Quick answer: Yes, power cords make a difference. Without them I can’t hear any music whatsoever. This was with a properly done double blind test by the way.
Science can't explain everything but It can explain how it work. Sound related topic here is kind of chicken and egg issue ... but different power cord do affecting the sound. But those danm expensive cable are really! too much. Haha
Robert, I'm so glad that Gene talked about the crap home wiring in most home. I wonder who many system installers pro and/or DIY add up or measure the load placed on the power circuit. Surely damn few. I'm considering running a dedicated 10ga 30amp circuit to my system just to be safe. 15 amps add up quick.
@@shannonwilliams6623 if Danny is such a badass then why doesn't he work at or for any one of the audiophile businesses such as let's say PS Audio?? Or Stereophile? Danny was founded by a RUclips beggar who literally begged his viewers for money because he had to move. Has his daughter crawling all over him during his videos. Danny is an arrogant man who is nothing but a snake oil salesmen who uses his channel to pedal is products period...
I own an NRG-2 myself and I really like it. However, I never expected it to do anything for the sound quality of my system. I bought it because I wanted a well-made, high-quality power cable made from quality materials that would last. That's why you buy a replacement/after-market power cable, not because it will improve the quality of the sound you hear at all. (Oh, and I bought my used for around $22)
Gene is the benchmark reviewer for me very very knowledgable and tells it exactly as he see’s it Not trying to sell anything and not trying to spread the bullshit to appease fancy rip off brand owners All power to you and THANK YOU !! very very refreshing 👍
I run stock power cords on my full system but because I wanted to test for myself I put an audioquest NRG 4 on my main speaker amp (emotiva xpa2 gen 2). On a completely unrelated note I have for sale one 3ft Audioquest NRG 4 ;)
I bought a hospital grade power cable because it's 14 AWG and also the wall end of the cord has a really nicely shaped plug that's easy to grab. I think it was $12.00 US.
Must be most probably related to your expectations bias. But as Gene says, DBT listening is almost impossible with power chords/conditioners, that lead to psychoacoustics/Placebo effect.
@@vintageflanker7096 False. Not only can it be heard which I have A/B tested if you review the data testing by Shunyata on how it does effect audio and signal improvements you will see why their products are used in the Medical testing fields then migrated to Audio.
@@garykarczewski6678 So you're telling me power that traveled hundreds of miles through antiquated power lines, then reached your 40 year old panel, with 40 year old breakers, then traveled a few more feet through your 40 year old wiring to your equipment is magically going to get fixed by an expensive power cable? Do people really believe this garbage?
Sonic argument aside, I don’t see anything wrong with dressing ones high end audio/video system with nice looking cables. There’s a level of psychological satisfaction that comes with that. Just don’t break the bank in your quest or if you’re a nut, who cares? I own some expensive amplifiers/equipment from Dartzeel, Burmester, Jeff Rowland & Boulder and connecting them to the wall with a cheap little black rubber PC seems like an audiophile sin. And, that will remain in the back of your mind as you try to enjoy the system. Gene, thank you for your engineering experience and insightful video! Perhaps it will help reign in some of the ridiculous audible claims made by manufacturers and reviewers.
Thank you for discussing this topic! I am a metallurgist and quality assurance engineer, also a lifelong audiophile seeking equipment with high value/quality per the investment. The only time I have replaced a power cord is when the installation required a longer or shorter cable, or one time I noticed a power cord was getting warmer than expected, (damaged). I have had great success with replacement power cords in every configuration and length from Monoprice and Amazon, they are quite inexpensive. I usually opt for 12 gauge if available, considering the wiring in my home is mostly 14 gauge between the breaker box and wall outlets. Best wishes to all-
An explanation that made sense to me (from Hans Beekhuyzen) is when a high current device like your power amp draws power a electromagnetic field surrounds the cord which is modulated by the power demands and can induce noise on your your low level interconnects even though they are shielded unless great care is taken to separate them and, this can be difficult with many devices in your rack, this is why a well shielded heavy gauge power cable can make a difference. Please comment.
@@DisconnectedAudio agreed 100%, saw his RUclips channel (Hans Beekhuyzen) and sensed that he’s more like a newscaster reading from a teleprompter rather than a reviewer or audiophile. Basically, Hans and a couple of others are just clueless but useful idiots to brands that sponsored their channel. Very fortunate that such misinformation are spread even given their limited audience and channel followers
Very rare that can occur if you use shielded interconnects. Virtually nothing will get through to double braided double foil shielded coax like Belden 1694A. Also, use XLR anytime you can and try to route power leads away from speaker cables and interconnects. I've never found a need to use shielded power cables.
@@Audioholics correct, use XLR for long runs, fuss-free and no worries of interferences. Much cheaper and more effective than those exotics cables that cost a kidney yet does nothing. Acoustics principles are known and proven scientifically for so long that it’s sad that unscrupulous sellers use disinformation to mislead the general public.
Well, Gene is correct with one exception, he literally mentions the exceptions and says to disregard it, I work with multiple rack components both at work and home and behind the these the interference between cables is massive, and most high-speed network and server cables have some shielding so, I do use similar cables at home, nothing too fancy, many reputable cables manufacturers make SJT UL-certified cables for 2 to 10 bucks per feet that can be used to reduce noise, and obviously this only applies if the system has multiple devices on the same rack with cable management, as having 2 or 3 cables away from each other will not cause any problems. So in summary buying spending hundreds of dollars of magical cable topologies is a form of snake oil, having reputable cable brand cables on a component rack will reduce "noise"/ interference from component to component.
Any noise induced or otherwise in the AC mains voltage going into your gear will be filtered by the rectification and filtration of the unit's DC power supply. PERIOD. Amir over at Audio Science Review shows this in some recent videos.
@@aussie8114 Sure, use shielded AC cables. You won't hear it but if ti makes you feel better, fine But these people ("audiophiles") believe magic faeries are sprinkling dust on expensive audio cables and it makes them sound better, even though they measure exactly the same as a $1 cable.
@@aussie8114 thats audiophile nonsense. That the whole idea that the really expensive systems are more "highly resolving" than my medium priced system that I build is just nonsense. What exactly is it that my preamp or amplifier is failing to amplify that a $50,000 amplifier is amplifying, and that humans with tin ears can actually hear or perceive? Is my amplifier forgetting to amplify a cymbal crash? Is it failing to amplify a few bass guitar notes every once in awhile? Is it doing it on purpose? Like out of spite?
