Power cables

[Rolf]

Hi all.

The other day I was presented with really expencive power cords. In US$ from $200 to $800 witch should improve the sound.

Anybody have experience with this???

Rolf

[Uncle Paul]

It's pure unadulterated :bs:

[Robh3606]

I only have one, opps 2 comments

It's not in the signal path

Why should any power cord, unless it's solid siver wire under the jacket cost $800???

As you can see I am not a believer and honestly have never seriously considered or tried it.

There are many that swear by them as well. Why don't you borrow both and see for yourself if you think you hear an improvement and if it's worth the cash for it. If you try it and you like it well frankly that's all that counts.

Rob:)

[Audiobeer]

I always wondered why anyone wants a high buck power cord. If the purchaser truly believes that it will improve the sound, why not rip all the wiring out from the fuse box to the plug in where your stereo is and start over? The wiring from my box to my setup is over 200' with all the twists and turns. I cannot see for the life of me why a $800 cord that is 6' long is going to straighten all the problems out from the previous stretch of 200'. :D

[boputnam]

Hey, Rolf...

You should read the Link to Whitlock's piece, here - he covers this issue quite emphatically...

http://audioheritage.csdco.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=7786&highlight=grounding

[JuniorJBL]

[QUOTE=Audiobeer]I always wondered why anyone wants a high buck power cord. If the purchaser truly believes that it will improve the sound, why not rip all the wiring out from the fuse box to the plug in where your stereo is and start over? The wiring from my box to my setup is over 200' with all the twists and turns. I cannot see for the life of me why a $800 cord that is 6' long is going to straighten all the problems out from the previous stretch of 200'. :D[/QUOTE


This would be my problem with them as well. Just as long as you size your cord for your application and you do not over-load your circuit then all is good.

But if you are so inclined to go that route then you better add this at well over a $100 per piece:blink:

http://www.wattgate.com/

All I can say is :bs:

[Rolf]

I only have one, opps 2 comments
It's not in the signal path

I know.


Why should any power cord, unless it's solid siver wire under the jacket cost $800???

I asked myself the same question. No Answer.


As you can see I am not a believer and honestly have never seriously considered or tried it.

Same as me, never thought this is really something.


There are many that swear by them as well. Why don't you borrow both and see for yourself if you think you hear an improvement and if it's worth the cash for it. If you try it and you like it well frankly that's all that counts.
Robhttp://audioheritage.org/vbulletin/images/smilies/smile.gif
I will, as soon as I have new cross-overs, and 2 new pairs of speaker cables. I want to do that first, as this is something I know will improve the sound.

Rolf

[Rolf]

Hey, Rolf...

You should read the Link to Whitlock's piece, here - he covers this issue quite emphatically...

http://audioheritage.csdco.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=7786&highlight=grounding

Hi. I understand what you mean. Unfortunatly we do not have this kind of electrical system in Norway. We have no "live" or "earth". What we have is + and - and ground. It does not matter what lead you connect to + or -, and you can drop ground if you don't want to use it. If you turn the plug on a amp or another product can hear the sound from the speakers getting better of not. Then you know witch way to plug them. Strange, but true. Maybe a special cord fix this, but I do not know. I will try later.

Thanks fro the advice.

Rolf

[jtgyn]

G'Day Rolf,
May I suggest that you try listening to your system with US$200-800 in your pocket!

I personally think the system will sound much better than spending the money on the power cord.

Regards Scott

[pelly3s]

my whole deal on the power cord issue is you dont see studios going out and spending $200 on a power cord. They use what came with the gear

[Rolf]

my whole deal on the power cord issue is you dont see studios going out and spending $200 on a power cord. They use what came with the gear

Yes, I know....but that does not mean improvment can't be done, but when everything else is in place I will try them an post a reply.

Thanks all for advice, and if anybody has other experiance let us know.

Rolf

[morbo!]

go to your local electronics shop and buy some decent shielded power cable and requied terminals

http://www.tnt-audio.com/clinica/merlino.html
thats the easiest to make but their are better ones on the site

my fav audio site before i found this place

[jpb_dk]

I have done some "research" - A/B-listening on this area that i would like to share. 45 Persons join the test and it was done in a way that can be considered at "correct" A/B- B/A for documentation. High, low, rich, poor, man woman, technical skilled or not. Not told what was A or B, cheated A-A, B-B ect.

Well we can start to exclude those who know for sure that there are nothing to hear/feel outside the freq-area 20hz-20.000 hz. For those who belong to that group of "test-persons" or listeners its all waiste of money for sure.

