Power cords - do they really make a difference, other than potentially reduce noise?

[muralman1]

Late to the party. I just have to repeat class D comes with it's own rules, and that no doubt is due to their peculiar construction. It is absolutely necessary to have fully shielded power cables. I don't know why, just that the difference is huge.

 

[tony ky ma]

In my experience power cord will change sound quality especially in analog and SE tube gear system, not because in noise is in emotion and more nature, the reason I guess is different construction of the cable hold different AC energy, big cap hold DC energy in power supply, different cap has different recover time that makes sound different, same thing happen to the power cord if they can supply AC energy fast enough will give better sound. maybe you can try this for prove, add a big enough isolate transformer to your power amp between wall outlet, you will notice that sound quality change, because the transformer holds AC energy there and supply the recover fast, bigger transformer get better sound of cause different conductor also makes different, silver wire is better in sounding, same matter of supply speed I believe
tony ma

 

[MylesBAstor]

I guess I can see some technical reasons, ie PC acting as filters to higher frequency junk riding in on the power lines and hence reducing stuff spewing about near your phono stages and your internal power supplies and blah blah.

However, not counting something obvious such as reversing the polarity of the plug (we knew about this in the seventies) or indirectly cleaning a poor contact or poorly welded connections in existing power cord or getting too close to your phone stage, then in my book we are looking at a

really nasty polluted incoming mains

or poorly designed/shielded (shielded, like for example in valves, all open to their surroundings or without proper filteration) audio equipment.

Why is it that everything is an improvement and why did we not hear the problem to start with? And why is it that this sort of thing technically would make an improvement hard for test gear to see yet in a room with plus and minus 12 db peaks and valleys and a sweet spot you need your head clamped in a vise to hear, this stuff makes huge improvements, and always improvements (OK, only 99.999999999999% of the time, hah).

nasty mains or poorly designed gear....

shoot me.

Simple. Everything in life comes to primitive patterns and survival whether it be auditory or motor skills. The ear is able to filter many things out and not until something better is presented, is a difference heard. Or as Jon Dahlquist observed, if a coloration is consistent over the audio spectrum, then the ear has a better chance of listening thru it unlike a distortion that appears at only a small range of the frequency spectrum.

 

[FrantzM]

Hi

I will quickly post this and retreat ...

If someone hear differences with any power cord well more power and happy listening to them ... and Please enjoy your new Cryo-treated OFC, silver-plated, nano-carbon-fiber sheathed Power Cord!!

However I must say that the drivel I read in the Lessloss web site should be enough to disqualify these people to obtain a business license .. Science is slaughtered, believability crucified and ethics .. ethics? is there such a word ? Man! What hogwash!! and yet, people buy their products despite all of this.


I am quickly out ...

 

[MylesBAstor]

The ear/brain inteface. That is where the magic happens most of the time. I agree about the filtering effect. I agree we can hear changes. I trust blind listening tests, when I do testing myself (you can repeat switch changes, etc, until you do not know the condition of the switch any more, and do sort of a single blind test...its common procedure) . It is disturbing to me to read at the lessloss website how you immediately hear the cable when you put it in, then after three days of burn in that last bit of grain is gone, and inbetween those two days how much more of every audiophile descripter you hear due to this change. Paaaleeeesse. It is also interesting that after viewing their "scientific" but basic treatise video on their cable, they can produce no testing results, yet they talk about two years some body worked to figure all this out.....was it all done in their head and with no scientific instruments, and if any were used, there were no results from them....paaleeesssee.

In well designed gear, whether interconnect, or audio component, and especially if you are charging thousands of dollars for it using the best components and engineering blah blah,then you are not going to improve the sound of the compoenent, only degrade it. Think about it. And lets not forget that the designer is probably on his 20th reference component....by that point the splitting of hairs must be past the ability of anyone to discern a difference. Bang, I shot myself on this topic. Cheers.

Let me ask you. Do also not believe that capacitors need time to burn in?