High-speed network and sever cables have some shielding? No, they don't, actually. That's almost always all just UTP. Unshielded Twisted Pair. They rely on the number of twists per foot withing the cable itself (on pairs of wires) to cancel out signal crosstalk among the cables. Almost no networking cables are ever shielded, with very few exceptions. Now, you can get shielded network cable, of course (STP) but unless you are in a VERY harsh, industrial-type environment with extremely high levels of EMI/RFI, that's not necessary at all and you are just paying for something that doesn't give you any actual benefit.
Gene - Would you be able to debunk some myths about power conditioners? Things to look for and avoid? Why some people think power conditioners degrade the sound quality and who is the right candidate for one? I use a commercial grade Middle Atlantic PDU that includes surge and spike protection, as well as EMI filtering. While it doesn't "condition" the power, it provides me the protection from my power line.
I will do a video on power conditioners. Long story short, I use them for power protection and to have a common connection point for ALL equipment in a rack. No magic.
@@Audioholics thats a great topic, i have 2 power conditioners 1 is a Panamax M5400-PM for all my media stuff in the LivingRoom and a Furman PL-PRO DMC for my Mini Home Recording studio. I have had a couple power outages and the only thing ive noticed is the devices turning back on immediately upon the power coming back up. Another small issue is that my Panamax does make some Grounding hum but it doesn't affect what i have connected to it. I do like that it tells me on 1 gauge that i have 123 volts and the otherside tells me the amp hours all my devices are using.
I have an old APC S Type power conditioner S15 with 1,500VA of uninterruptible power supply. The thing is a beast and I cannot believe it’s still going for over a grand for one... while I paid $250 with shipping 10 years ago. Don’t remember why it was so cheap though, I tend to buy “broken” things and repair them, but I don’t remember in this case.
Well this hobby is all about experience and experiences. I really wanted and new pair of speakers. The dealer brought them to my home. We listened and - nah. They didn’t bring the improvements I thought they might. He looked behind my kit and suggested removing all the SMPS from the same distribution block. We listened, ooh, that sounded better! Free upgrade. He said do you want to try something else? Why not?, I said He produced two mains cables. He plugged the first one into my amp. We listened. It was incredible. The sound was a night and day improvement. Sound stage, texture and shape of bass notes. He put the second into my dac. Again an improvement. Not as large but noticeable. We removed both cables and my old system was back. We added the cables back and it was a vastly improved system. Not different sounding like a component change but a better sounding system. An improvement in all areas and repeatable. The cables were pre owned (customer had upgraded) and £350 each - an absolute bargain for the difference they made. Before he left he smiled and went to his car. He came back with another different cable. Into the amp it went. My jaw hit the floor. I’ve listened to HiFi for 40 years and had heard nothing like this. That cable was £2500. Way out of my league. However, I heard it. I heard it. They are not sexy like a new shiny box but if I had £2500 to spend that would be my next purchase. My experience.
I'm going to get burned alive now 😂 I am so sorry everyone! I was so skeptical on this subject that I had to try this for my self. I bought some "HiFi" power cords. Not expensive, but alot bigger gauge than the standard cables. I have done serious a-b testing, and had no reason to wanting to justify my purchase "not that expensive" I am running a Marantz sr8012 bi-amped to a Rotel RMB1585 power amp. 5.1 system with Arendal Speakers. All pieces of my equipment got a new power cord. Again I am so sorry. But I can hear a difference. This is not placebo. I have done A-B testing with multiple non audio interested people and all could hear a difference. I can't argue with science, nor am I an expert on this subject. I do trust me ears though. Please don't be to harsh!
Lunatic! Haven't you heard that we have decided that power cords don't make any difference!? And who cares what YOU hear, as Gene said, you're clearly deluded. Having said that, I would never go back to the stock power cords, they suck all the life out of the music... but don't tell anyone I said that 😉
@@Audioholics not necessarily. His old cables might be bad/malfunction/broken. i can confirm from my experience that if cable is not capable for some reason to deliver current properly sound looses quality. In my case level of sound in right channel was dropping
Gene, for the first time I disagree with you, I haven't bought expensive cables, but US$20 bulk cables from Alliexpress and the sound totally changed, more transparent, better positioning, more control in the low zone and more musicality. This time I affirm it with certainty because I have lived it.
Back in the day when I was experimenting with power cables I found that some makes of stock cable were more musical than others. You may have got lucky with the ones you bought. Snake oil doesn't exist at this level......
You would think a 5 or 10 thousand dollar amp would have a sufficient power cord from the factory and if it made a difference wouldn't they include that in the price of the amp
Surge protection is a good way to save expensive audio equipment during thunderstorms with lightnings nearby. Better to switch off any equipment from powerline. But if you did not do it those surge protectors can protect from overvoltage surges.
Just saw a Audioquest cable manufacturing demo her on YT... Hillarious... they invented cold welding they say... ( crimping) 😂😂😂 sadly comment are disabled on their channel... wonder why...
Even if your new (expensive) power cord worked as described , this approach often results in no benefits to the system unless all other ground paths in the connected equipment can be totally isolated. An isolation transformer is not a substitute for the proper shielding or grounding of individual equipment. As G said...
Is everything really measurable? Take 10 violins, play open "A" (assume they are tuned) all will measure A440. I guarantee without a shadow of a doubt all 10 will sound differently.
Everything is not measurable, but you know what is? Power cable, speaker wire, and cables. Astounding that in 2020, we are still having this discussion and snake oil still putting other people's kids through college. As the man said "nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people"
@@oldb3139 my point was all the violins will measure the same but sound different. I believe there are too many people saying different cables sound differently. Unfortunately, I am not able to buy enough of them to do side by side comparisons and stay married... That said they may sound different but measure different as well. For example, the two Kimber speaker cables the Audioholic likes both sound and measure differently.
You could measure the difference with the right equipment. An instrument does not play a constant single tone like a tone generator does. They all color the sound to a degree. This is why a string intrument sounds different than a saxaphone or a piano or whatever. And each instrument will have a sound that is unique to itself. This is why when you go to buy one you play several different ones to see how they sound. And it can be measured if you can see the spectrum of sound it is putting out. The dominant tone will be 440 but there will be many tones around it. Pretty much everything you can hear (and can't hear) can be measured. Many of just might not know the technical term for it. If you think something sounds warm, bright, muddy or whatever it can be measured and compared to something else. And someone can tell you exactly what you were hearing that gave you that impression if you did indeed hear it. If it can't be measured it was probably your brain tricking you. Not everyone hears the same way and even something as simple as your mood can effect how you percieve sound. Humans are very poor measuring devices lol.
Yes it is measurable. It's called harmonics and every violin has variation there even if the fundamental tone is the same. Proper measurement devices are way more sensitive than human hearing. Do not trust manufacturers that don't show measurements (or at least extensive specs).
