat the water entering your home or apartment with a filter on your kitchen water faucet or perhaps a whole home water softener?
Some reports to the contrary, while I have used various Cat 5 and Cat 6 Ethernet cables I’ve found that using Cat 7 or Cat 8 cables, even very inexpensive ones such as Monoprice Cat 8 or inexpensive Pangea Cat 7 do indeed make a difference and a positive one going from my X1 router to my Oppo 105D and DS DAC.
My opinion is based just on what I hear but I was wondering if there were any technical reasons why it might be so.
I have been listening to mine for three hours now. I really like it a great deal. My wife is leaving for four nights so I intend to really like it a whole bunch while she is gone.
I am going to fire up my Pink Faun and see if I have been fooling myself. I do that from time to time.
I think this time I am not though.
I will say having to transfer 7TB of data over Ethernet is a long slog. I wish they would trust end users and allow external drives to copy to the internal drive. They make the external drives read only to protect silly customers from losing precious data. They don’t allow copying from them. I plan to address this with them. But really, once the data is on the internal drive it’s a non issue.
MU1 is a serious Roon core/server/streamer at half the cost of 2.16 Ultra or a third of the cost of Bel Canto Black ASC2 Dual Mono Dac, yet sounding more like top notch analogue. I regret not buying the MU1 when my dealer recommended it. I went on to buy a Nucleus+, LPS, Matrix, dedicated music server, etc. MU1 could have done the whole thing in one box, one bill. PCM, when done well can make anybody happy. I am slowing things down now, but keeping an eye on both MU1 and Tambaqui.
I realize I’m likely in the minority…. I’ve found power cables a complete waste of money. High-end power cables have thicker plug tines which makes up for peoples overused, crummy cheap duplex outlets, and in some cases undersized cable.
There is a benefit in many cases to installing hospital grade outlets with the 2x beefy copper and tighter crimp for the plug.
The only electrical improvement that had ever made a material improve was replacing old cheap receptacles and the PS Audio Regenerator.
There are unlimited number of people who will stand on their head turning blue about how an expensive 3’ power cord made a sonic improvement.
A very good friend bought a high-end power cable and thought it made a difference. I replaced his receptacle with a $40 hospital model and used my standard off the shelf heavy gauge power cable that ships with Pass Labs gear and it was indiscernible to him blind testing.
A good theory. But fails to explain why changing a power cord connecting a LPS to a P20 regenerator changes sound in my system. Maybe your friends system is not improved with cord. There is so much variation and variety in peoples systems and theory can be true based on where it is trialed. That is what makes this hobby fun.
Sometimes there’s simply just a problem with the power cord itself. Faulty crimp or solder joint from the stranded wire or mechanical issue at either end of the cord. I’ve had power cords go bad. There’s a reason why most of them are replaceable. Just try a new heavy gauge quality cord.
I believe that power cords can/do make a significant improvement in sound, but right now I am focused on getting the equipment into my house—wires can/will come later if I sense things are missing.
The problem with ANYTHING perceptively changing the sound is just that - “perceptively.” It’s impossible to REALLY know how much of what one hears is actually differences in what the ear is receiving versus what the brain is interpreting from the signals it is receiving from the ear.
I’m not going into psychoacoustics here, as it would be impossibly long, but needless to say, what a person PERCEIVES to be hearing at any given moment is a combination of what is ACTUALLY heard plus how the brain is interpreting it.
Using another analogy that more people might be familiar with - sight. Because what one “sees” is affected by similar eye/brain interaction as hearing. I point to the now infamous white dress with gold stripes or blue dress with black stripes. What one sees is a combination of what the eye sees plus how the person’s brain interprets the image.
I’m NOT saying perceived differences in audio is bunk. I am in the camp of many things can affect sound. I am just saying, using the current example of power cords, what one hears (or doesn’t hear) isn’t necessarily what one ACTUALLY hears (or doesn’t hear).
I also stand by previous comments a high-end power cable sounds better if:
The old cable was internally unknown as defective
Gauge was undersized for current required
Or the usual cause, fattened larger mechanical connection points resolve grip issues with cheap/old receptacle
Poor mechanical connections, internal cable issues, undersized cables all degrade audio quality. Install a hospital grade outlet and use a large gauge quality commercial off the shelf power cable is a proper fix.
Your house has a mile of RomEx and likely 100-200 feet of it from the breaker panel to the outlet, yet there is the religious praying to the 3’ power cord gods.
The points you raise are valid but IMHO not the be all and end all to explain why power cords sound different. Metallurgy and the cable’s physical design are just two other factors that also come into play. Respectfully we’ll have to agree to disagree.
My personal experience is the power cords matter a lot. In fact, a few of mine made more differences than even interconnects!
But this subject has been debated forever because it is one of those things that can not be measured nor done by blind test. Has anyone tried a blind test on tasting vegetables and ingredients? Very few can tell the difference without seeing the subjects. Human brain has such short memory and doubt in senses which makes short A/B test itself pretty much useless.
But I only heard people on the non-believing sides became believers, never the other way.
With my recent upgrade to the Shunyata Research Denali 6000/s v2 Power Distributor along with 3 Alpha v2 NR’s and 1 Alpha XC v2 power cords running my entire system… it has never sounded so good. Period! Getting rid of any residual ac noise riding along on the incoming ac into your system is one of the biggest upgrades that can be had for a more engaging listening experience top to bottom. Once you have that cleansing ability in your system…there’s never going back to that music killing noise again…
Agree, conditioning and/or cleaning the AC power frequently does have a positive impact on audio reproduction quality. My own recent experience with a newly acquired PS Audio Regenerator was fairly obvious to the listeners in our home.
Hifi power cords usually fix an underlying problem not related to 3’ of overpriced stranded wire.
Sometimes people intentionally use an undersized power cable to drive a particular sound, it it will impact the sonic signature. The guitarist Eric Johnson for example, intentionally plugs his amplifier into the wall with a lamp cord because he likes the strained distorted sound it gives him for some of his tracks.
How did this Sunlight sound impressions get so off track that it has become a cable war. Try to stay on topic. Just because you have a firm opinion on the merits of cables does not mean anyone else cares what that opinion is!
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