 

[FrantzM]

...and by the way, I bought the Lessloss PC from a fellow audio-circler for $300. Quite a deal eh Frantz?

es >. I wouldn't want to insult you and by now you should know it ... But let's be clear that such unethical behavior should not be encouraged... I am even willing to accept that their PC makes a difference ( Believe me this pains me to even write so... but in the name of good camaraderie , I will grant you that) but the rationale for the performance !!! Bovine Manure !! It's insulting ...
By the way you can tell they know how to sell and to feed off the interesting gullibility of us audiophiles...
I would suggest you to acquire a used double conversion UPS by APC you can find these for less than 1000 and such model would be capable of power in your entire system with no problem .. then report to us ... Please don't continue to put money in the pockets of such flim-flam artists...

 

[MylesBAstor]

Electrolytics for example, are never technically the same from each switch on of power. However, even though they produce distortion, virtually every recording you have heard is produced on gear full of electrolytics, and yes most dielectrics suffer from physical stresses in one way or another, but so does most every component, being that it is physical. Do you have any real technical evidence (from audio engineering society...peer approved) that one can hear a difference in a properly designed power cable after a few days?

I do not disavow that in a super noisy mains environment that a filtering type of power cable could help out by rejecting a lot of grunge that would come in on the supply line, but then if a component can not handle that then it is not reference quality to start with. Given a really nasty electrolytic, used without proper forming voltage, and with the right input frequencies, you can measure the distortion difference. It has been done, in the seventies IIRC.

We have been listening to electrolytic distortion all our lives. Apparently we are OK despite it! I thought I had killed myself on this thread but a miracle, I came back to life just for you Myles!

Well I think we have to divide this into recording vs. playback distortions.

Certainly electrolytics and oil filled caps have been used for ages--but I think that is somehow offset by other factors. For instance, I think it's a case of additive distortions on both the recording and playback end. So the more one can remove between you and the orginal recording, the better. Is there a limit? Obviously. But take a listen to a 15 or 30 ips tape (or even a digital master on a hard disc). Sounds damn good even with all those caps and we aren't getting near it yet (to my ears, there is more loss between recording and product with digital than LP). Don't ask me why but for instance when I've listened to some of Chesky's masters, the CDs just don't have the ambience, imaging, transparency, etc. of the recording.

And when one hears the differences between caps--and I have been a participant in a double blind cap test at Larry Smith's (ex of Perfectionist Audio components) and they are frighteningly different and there's a difference between new and burned in. And some of these new Teflon caps brings present day gear to new levels.

As far as AES, they might as well change their name to FES. I'll listen with my ears and let someone else figure out why. Same goes with medicine. I'll find a drug that works to cure a disease and let the others fight it out over how the drug exerts its effects

 

[The Smokester]

es >. I wouldn't want to insult you and by now you should know it ... But let's be clear that such unethical behavior should not be encouraged... I am even willing to accept that their PC makes a difference ( Believe me this pains me to even write so... but in the name of good camaraderie , I will grant you that) but the rationale for the performance !!! Bovine Manure !! It's insulting ...
By the way you can tell they know how to sell and to feed off the interesting gullibility of us audiophiles...
I would suggest you to acquire a used double conversion UPS by APC you can find these for less than 1000 and such model would be capable of power in your entire system with no problem .. then report to us ... Please don't continue to put money in the pockets of such flim-flam artists...

Bravo!!!

 

[MylesBAstor]

Wow, I guess there are quite a few audiophiles who are down on the AES. But then again, a lot of AES folk do rather wonder about some audiophiles as well. FES?, don't get it, but it must be against rules of the forum!

AES seems to me to be now largely a mutual admiration society.

For shits and giggles, they trash audiophiles or audiophools as they like to call them.

I'm curious other than setting "standards" and handing out awards to each other, what AES actually does?

 

[Mark (Basspig) Weiss]

I usually don't get involved in threads like this because usually they are too silly to take seriously, but I will weigh in on a few points:

1. a line cord must be of adequate gauge to carry sufficient current so that the voltage drop at the amplifier is within the amplifier's operating specs.

2. hundreds of miles of imperfect cable carries the electricity to your outlet from the generating plant, grid, distro, feeders, pole pigs and finally to your panel and outlets. 6 feet of magic wire isn't going to fix all that.

3. shielded power cords might only help reduce stray AC fields in the immediate viscinity of the connected equipment, however, any well-designed equipment will be shielded against outside fields and besides, most equipment has a power transformer, which radiates 1000X more magnetic field than a single line cord.