Diminishing returns definitely applies here, upgrading from 20 ga. lamp cord to something heavier and maybe shielded probably makes a difference, going from that to $5000 cables, well, I'd like to see some double blind test results on that.
@@patthewoodboy Shielded cable definitely helped in my specific case of noise coming from my computer. I had ground loop hum and fixed that, but there was still noise when I moved my mouse or played more intense games. Switching to a shielded cable helped. It is still unbalanced cable though. Balanced cable probably would have eliminated the noise too.
Agree completely. I only have a 'special' $40 OFC cable on my custom toroidal transformer going to a class A headphone amp I use for IEM's. Can't say I heard an improvement, but for an extra $30, why not get a really nice looking cable with OFC for shits and giggles
Great video. I like your reference to UL. I want to further point out another scam here. Some power cord vendors will buy OEM UL listed plugs and even IEC connectors. Then they claim "see our power cord is UL listed". WRONG! As you probably know Gene, replacement or OEM connectors are only UL listed by them selves. That listing does not extend to the entire cord assembly. In order to have a legally listed power cord, the entire assembled product must be submitted for testing. Just using UL listed plugs doesn't cut it. And what is scary is the unknown raw wire they use? Is it rated and listed for AC line voltage application? And another issue are these UL listed OEM plugs and wall outlets that are then re-plated with some exotic metal or cryo treated by the cable charlatans. Any listed electrical product that is modified beyond the OEM's instructions is no longer listed. That UL stamp on a modified plug or wall outlet now means nothing once it's re-plated or cryo treated. Harmless? You tell me? How was it plated? Is the plating metal compatible with the OEM surface plating or will it flake off over time and cause a metalized conductive track? Did the cryo treatment weaken the plastic to where the outlet or plug can split apart when connected exposing live terminals?
Answering a question from somewhere below. Pull a 20 amp home run from the panel. Remember the breaker is there to protect the wire from overloading, it's not there to protect whatever equipment is on the circuit. One 20 amp circuit generally has 10 outlets on it so if you run a dedicated line with a double box your good and make sure to use 20 amp outlets. If you have ground issues and your line in is flown look outside by your meeter and make sure the green ground wire is connected to the copper rod they drove in the ground.
Lalalalalala I can’t hear you! I just spent $20k on power cables and it lifted a veil on the soundstage, improved detail and image the micro dynamics came to li....pffffbwahahahaa I can’t do it!
Do cigars taste different? Can you measure that? I don't smoke. I guess you could try to explain it to me but I would not truly understand until I developed my taste for them and learned the differences. Sound is the same thing. I hate cigars, cigarettes but I believe in the freedom we have to enjoy those things. If I can tell the difference then why do you care so much. Are you just a Fan Boy?
If there are facts and proof then its just subjective because you blew that kind of money and someone made a good profit. I hear you. Which is a demo done in truetone electronics, Toronto. May be a fraction difference. But again depending on my brain
@@jackryder6732 Agreed. I mixed live audio for many years. I peaked on what I could learn on my own. I hired a degreed audio engineer and what he showed me was mind blowing but sometimes the.difference between a good mix and great mix were very small changes.
They do in my system, I've proven it several times over the years. Remember, everything has some effect and the power chords are part of the power supply to your rig.
Maybe organize a double blind test with a few audiophile people who know their music very well and bring their own tracks and source gear....also with the proper gear to switch instantaneously. That will be something..the debate will be put to rest😆
Little story: The house I'm in years ago had ground loop audio problems, electric guitars with bad ground hum got worse in this house, some guitars that behaved elsewhere had hum, the relays in a professional video editing deck keep failing. Finally I discovered only 110 volts was coming from the power outlets. Finally a storm dropped a tree on the power service line. The original service line was about 250 yards long, the wire was 1946 stock aluminum and corroded. The service line was replaced and reconnected to a nearer pole (50yds), All electric problems solved, 120 volts achieved.
An audiophile once suggested that I tear out the inbuilt power cord in one of my vintage amplifiers (rated at up to 15A) and "upgrade it" by installing an AC inlet so i could use a high-end power cord. The garden-hose variety, of course.
Powercords , Usb cables, intercons, power conditioner etc can have a positiv impact on the audio quality. I trust my ears, if something contributes a positv it stays.
I had to make a power cord for an amp I am building. I bought ends that cost $50 just because they looked very high end and cool. I bought fancy nylon braiding for the outside. However, the base for the cord is just high quality 14/3 power cord. So, I have a power cord that looks very high dollar but only cost about $70, and works just as well as any expensive cord.
This is hands down the most honest and accurate info on power cables I've seen. Thank you! Not much else I could add that you didn't cover already. Cheers!
I would have been the last person to believe in power cords as well. That said, I run a pretty nice headphone system around my gaming pc. I have a discreet DAC and separate solid state and tube amps. I purchased a reasonably priced Furman power conditioner, mostly for better protection and sure enough, it didn't really make any difference to the sound. Later, I bought a handful of $30 'audiophile' power cords just to try out. I put one on each audio component and the pc and then left them all alone. It wasn't day and night, but I absolutely noticed that the solid state amp was closing the gap with the tube amp. The sound stage debth was more coherent and over all sounded more real. The tube amp didn't seem to benefit much. I brought out my older DAC/amp all in one that I felt didn't have the resolution of my newer gear. With the new power stuff, it also seemed more on par with the other electronics. I am a person who didn't think power cables could make a difference and always laughed at people who did. Also, FWIW, I think AB testing is good for finding frequency response or tonality differences, but not spacial cues. I take more time to explore the 'space' of the sound and then have to be familiar with both pieces of equipment in that way to make a comparison. To my ear anyway, these kinds of spacial cues are where higher end gear duke it out, over lower end gear, since it's not that hard to achieve frequency response and resolution these days. All that said, I still wouldn't advocate expensive cables, or expect to hear a difference right out of the wall. I also can't hear any difference between my $30 and $200 interconnect cables, either.
Gene, I would like to say how much I appreciate your solid "logical" work in the Audio/Video world. I am an EE also "from long, long ago" and get so tired of the claims by some companies. Thank you for exposing them and showing the truth based on solid engineering principles. As an aside, I first came across one of your videos on RUclips several years ago and you had a cutout of Spock and Kirk beside you in the background. I instantly thought "I should listen to this guy" as I am a original Trekkie. I was just entering the 7th grad in the first season. When they were going to cancel the series after the second season, I was one of those Nerds who wrote a letter to NBC to not cancel, which we won and did get a 3rd season. I hope it was okay that I posted your videos when you had COVID-19 to show people what it was really like . Those videos were very helpful and I was very happy when you recovered. Again, keep up the good work.
