The Smith Chart and why power cords matter

Devils advocate...

What gets me with this one is, if the chain is of "high enough quality," why, apparently, did the engineer designers not make the power-supply components of high enough quality to cope with the real world into which they are plugged? I feel that they would have done.

Added to that, my previous point, the plug/socket is just a connection: assuming it's a good connection (and if not then all bets are off) then why/how can that last 1 metre matter?

The system on which I thought I could detect a slight power-cord difference was indeed of high quality. It's dedicated-audiophile owner had even experimented with powering it by battery. Actually, I'd suspect that, if one wants to be a final-one-percenter, this would be a better way to go than mains cables.

There was once a cable that became famous for blowing up amplifiers. A brain cell suggests that it might have been called "Cobra." IIRC, it was something to do with capacitance. Actually, I think it was a speaker cable, not power.

 

because the manufacturer was trying to hit a price point.

FWIW, I don't have a dog in this race. I suspect that the cables will give you the last 1.035% of performance for the really discerning ear... but I don't see how this can be proven without simply accepting what some people hear on their systems. I don't think we know enough about measurements and how they impact how we perceive sound to be able to definitively answer these kinds of things for a long, long, long time (if ever)

 

It would be my belief (my belief) that they do! And that, thus, fancy power cables are unnecessary. I don't think I ever heard an amp maker saying, buy a better power cable for better sound; I have heard a designer saying no, you don't need.

Anyway, took the bone out, and gave it a good shake. I really have long-since giving up religious fervour over this issues*. But it not so bad to mull it over again every so often. And, stubborn though I may seem, I do listen to different points of view.


*Except maybe for network cables and stuff!

 

I have gone to a lot of shows I have maybe seen once or twice in 25 years where a manufacture was using the power cords they include with the amp, they generally use a full loom of some fancy cable brand. Maybe its just an industry game to help each other maybe its because they sound better?

 

I'm not really in the game any longer, but I don't think I ever saw a manufacturer advertising cable upgrades.

On the other hand, it is well known that markups on these ancillary bits and pieces are better than markups on the gear itself. Dealers would be very keen to upsell.

As to shows, I never really did that scene. I'd like to have done, especially high-end and pro segments, but, somehow, I didn't. But I can imagine that bling is not unwelcome as part of presentation. I've been to meetups with invited-dealer demos, and seen cables as thick as the mains supply in my street. As you can imagine, it did not impress my biases! My bias was wondering why, when it was there, they had not used the balanced interconnect option. Which I consider completely unnecessary for a two-foot cable, but which impresses me as an engineering concept anyway.