4. If a line cord makes any difference at all, it is either because the gauge is insufficient for the load, or the input filtering on the connected equipment is so poorly-engineered that it passes everything coming in from the line, or in the case of open chassis tube amps which have utterly no shielding against EMF and pick up any stray energy of the slightest magnitude.

5. All the junk that comes in from the line gets converted to DC inside the power supply. Once it's through the smoothing filtration of the power supply, that's it. And if the amplifier has op-amps anywhere in its low level circuits, chances are each op-amp has at least 80dB of power supply rejection ratio, so even if the supply rails were dirty, the op-amps would cancel up to 80dB of the noise, reducing it to inaudibility.

6. The fanciest cable in the world won't correct a ground loop problem. And lots of ground loop and rectifier current switching pulse noise is inherent in the power supply design. Power cord quality is irrelevant in this instance.

There is a ton of snake oil shysters out there (I call it the Emperor's New Clothes because the purvayors of said overpriced snake oil products use the taylor's tactic of claiming that only worthy people can 'see' those nonexistent clothes), who, as such, claim that if you can't hear a difference it is because you are deaf, dumb, or just uneducated on how to hear sound. And so it is this plausible deniability that allows them to go unchallenged and carve out a market for fraudulent products.

A power cord's job is to carry the current from the wall socket to the amp's power supply. The only requirement of validity is that the wire be of sufficient gauge to carry the current without significant IR drop over the wire's length. Assuming all around quality construction, there should be no other considerations.

 

[MylesBAstor]

I usually don't get involved in threads like this because usually they are too silly to take seriously, but I will weigh in on a few points:

1. a line cord must be of adequate gauge to carry sufficient current so that the voltage drop at the amplifier is within the amplifier's operating specs.

2. hundreds of miles of imperfect cable carries the electricity to your outlet from the generating plant, grid, distro, feeders, pole pigs and finally to your panel and outlets. 6 feet of magic wire isn't going to fix all that.

3. shielded power cords might only help reduce stray AC fields in the immediate viscinity of the connected equipment, however, any well-designed equipment will be shielded against outside fields and besides, most equipment has a power transformer, which radiates 1000X more magnetic field than a single line cord.

4. If a line cord makes any difference at all, it is either because the gauge is insufficient for the load, or the input filtering on the connected equipment is so poorly-engineered that it passes everything coming in from the line, or in the case of open chassis tube amps which have utterly no shielding against EMF and pick up any stray energy of the slightest magnitude.

5. All the junk that comes in from the line gets converted to DC inside the power supply. Once it's through the smoothing filtration of the power supply, that's it. And if the amplifier has op-amps anywhere in its low level circuits, chances are each op-amp has at least 80dB of power supply rejection ratio, so even if the supply rails were dirty, the op-amps would cancel up to 80dB of the noise, reducing it to inaudibility.

6. The fanciest cable in the world won't correct a ground loop problem. And lots of ground loop and rectifier current switching pulse noise is inherent in the power supply design. Power cord quality is irrelevant in this instance.

There is a ton of snake oil shysters out there (I call it the Emperor's New Clothes because the purvayors of said overpriced snake oil products use the taylor's tactic of claiming that only worthy people can 'see' those nonexistent clothes), who, as such, claim that if you can't hear a difference it is because you are deaf, dumb, or just uneducated on how to hear sound. And so it is this plausible deniability that allows them to go unchallenged and carve out a market for fraudulent products.

A power cord's job is to carry the current from the wall socket to the amp's power supply. The only requirement of validity is that the wire be of sufficient gauge to carry the current without significant IR drop over the wire's length. Assuming all around quality construction, there should be no other considerations.

Woulda, shoulda, coulda.....

 

[mauidan]

I've found that all my detachable power cables and my balanced interconnection cables are highly directional.

 

[Nicholas Bedworth]

Regarding using APC UPS, have you ever taken at look at the output? It's fine for computers and such, but probably not for, sniff, the refined sensitivities of audio equipment.

Having a considerable collection of power cords (several from each of 3 vendors), swapping them certainly makes a considerable and obvious difference in the voicing (timbre), soundstage, frequency extension, etc., at least with the amps in my main listening room. Whether the Odyssey monoblocks are driving the Wilson Sashas or the Usher Be-718s, no doubt about it, the power cords are important.