@@billyshows5675 You know Gene deserves it.Better have low manures than be a lier and sellout. If he was a human, i would treat him like a human.But he is a ****.
Agree 100% ! Companies goes to great lengths to design and make high performances audio gear and they wouldn’t sabotages their products with unsuitable power cords. That would be highly counterproductive.
I can see how people without any knowledge of electrical systems could believe power cables make a difference but to anyone with even the most basic knowledge (most audiophiles i imagine) its just ridiculous they coukld believe a power cable could make any difference. Its insanity! These people need to be locked up in a padded room especially they audio reviews claiming " oh this cable really added volume to the mids!" wtf!
Please talk about ground loops. I have one that I isolated to my cable box cable. I put a noise filter on the cable to suppress it but is there a better way to eliminate it , instead of just covering it up? I would love to learn more....Thanks for teaching us so much, Gene!
If "audiophiles" were actually concerned with real measurements as well as the actual limitations of human audio physiology, there would be 90% less companies out there hawking products designed for and marketed to fools.
i spent £ 1500 on power cables.i listened to both arguments for months you and paul at ps audio and others, then made my own mind up to go ahead and build some. i liked how my set up looked when finished. but ive got to say that one time my interest got the better of me one time. i went out and purchased a length of Furutech DPS-4.1 Limited Edition High End Audio Grade Power Cable that cost £ 400 per meter. i dressed the ends up with top line furutech plug and socket then tried it out. i was sure the music did sound more clearer. but it could just be the placebo effect.i didn't un plug it and try a normal cable as the cable was that thick it was difficult to get it in and out of the socket / appliance. lol. so it sits there till now. if anything ,i like to think sound different. i look at it this way, if your intp your hifi and building rigs ,then why not build / buy good cables ,if only for the looks.
Must be a strangely wired system that the power cables are on display to see. I like to put my money in what I can hear, being it is an audio system. Maybe that's just me, being I have ears.
Dear Gene. The thing about power cords is not about filtering the sine wave, but shielding the environment from the alternating magnetic field inducing the 50 or 60hz current into the speaker and rca cables. That's how the theory goes. I myself don't own a shielded cable, but lets not beat the wrong horse.
Many thanks for being the voice of reason in this insane hobby. I use inexpensive aftermarket cords. Mostly when the stock cord cannot reach, or when I have one that was not made well and keeps working itself loose. Sorry, no cable risers, power conditioners, and other such tweaks here. In my early days, I did play around with power cords. One day I got serious and replaced an entry level $60.00 cord with one that retailed for about $1,250.00. It had exotic silver strands instead of copper, a woven inner metal wrap under the dielectric and sheath, with a super special esoteric geometry that dissipated EMI, eliminated noise from your outlet, and protected your components power supply from RMI etc. Lesson learned; it did not improve my systems midrange clarity, nor reduced the preamp's noise floor. Even at the 90% off liquidation price of a $150.00. I consider myself duped.
I'm going to very politely disagree. I do understand this plays with the guys that critique audiofools and to the measurement crowd. And my counter is the question do different components in an electrical (audio) component sound different? For example do engineers and audio designers hear differences between capacitors of the same value but manufactured differently? The answers are yes, of course they do. Nelson Pass and others talk about the sound of various circuits and components. They switch out bits and listen to them in circuits and decide what to include and exclude based on cost and sound quality. You get the end result of that design process. Of course it includes measurement and testing but a lot of listening. Audio amplifiers are designed with different types of feedback and the types of feedback used and in what ratios, global and local change the sound as well as stability of the amplifiers. We buy those results and we all agree we can hear differences between different amplifiers, integrated amps which again are based on design choices which included listening and yes the bias of the designer. We can hear differences in rooms, anechoic chambers sound different then home listening rooms and if you have four friends with four different listening rooms each room will sound different. You won't need a measurement to tell you that. Then all of a sudden when we get to cables, which after all are only electrical components, we claim we can't or shouldn't hear differences. These cables are constructed differently, are drawn from different metals, may include varied amounts of different metals, different shielding, different terminations (again all electrical components) but somehow the measurement crowd says, well I couldn't measure a difference and all of a sudden though our ears and brains are sophisticated enough to hear differences between a compendium of electrical choices our gear represent, the rooms we listen in, etc. they are not sophisticated enough to hear differences in cables. All I can say is that you are wrong and the angst this perspective brings to the table is the result of pricing choices made in a capitalistic economic system. I get that many things are way way over priced, but unfortunately this is a market problem. We have allowed our market to become bifurcated by income and seduced by our desires for luxury into overpaying for gear that ought to be more reasonably priced. But that fact that many cables cost too damn much does not mean they all sound the same, nor does it mean that because engineers haven't figure out a way to measure these differences yet that they don't exist. Engineering schools by in large teach their students that electricity is electricity and wire is wire it's probably the first thing they learn in school. By the time they graduate they have absorbed this mantra so much that it has become a paradigm. They are stuck in it and they can not measure their way out of it and so it persists. As an audiophile in the hobby for more than 35 years and also selling audio gear for more than 20 years, I have heard different renditions of this over and over again. I would say to you all trust your ears with your gear and your cables. You are always looking for synergy to get the best out your gear. The engineers that built your gear have gone through similar processes of listening when choosing components, designing power supplies etc and so should you with cables and watch your own wallets not everybody else's. I have built my own power cables using different wire and different terminations and they sound different. I saved a lot of money doing so and I would suggest you try it as well. Lastly, even with Ul certification not every cable is inspected, in the same way not every slaughtered chicken in inspected. If you don't feel comfortable building your own cables then just stick with stock but if you try various cables you can at least tune the sound differently, at the end of the day whether something sounds better or worse will be a subjective one which may or may not be also measurable. The last issue I want to address is this issue of noise, the wire coming into the house versus the cables you use to connect your equipment. Obviously there is a lot of noise on the grid and yes to varying degrees equipment is designed to filter out some of that noise. The diagram was nice but to not point out that the choices engineers make in designing those components that filter noise have implications for each piece of gear's ability to filter out that noise. Not everyone builds a robust set of filters into their gear due to market based price constraints for the piece being designed. The noise to be most concerned with is in your own house, The number of computers, network based devices, refrigerators, freezers, poorly designed lights etc, all bring more noise, a properly designed power cable (I put ferrite cores on all of my own hand built power cables) So a power cord can help as a first filter if long enough and designed well and then can change the sound depending on the metals used as one example. copper versus silver or combined sound differently in your system and may or may not help you find synergy in your gear but you have to listen to it to decide. Lastly, it is not the cost of the wire that matters. I have heard really expensive cables that I did not think sounded better or were not synergistic in my system and if the cost of something is way out of proportion as many things are these days than just don't buy it. The price thing won't be corrected until the economy gets corrected which unfortunately, I don't see happening anytime soon but that is a different conversation...
