No, the current radio frequency podcast also touches power cords and why they shouldn’t be discussed in a serial kind of way (house cabling is so long, why does a 5 ft power cord matter etc.).
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I’ll bet it is less audible (or inaudible?) noise so your ears and brain dont have to do as much “sorting” if that makes any sense at all.
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That could be some of it. I have also added a 3M AB 7050HF RF EMI absorber to top of P20. It must be soaking up RF from the display or the P20s class D amp HF noise. That curiously makes both the Dragon and the BAV cable sound better related to noise floor.
The P20 capacitor banks are a lot smaller than my mono amps’s capacitors which can supply more current solo than a P20 and I am still using an old school plasma TV. Plus whole system and LPS which can put the P20 closer to its volt amp limit. Thus Galen’s hypothesis that supplying more volt amps to the P20 since I am drawing it down faster. But doesn’t explain sound difference at lower volumes between both cables.
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Current without the load is meaningless. Be careful with that. An amplifier into eight ohms better be able to deliver high amperage. We swap current for voltage.
If you use silver,or any conductor material, wire’s resistivity properties and skin depth calculation, you can duplicate copper’s known electrical in a cable. That leaves the wire’s EM field issues, and that is time based, that have to be responsible for what we “hear” as the signal. No math supports any wire sound claims made to date, everything is a flat out guess as to why.
Current is hardly an issue for mids on up at any volume above about 2 KHz as most of the current, four-fifth or more, is distributed to the woofer through the cross-over. A power supply can easily handle that load.
An amplifiers slew rate is VERY fast, way faster than a speakers ability to move a diaphram. If we load an amplifier with too much capacitance, it can store and release energy at the wrong time and create ringing and overshoot…sometimes considered “bright”. Usually negative feedback helps this stability greatly but impacts time based complex signals like music over a single tone. Still, some feedback makes inexpensive amps sound far better than they did before for the money. That’s a good thing.
The P20 isolates it’s power cord and the WALL with an independent AC supply and increases the peak VA with a power supply capacitive reserve. If the P20, or any of the series, isn’t doing the job it is supposed to do, and that is deliver AC through a low impedance output with a peak VA reserve in excess of the wall’s on transients I’m worried!
We know the P20 works, we can watch the output voltage real time.
Best,
Galen Gareis
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Are you suggesting perhaps the Dragon cable is loading the system with capacitance perhaps?
There is a greater sense of presence. If it is ringing it doesn’t appear objectionable
Or were referring to some other way my system is configured?
Iam trying to learn and thanks for sharing your inputs and knowledge.
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No not all that is the power cable, adding capacitance, through a P20 or a direct attach cord to the amps. Any good power supply isolates the “wall” from your stuff. That includes the power cable. The power supply sends pure DC through the system. It isn’t AC until it goes through the analog stages that are powered by a DC voltage from the power supply. DC has no sound, or it better not because then it isn’t DC…the life blood of all your equipment. does this mean a power cord can’t influence “sound” per say other than the ground plane issues? Yes. DC is DC. If a power supply can’t reject RF, you have a bad design as RF is obviously not DC.
Where capacitance is a problem is hooked up to amplifier outputs, which oscillate loaded with too high a capacitance.
Higher capacitance in a power cord isn’t a big problem if you consider the total parallel capacitance in the wall ROMEX. Not that you ignore it, but at a 60 Hz line frequency stuff happens relatively slowly and it is a steady state “signal” once a device is turned on. The reactance at frequency is pretty perdictable.
Capacitive reactance = 1/2*(pie)fC. “f”, frequency, is getting small compared to RF frequencies and can see that capacitive reactance is inversely proportional to the signal frequency.
We are holding a steady state VOLTAGE so the reactance to voltage change is actually good. Resisting a voltage change is what a good power supply does, and allows CURRENT to flow as needed. That’s what we want. This is also how the P20 stores energy…capacitors. They resist voltage change and help deliver current since a capacitor by design is a poor inductor and inductors resists current flow! We have an overall reactance that HOLDS voltage and delivers decent current…for a while anyway. How does this work with the math?
The inductive or current reactance is XL = 2*(pie)fL. So inductive reactance goes DOWN as frequency drops. XL is directly proportional to signal frequency and we do ideally deliver a variable current flow but at a set voltage. We want current to be free flowing. Lower frequencies allow lower resistance / reactance to current.
Resistance and inductive reactance are important. Not so much capacitance in AC lines @ 240 or 120 volts and at 50 or 60 Hz respectively. The power supply adds LOTS of capacitance over and above the supplied cabling! Clearly we like capacitive reactance in our power supplies to deliver great stable DC that isn’t modulated with variable current demands. If the Vcc DC supply to analog circuit blocks changes in the time domain, we add DISTORTION to that stage. Gain is now not dynamically linear.
That’s the tech we can measure and design to.
Best,
Galen Gareis
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Is my trusted SignalCable MagicPower cord in the end just a toy that makes me think I subconsciously hear the music better?
Joking, but really, is it “low end”?
Proof is to your own ears and points of reference. Not all systems likely respond in the same manner to same power cord swaps.
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Well, I’m sure a dual-mono amp with two huge 650VA transformers and 80A peak current is quite happy with a simple but well constructed 10AWG cord.
No reference. Would like to try palladium… Dreaming…
An approximation, maybe weak maybe not, would be your 10 gauge cord with either Oyaide 004 or M1/F1 connectors. Bother are palladium over platinum over a copper beryllium base/substrate.
Elk, if I’m straying from these most recent posts…
You’d say palladium makes notable difference at just the connector end?
Okay, palladium wire wouldn’t be very affordable.
No, not necessarily. You raised the question about palladium and I was just pointing out two connectors from Oyaide that I’ve owned and have been happy with that use it as the outer plating.
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I took advantage of a great trade-in promotion offered by Audience; 90% of the value of old for new.
I traded the AU24SX powering my P20 for their Front Row. Wow. Power cables, baby. Last 6 feet/first 6 feet, whatever, what an improvement!
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In my system power cables are as important as interconnects and speaker cables, I think PC on the generator is even more important than any other cables!
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I was very proud of making the Aliexpress Odin2 cord sounding much better by adding $800 of Furutech F50 NCF plugs to it. I have been using it at the streamer to replace previously proud Mod Purist Audio cord. It sounds better.
ZenWave cord at P15 created a chain reaction of power cord relocation. Eventually I moved the AQ Dragon Source to the streamer.
So you want to know how the Mod Odin2 cord compared to Dragon? No contest! Dragon trashed it. Even my daughter said the sound from streamer sounded a lot quieter. That was the first time that I have ever heard from her using an audiophile term. 
yeap, the Mod ordin is serving the switch now. It replaced another Mod Odin but with F48 plugs. I am not sure if it sounds better with F50, and I don’t care.
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