One designer, Jeremy Ramsey at www.audio-magic.com even has superb power cables that are filled with a conductive liquid (see the Clairvoyant Liquid Air).

 

[mauidan]

If you hear it, more power to you. Mind explaining in terms of hearing just what it is you hear as you swap them end for end? And have you tried the same thing with some moderately designed interconnect cables from Radio Shack....bet they will not do the same thing....and wonder why....cheap but more reasonable design for starters as far as this "effect" goes.

You take my breath away.

I've tried cheaper detachable power cables and balanced interconnection cables and they're all highly directional. ;-)

 

[Nicholas Bedworth]

The interconnect is often directional (a) because the raw wire inside is tested for its directionality (this is a listening test done with reference program material) prior to assembly and (b) the shield is, in some designs, not connected.

The difference is pretty much the same as switching the polarity (absolute phase) on a preamp or DAC. One way, things sound crisp, present, alive, and the other way, a little muffled in comparison.

So listen to your ears. Try it out. The interconnect from Radio Shack is sort of the audio equivalent of barbed wire; it sounds rather poorly either way

 

[FrantzM]

Regarding using APC UPS, have you ever taken at look at the output? It's fine for computers and such, but probably not for, sniff, the refined sensitivities of audio equipment.

Having a considerable collection of power cords (several from each of 3 vendors), swapping them certainly makes a considerable and obvious difference in the voicing (timbre), soundstage, frequency extension, etc., at least with the amps in my main listening room. Whether the Odyssey monoblocks are driving the Wilson Sashas or the Usher Be-718s, no doubt about it, the power cords are important.

One designer, Jeremy Ramsey at www.audio-magic.com even has superb power cables that are filled with a conductive liquid (see the Clairvoyant Liquid Air).

Let's be clear once aad for all . I am talking about Double Conversion UPS... To answer your question. I have as a matter of fact. Measured them and look at them with Oscilloscopes... Work with them on a daily basis and have used these in my system .
Would you share with us in what way you have found the output from a Double Conversion UPS to be worse than the power from the commercial grid?

 

[The Smokester]

I've found that all my detachable power cables and my balanced interconnection cables are highly directional.

 

[mauidan]

Per DEVERT: and power cables being directional, well, assuming they are ordinary wire types, yes, you can only push the end with the thingies sticking out into the wall outlet, not into the audio component...some snake has charmed you I really think....but hey, if you hear a difference you do, and I can not deny that no matter what. I respect your hearing ability, a big big respect for it.

I better be moving on or I will suffocate.

Take a deep breath.

All I posted was, "I've found that all my detachable power cables and my balanced interconnection cables are highly directional."

Now that I think about it, all of the captive power cables on some of my gear are also highly directional. ;-)

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
A married man should forget his mistakes. There's no use in two people remembering the same thing!

 

[DonH50]

FWIWFM, the more expensive double-conversion APC UPS systems, and most others I have measured, are as clean or cleaner than the a.c. line coming in. Much cleaner if the environmental chamber is running in the lab...

The inexpensive BackUPs systems do add noise, even after the filters, but remember they are only running in a power outage, not all the time. When charging there is insignificant added noise, at least on the few I have measured. "Insignificant" being equal to or less than the noise floor of the rest of the power in the lab.

I have used some rather expensive Sola etc. systems that were much cleaner, but at about $5k for a 1 kW supply they aren't for everybody... - Don

p.s. Re. power cord directionality: I had to fix a blown guitar amp in my youth that a guy brought in to the shop. He had swapped the regular power cord for a 220 V cord from a dryer, figuring it was an easy way to double the power. He was probably right, briefly.

 

[Nicholas Bedworth]

@DonHo... can you give me some model numbers? The power here on Maui is, uh, a bit informal. I was referring to the BackUPS and SmartUPS lines. The spec for the AC purity didn't seem that good.

@tomelex... definitely no problems with the cables... they're directional from the ground up, as it were You misunderstood my comment about absolute phase, which is probalby my fault. I should have been more explicit in stating that it was just an analogy, rather than an engineering explanation relating to having one end of the shield floating.The meaning was that the difference was subtle, similar to that obtained when flipping the phase.