Elton, that is perhaps the most intelligent post that I have seen on audio discussions. Seriously. And you have nothing to sell. I will think about this next time I buy a cable or eat chicken. Cheers.
I think you explained it very well. I thought the audiophile world was all BS until I bought my 1st McIntosh pre-amp and amp. Wow, night and day difference from my $2k Yamaha. Then I tried several power cables from $75-600 dollar range. Had a party with about 6 of my friends, did a blind test with stock vs upgrades PC's. Everyone in the room heard the difference. I guess we are a full of sh** according to this crew!!
Dang! I was hoping to see the word "synergistic" right away, but you made me wait till the end. Well played, sir. By the way, Walmart has a sale on tin foil. Better hurry!.
There are differences in power cables. But non of those differences influences influence the audio production of your hifi components, providing you’ve selected a cable with adequate current carrying capacity. There are differences in the quality of power cables. It’s well worth shelling out a little extra for a cable which is nice and supple/flexible, not overly rigid and is solidly terminated. It’s nice to witness someone in this industry who’s got sufficient backbone to broadcast some straight talking. I think that keeping all cables, not just power cables to a minimum length is your best friend.
Great video Gene. Is there a benefit to using shielded power cables? Not to shield the power line but to reduce emissions from the power cord to nearby equipment (provided the shield is grounded at the plug end).
It's not a bad idea if that's a problem but just realize many shielded power cords don't meet UL due to fire safety issues. Personally keep power cord away from line level stuff and you will be ok.
I made some Lapp cables with good quality plugs for all my gear that required an earth. No change in sound quality, except now I can listen to AM radio without all the interference. Strange but true.
future shock There is a guy near New Haven, CT who has his own transformer pad on property. And if I remember correctly, it’s 3 phase too. But not for “clean” power... but actual POWER! I wish I could find the article, I read it mid to late 2000’s. He has over 20 vacuum tube amps powering 30 tower speakers. His average annual power bill was $200,000 at the time.
I DIYed my power cords. Hifituning and nanotec. Each 100bcks. 5.5mm² coppers. I used IeGO glod plated copper plugs on each end. Not overly fancy, but good quality. You talked about certification for power safety, some brands like supra have them, but they are pricey. Most people like the look to thick powercords. I which i could say people bought audio gear only for sound but that isnt true for cables or anything audio or anything else for that matter. Looks, brand, price, build quality, touch quality all factors into purchase decision. Many people with 50k or 100k setups dont like even the look of $10 powercords let alone atking the time to listen test them. Your video will help budget conscious or budding audiophiles, but not deep pocketed seasoned audiophiles that wont care.
This is what I’ve always thought intuitively. I recently heard another science-based testing site. The only thing he said that gave me pause is that the low voltage signal interconnects can possibly pick up electromagnetic interference if put in close proximity to a power cord passing high current power. So my interconnects from preamp to power amp would not go through a transformer. This is assuming that the cables are not properly shielded. Is there any validity to that?
If you run your high impedance interconnect cable alongside the AC power cord carrying a high current, there will be some interaction. But the interconnect cable is shielded, and that will block the interaction. I don't think you can buy unshielded RCA to RCA cables. You would have to make them up yourself from pieces of wire.
Gene great insight .You hear some of these audiophile utubers say how ac power chords make big improvements.bass is richer and there is space between the instruments and vocals blah ,blah, blah and meanwhile non of them have the credentials you have maybe a high school equivalency in their back pocket.
I bought a cheap pangera power cord from audioadvisor. Hooked it up to my McIntosh MC 352 amp. Right away I heard more bass. So I bought one for my preamp. Didn't hear any difference. Just my 2 cents worth
Gene makes all the rational arguments, however he overlooks some truths that can affect sound quality in a high quality listening system. As just 1 example, all power cords act to a greater or lesser extent as both an antenna and a filter. Both can affect the SQ, even with a short length between the wall and your component. Second, connectors matter ALOT. High quality power cords use much better connectors, metal welding techniques instead of soldered connections, copper and gold instead of steel, and tigher fitment with the IEC connector. All of which can affect the SQ in a high quality system. Third, purer copper as well as gauge and geometry all can make significant AND MEASURABLE differences to the performance of the cable, and thus the SQ based on how it interacts with your specific electronics. Thatis partly why this topic is so subjective....everyone's system is different electrically, acoustically, and qualitatively. It's well established AND MEASURABLE that resistance, capacitance, and inductance all have an effect on SQ in a high quality system. Nice try Gene, but respectfully, you need to re-think your simplistic position. You are misleading alot of people out there with your opinion.
You’re just making bald assertions, and comically responding to “all the rational arguments” with “truths”. Where are the rational arguments and measurements for the “truths”, or are the only arguments left irrational ones? If it’s the latter, we’re talking about faith. This stuff gets into the realm of religion, astonishingly enough. We’re talking about power cables here. Did you happen to miss the entire part of the video where he explained the power supply? The power cable delivers AC into the power supply of your device, which converts AC to DC, the process of which filters out anything you might be worried about, basically by definition. The rest of the circuit is powered by whatever unvarying DC current that was generated by the component’s power supply. The 60hz AC and whatever might have ridden in with it is long “forgotten” by the time you’re in the circuit. But lets say you’re right: the thing is, if the component requires 3ft of fancy power cable to do its best job, then it’s a failed design (not “high-quality”), and was never worthwhile in the first place. If you think it’s worthwhile to put a $100-5000 power cable on an amp with a broken power supply, well it’s your money. I agree that connectors are important and must be sufficient to task, but they are hardly high technology or worth any great deal of money. It seems pretty safe to assume good-quality manufacturers are going to use power cables that don’t have faulty connectors. Similarly, yes, good internal connections are important, but what real difference do fancy “metal welding techniques” make over normal techniques, solder or otherwise, especially given the receptacle you’re shoving that fancy plug into has *screwed-on* connections to romex behind it, not to mention at the power panel, at the sub-station, and untold other connections upstream? All that said, I do own some aftermarket power cables, but only as seldom-seen “jewelry” to dress up the appearance of the system. They look good, feel nice in the hand, and get the job done. I just don’t kid myself that they do anything more than that. And even more said, I know this was all a waste of time to type in. Sometimes I can’t help myself. You do you and I wish you continued happiness with your setup. At least we can agree we like to listen to music - and I bet you have a cool system :-)
Gene the timing of videos just right, i got a couple of power cables to compare with the stock ones.if power cords don’t make a difference then do the power filters or conditioners do anything?