With the knolge i have today there are no way in the world i would pay $800 for a power-cable because my brain is blocked on that amount of money. On the other hand ignoring the cables whatever there are carefully selected by the manufactor, delivered with the equipement or not is plain stupidity (my oppinion, and the test-persons based on listhning-resoults)

What we did :
We tried out diffrent power-cords, and there are big diffrences to hear.
All were what can be considered as "standard" power-cords. Cables with less but thick cores seems to sound better. There were also a clear tendency (testpersons did not know about this) that cables with high-voltage insulation seems to "sound better"

BUT what was interesting to se/hear was that standard solid-core 2,5mm (we use 230-250 volt A/C 50hz here) sound best of all when the 3 cord's are braided not "twist". Phase, ground and Zero..

To take it one step further, we made 3 pcs of "home-made super cable" of 20 meters each, connected one end of them in the fuse-box and connected the other end to the equipement (one to the CD-player, one to the Pre-amp, and one to the power amp).. Dedicated circuits And here the fun begins !!
If You can't hear that, you better sell all your audio-equipement asap, it would be waiste of money... But havent we heard that before the last10-20 years ? -capasitors.. ect

A electronic-ingeneer will just smile here and say "Re" and "75ohm"..

The only really forbidden thing (among others) that we did, was to connect the ground of the 3 units in the garden to have as big distance to the noise layer as possible.. Noise and spikes from other equipement in the installation transmitted on the ground-cable. The "other" end of the ground-core was not connected in the fuse-box. The measured resistance from the grounding in the fuse-box, and the test-ground in the garden was 45ohm (Wheatstone bridge test)

We have not done any laboratory-test of whats going on as it was sufficiant to hear the diffrence. It was clear as changing cap's in a X-over.

Ferrit-rings did also have a positive effect.

Give it a try before anyone spend a lot of money on power-cables. I very much like to hear if someone try to do the home-made-singlecore and maby comparred to commercial "correct" super power-cables.
Have fun
Jens

[Titanium Dome]

(im not sure "plait/weave" is the correct word, but as teenage girls do to their hair when they do that 3-thing)..


I think you are looking for "braided." A lot of people prefer braided cords and cables, and I am one. Many of my reasons have nothing to do with sound; some braided cables have other advantages, such as suppleness, flexibility, shape-holding in place, etc.

[jpb_dk]

Titanium, yep it was. Thanks

[Rolf]

Interessting. I send you a PM.


Rolf

[jkc]

I must ring my power company and ask them to upgrade the power cable back to the generator so my stereo will sound better.

Perhaps they could rewind their generators with silver wire as well.

The whole country would then suddenly have “better” sounding stereos.

[Titanium Dome]

I must ring my power company and ask them to upgrade the power cable back to the generator so my stereo will sound better.

Perhaps they could rewind their generators with silver wire as well.

The whole country would then suddenly have “better” sounding stereos.

Your sarcasm is very electric.

[Mr. Widget]

Your sarcasm is very electrtic.
...and on point! I find it hilarious that people will change an outlet and power cord, only to continue to use 20'-100' of standard Romex in their walls.:blink:

On the other hand, I did find that replacing my outlets with hospital grade units did improve the grounding of my system and remove a ground loop, but the outlets that I replaced were 50 years old and had weak contacts.


Widget

[Robh3606]

Good quality outlets does help but I would go for a dedicated AC line as well as the outlets before I would mess with cords. I used to have noise and ground loop issues that all but disapeared once my service was upgraded and I had a truely dedicated 20A line set up. I have another 20A in reserve just in case.


Rob:)

[Titanium Dome]

...and on point! I find it hilarious that people will change an outlet and power cord, only to continue to use 20'-100' of standard Romex in their walls.:blink: (snip)


Widget

It's fun to laugh at people and their silly beliefs. ;)

[Mr. Widget]

It's fun to laugh at people and their silly beliefs. ;)
I try not to laugh. When my friend proudly gave me six Mpingo discs I graciously accepted them... speaking of funny beliefs what about Kansas? No, that isn't funny at all.:banghead:


Widget

[David Contini]

...and on point! I find it hilarious that people will change an outlet and power cord, only to continue to use 20'-100' of standard Romex in their walls.:blink: On the other hand, I did find that replacing my outlets with hospital grade units did improve the grounding of my system and remove a ground loop, but the outlets that I replaced were 50 years old and had weak contacts. WidgetExactly.