I recently got a filter, that can filter from a bit to a lot. When it filters a lot (on the amp) it makes the sound worse. When it filters a bit, it changes the sound - making some records sound better and others worse...
Can they? Possibly, depends on the power in your house. If you have power issues in, or coming to your house then yes they can make a difference. If not then it probably won't do anything but give you piece of mind. I use UPS's in my system because my power cuts out randomly sometimes. Will they make a difference in sound quality? I highly doubt it. Like he said this is what the power supply in the component is for. The component is already regulating, converting and filtering the ac signal. Filters and conditioners should be a safety concern, not a quality of sound issue. If I had a really exepensive system I would probably have some nice line conditioners just to help protect all that gear. And most likely an insurance plan that covered it too. I wouldn't expect it to make it sound better though. For lower end stuff like I own UPS's made for computers work just fine. That is what I use. They help with voltage spikes, cut outs and if the power goes out it gives me some time to shut everything off properly. If you hook a fancy line conditioner up to your system and it makes a difference in your audio quality I would highly suggest you call an electrician because you have issues in your house.
Rather than spend stupid money on factory made power cords, I built some of my own using high quality connectors and various types of 12 gauge wire. I was not able to do any immediate A-B testing, in other words, I had to listen for a while, stop the playback and swap out the cable, then listen again, but I've used this process for all my A-B testing. I believe I could hear a difference between the OEM cables and my home made cables, although that difference was VERY small, only very slightly audible. I was able to pick up on these small differences by going back and forth with the various alternatives I created. I have a triamp active system so I tried the various cables on the different amplifiers and found that one slightly improved the highs and another slightly improved the bass, and a third made no audible difference. Two other things I was able to accomplish with this task, one was that I twisted the three wires on each cable so that the grounding wire now wraps around the live and neutral wires, providing better shielding of the cable, something I do not believe the high end cables do, and the other was that I discovered many of my components did not utilize the grounding pin, or had a two wire AC cord permanently attached to the component. So in order to utilize my new cables, I installed IEC connectors in all my components. This change made the greatest difference in the reduction of noise from my system because prior to these changes, some of my components utilized a grounding wire and some did not, which resulted in some components finding this grounding through the shielding of the interconnects, which I believe was the source of the noise (slight hum) I had been getting prior to the changes I made.
Im running a Krell KAV400xi integrated and the manual says to NOT use a 3rd party cord. It came with a 6 foot 14 awg power cord. I needed a shorter one so I purchased a 14 awg UL certified cord for 13 bucks. Spent the other $287 on actual vinyl so I had something to listen to on my system.
I switched to extra crunchy peanut butter and it raised my sound stage. I’ll have to do a side by side comparison it seems to be make a hissing noise now.
Ground loops are very much a hum problem to be solved if present. I've heard humming can also be from DC simultaneously being on the AC line, as it biases transformers into saturation resulting in hum and strain. Unrelated to that tidbit, I feel that people who use turn tables with RCA interconnects, and magnetic coil cartridges have the potential of picking up electromagnetic fields created by current moving through power cables and home wiring. If the neutral of the RCA signal picks up stray energy through induction, this energy on the neutral is going to cancel with the signal on the hot, the hot signal needs to balance with the neutral, every bit of pollution on the neutral will be chipping away at the potential between the hot and neutral, at low signal strength levels to later be amplified during amplification. Allot of efforts are made inside amplifiers to braid wiring and use toroidal transformers to contain stray electromagnetic fields to reduce the noise floor and the Total Harmonic Distortion. So I can see the reasoning in trying to protect interconnects from stray power cord fields through the use of shielding, or braiding. I use an A-1-1 certified Surgex power conditioner, which boasts a 6000v tolerant air core inductor to rebuke incoming noise and surges on the line, plus capacitors to absorb elevated voltage transients and automatic voltage disconnect under 90v and over 140v (Us 120v) it's got 20 amps on tap at every socket, and comes with the power cable soldered in, so cable upgrading is not even on the table for my main power distribution unit, but for the rest of the rats nest, I feel inspired to get shielded Power Cables, but where are those shielded energies going to go? to polluting my ground which will mess with my DAC clock referencing? no thank you! It's the same consideration between RCA interconnects, and Balanced XLR inputs. RCA is just neutral hot, so any shielding is basically just going into the neutral, which is why grounding the chassis can be super helpful. While Balanced has a dedicated ground for shielding allowing hot and neutral to hot pick up any stray field energy which would deplete the potential between the two. But you gotta remember your signal is coming from the DAC and the DAC needs the purest ground possible as reference for it's clock, so if the system is super shielded it's also turning the ground into a noisy antennae. So I even feel like it's worth running a second ground wire, either for the DAC, or some kind of faraday cage running around all your hifi gear's electrical spaghetti. The other cool thing about the surgeX is that it doesn't shunt or send any noise to the ground, it just handles it lol, so it keeps the ground clean. Typical Power strip surge protectors rely on MOV technology to redirect surge energy into the ground, so any flicker of the lights is possibly polluting your ground. When MOV Metal Oxide Varistor surge protectors get old, the MOV's get leaky and actually pollute the ground with trickles of energy, your typical Monster Brand power conditioner has a bunch of movs but also filter capacitors that by design fresh out of the box send high frequencies to ground. Great for creating a clean a hot-neutral RCA type stereo analog situation, but problematic for your DAC's clock if you're going digital. So whether you have a analog turn table with a coil inside of it susceptible to electromagnetic fields, or a DAC that needs a clean clock, will probably determine whether you would want a shielded power cable, or an unshielded power cable. At least, that's what I feel at this point. If you run a second ground cable for your DAC clock, make sure the interconnects don't create a ground loop by bridging the ground with the ground of the other devices through the cable shielding. The interconnect will need the shielding disconnected on one side, many come that way, and have arrows showing the side that's disconnected. It's likely that an XLR interconnected Digitally sourced hifi system will not hear any difference in power cables, but an analog record playing RCA interconnected hifi system might.
Having good shielding around the RCA interconnect cables between your source and your preamplifier matters the most, because that signal is soon going to be AMPLIFIED. Any noise in that signal will be amplified too.
I took a Kimber Powerkord and plugged it into a FM radio. The chance in reception was night and day. Very very audible. The changes it makes in other equipment is debatable.
Look up Bill Whitlock (Quad-Eight, Jensen Transformers, former AES President). If you have an AES membership you can watch a two hour presentation he does on the subject but if not the powerpoints are out there freely available in PDF format. There are two of them, just search "bill whitlock ground loop" on google and you'll find them.
I really really want to buy the top of the line audioquest cable just to take the outer case of it and put it in to a regular cable and give it to someone who already own a lower end audioquest cable to see if they will notice a big difference .....
Try a power cable at the level of a Nordost Valhalla V2. If you can't hear a major change in sound, then you either have hearing issues or shouldn't be considered a reviewer of audio. I understand that it doesn't make any sense, but the sound quality is what I care about. Power cable sets the tone for the entire system especially at the source.
@@ujwiersma8482 no I'm a victim of education. 6 years of Engineering school + 7 years designing electronics took the magic and mystisticm out of cables for me.
@@Audioholics Yup, seen that many times. You EE guys talk all the techno talk, but fail to explain why so many people can hear differences. BTW, as far as science goes, you don't need double blind testing. It does not matter if the person changing the power cords during a trial knows (is not blind to) what pcs are being used at the moment. As long as that person does not convey that information to the listeners.
@@ujwiersma8482 you obviously aren't well versed in psychology or science. A blind test doesn't mean you blindfold the listener. It just means they aren't aware of what DUT they are listening to. Placebo effect and expectation bias are far better indicators of the "differences" people think they hear when swapping a device that has no measurable difference.
Totally agree, what ever is coming out of the wall outlet is what you will get at the component. If your electricity is dirty coming out of the wall, a power cord will make no difference. If you have dirty power, something adding noise or a hum to the circuit, check the circuit, pull the outlets, tighten up the plug and switch connections. If you are needing big dedicated power, call an electrician and have him drop a dedicated circuit, I would add two at a minimum to your gear location, if you have room in your panel. Run a 12 AWG Romex, and install a 20 amp breaker in your panel. Now, I do buy Pangea AC-14 power cords for two reasons. I can get them in exact lengths and my cat will not eat them due to the braiding on the cords. Inexpensive, serve a specific purpose, look good and Tony will not eat them.
In my house, there is 35m of wire length inside the walls between the fuse box and the power outlet where my AMP is plugged it on 3rd floor. This should illustrate the insignificance of the need for any "audiophile power cable".
I have played with power cables, and yes going from the supplied cable to a £35 upgrade did make a difference. I think this is down to the low quality and thin cable that came with it. I then tried at £300 cable and this made no difference that was obvious. Replaying the wall socket also helped but not as an upgrade, but due to the old one had got damp. The point being is knowing what your kit needs to perform and checking these things are in place.
Of course they do! They make your wallet lighter, bank account emptier, and your ego larger. These power cords are so good they don’t even need any IEEE approval.
Love it. Now since I’ve watched this, if I need a good laugh I watch these comedians talking about how great their power cables are at expanding the universe of audio bliss. There are a few guys I watched and trusted and enjoyed their reviews etc, who now I sneer at because they are damn fools or just outright liars. Thanks. You are the voice of reason
Power transmission is important. My solution is to run dedicated lines direct from the main panel which is surge protected at the box, not at the wall outlet.
In my system better quality power chords DO make a huge difference. Its audible and repeatable. However it works it does work. So completely don't agree with you.
Gene: I recently had a new hi quality 200 amp service to my house. The installer set it up in a way grounded to make it "cleaner." I noticed an improvement in the sound of my tube power amp and preamp. The prior service was c 1950 very dated.
Its crazy Paul from PSAudio says the COMPLETE opposite and defiantly says you can hear a difference and says if u dont believe him then march down to PS audio into their music listening room and he will prove it. He uses an Audioquest Dragon power cable that is 5 grand!
You power cable upgrade is not complete unless you add the Mapleshade Floor Trestles ($55), Mapleshade Wall Trestles and Mapleshade Traid Cable Lifts to keep those wires off the floor.
The end of the world argument against audiophile power cable: if power cables make a difference in sound quality do you think high end hi-fi products manufacturers would spend a lot of money in R&D to then sell you their stuff with shitty power cables that make their effort worthless? Wouldn't it be like Mercedes Benz selling you a brand new cars with retreaded tires on it?
I am not an audiophile to open this up. I use a 200 watt Sunfire amplifier that to this day I enjoy. I'm 55 so my hearing is not what it used to be. On my amplifier is a joule VU style meter which measures incoming power. It sits dead steady at 390 joules. I switch cords and it's 390. So zero power flow increase. And I cannot hear a difference. I hear more by removing my speaker grills. Thanks for the video.
That Sunfire was a beautiful component series, when I first saw the preamp and power amp combo I liked it just as much as the beautiful sounding and looking Classe audio systems. 💎👍
Biases do exist, I 100% agree that placebo and confirmation bias is a real thing in audio and in many other things. Having said that, I find these 'trust the science' type videos to be slightly arrogant. Truthfully, there is a lot we know about electricity, losses and sound, but there is still a lot that we don't know. I think we should give the benefit of the doubt to some people who experiment with different power cords and hear improvements or detrimental impacts to the sound of their system. To just essentially imply that they are stupid and imagining things is a bit condescending in my opinion. There is a lot of truth to what he is saying, but its a very hardline stance. I wish he would take up the Synergistic Research challenge and fly over there and do a true double blind test with his own ears and let us know what he thinks. Sometimes people can be too smart for their own good. I've been humbled many times in my life by people and I think having a little bit of humility is a good thing, especially in audio where there haven't been billions and billions of dollars spent researching such a niche hobbyist market.
Experimenting is fine if it's done controlled. Simply swapping out power cables and doing a sighted test is highly flawed and reveals nothing but placebo. To ignore objective data to help make a purchasing decision is both foolish and arrogant. The "Synergistic Challenge" was a ruse simultaneously tied to a threat for litigation from their attorney. It was never a legitimate challenge. Nice try.
@@Audioholics Just so I fully understand, are you saying that if we used three different power cords, all UL and all 12 AWG solid high quality pure wire from the same manufacturer and not found to be limiting the current delivery in any meaningful way. If we got these cords and had their contacts treated, one with gold, the other with silver and the other with tin plating, that they would sound identical? Now again, I’m not saying one would sound better than the other, but if they measured the same electrically, do you believe it is even possible within any stretch of the imagination that they would sound different whatsoever?
@@isobutylquinoline If you tin them with a metal less conductive than copper, then resistance will increase and you can potentially have power loss and an audible difference if severe enough. If all 3 power cables have the same DC and AC resistance, then there will be no difference. Not rocket science.
@@Audioholics Gene. Your little adders of 'nice try' and 'not rocket science' and these little jabs is worrying. I like your channel and you've helped me a lot when it comes to setting up my subwoofer and I really appreciate the Star Trek stuff as well. I don't know if its the whole Synergistic Research thing, which we don't have the full story on, or maybe you've been attacked by a lot of zealots talking about how cables make a difference, but something isn't right with you recently. Maybe I just misjudged you initially and saw what I wanted to see, but the Gene from a few years ago wasn't so abrasive. If you pray, please consider praying about it. I am glad that you enjoy your sound and your system and its good that you have a channel and can share your experiences with others.
If you are in search of the best sound from your hi-fi you should always try for yourself. Try fuses and power conditioners, linear power supplies, audiophile network switches and cables including interconnects and power cables. The enjoyment and rewards of hi-fi come from experimentation, discovery and listening. Is it always placebo? Are measurements always definitive? Can so many companies really be selling so many products for so many years that really make no difference? Should one person determine your entire outlook?
Power conditioners don't improve audio, fuses never do, and cables rarely do. Yes snake oil thrives when placebo is very strong with audiophiles that want to believe. Sadly thry often never address the things that have the most impact on sound like room acoustics, speaker placement and calibration.
One of the most effective arguments made against conspiracy theorists who believe the moon landings were faked is the thousands of people who were involved in that incredible event and therefore must have been "in on the deception" but, unsurprisingly, no one has ever been found out or confessed to the fraud. (i would just note here that there is, of course, also physical evidence mirrors/images of the landings but i digress) I am a long time subscriber to your channel and respect your approach. I use your reports with other feedback to inform my decisions about what to try and purchase. I am interested how you account for all the businesses, and all the customers who have been buying power cables, power conditioners and fuses for so many years and continue to do so? and are there really so many professional hifi journalists that would print lies or remain subject to confirmation bias/placebo and never correct themselves? It all seems about as likely as the moon landings being faked.
@@AH-wr1ir False equivalency. Yes placebo is a dominant factor that keeps audiophiles buying into the promise of better audio. I use the same analysis/measurement process the engineers that design the gear you listen to and use. They learned the same electrical theory in college and on the job to design the gear. You are basically refuting that science and knowledge and replacing it with magic and hope of better sound without independent verification or facts on your side. It's called Kool Aid. If you like to drink it, be my guest. Most reviewers are NOT technical people and lack any sort of engineering / electrical knowledge so I don't think it's malice that they write about the wonders of exotic cables. They just don't know what they don't know.
@@Audioholics Thanks for your reply. I would be very grateful if you could look at this short video from Puritan Power Conditioners and comment on the measured improvements? thank you. ruclips.net/video/svQDoGdZJWY/видео.html
Audioholics credibility went out the window for me when he stated that power cords and other cables do not make a difference. I have a high end system and power cords definitely make a huge difference. It’s not subtle at all. So I don’t understand how this guy, who is a dealer, hasn’t noticed this. Is he just so close minded that he won’t accept it? Does he, and other nay sayers, really think that intelligent people continue to spend additional money on cords if they make no difference? Maybe they don’t if you have a system that isn’t very good. But on a very good system they do. Believe me when I say that if they didn’t make a difference I would not pay good money on them.
Quick answer: Yes, power cords make a difference. Without them I can’t hear any music whatsoever. This was with a properly done double blind test by the way.
LOL 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Science can't explain everything but It can explain how it work. Sound related topic here is kind of chicken and egg issue ... but different power cord do affecting the sound. But those danm expensive cable are really! too much. Haha
@@ryanling7319 They dont, end of story.
Got ya! True… ya gotta have one plugged in LOL
As an electrician, I approve of this message. Especially about the lack of the UL listings.
'My 5k power cable made a HUGE difference, it really lighted things up...'
Approved by Robert Steich, Master Electrician. Thank you Robert!
@Mr Do that guy is rediculous. I would love Gene to comment on his silly wire pedalling video.
Robert, I'm so glad that Gene talked about the crap home wiring in most home. I wonder who many system installers pro and/or DIY add up or measure the load placed on the power circuit. Surely damn few. I'm considering running a dedicated 10ga 30amp circuit to my system just to be safe. 15 amps add up quick.
@@shannonwilliams6623 if Danny is such a badass then why doesn't he work at or for any one of the audiophile businesses such as let's say PS Audio?? Or Stereophile? Danny was founded by a RUclips beggar who literally begged his viewers for money because he had to move. Has his daughter crawling all over him during his videos. Danny is an arrogant man who is nothing but a snake oil salesmen who uses his channel to pedal is products period...
I own a few AudioQuest NRG-2 power cables. Magnolia reps got me good when I first got in to home theater. Haha!
I was ready to buy one until I did some research on RUclips. Plenty of people have tested these junk chords by now and they do nothing.
Same here. Doh!
shameful upvote. we can always sell them on ebay if we are unscrupulous.
I own an NRG-2 myself and I really like it. However, I never expected it to do anything for the sound quality of my system. I bought it because I wanted a well-made, high-quality power cable made from quality materials that would last. That's why you buy a replacement/after-market power cable, not because it will improve the quality of the sound you hear at all. (Oh, and I bought my used for around $22)
That's nothing. Imagine spending 60,000$ on Nordost Odin Gold power cord
Gene is the benchmark reviewer for me very very knowledgable and tells it exactly as he see’s it
Not trying to sell anything and not trying to spread the bullshit to appease fancy rip off brand owners
All power to you and THANK YOU !!
very very refreshing 👍
I run stock power cords on my full system but because I wanted to test for myself I put an audioquest NRG 4 on my main speaker amp (emotiva xpa2 gen 2). On a completely unrelated note I have for sale one 3ft Audioquest NRG 4 ;)
I bought a hospital grade power cable because it's 14 AWG and also the wall end of the cord has a really nicely shaped plug that's easy to grab. I think it was $12.00 US.
I upgraded my system to all Shunyata power management and the audio improvement was very noticeable. Expensive but I found I appreciated the value.
Must be most probably related to your expectations bias. But as Gene says, DBT listening is almost impossible with power chords/conditioners, that lead to psychoacoustics/Placebo effect.
@@vintageflanker7096 False. Not only can it be heard which I have A/B tested if you review the data testing by Shunyata on how it does effect audio and signal improvements you will see why their products are used in the Medical testing fields then migrated to Audio.
@@garykarczewski6678 cope
@@munmunyee ?????????????
@@garykarczewski6678 So you're telling me power that traveled hundreds of miles through antiquated power lines, then reached your 40 year old panel, with 40 year old breakers, then traveled a few more feet through your 40 year old wiring to your equipment is magically going to get fixed by an expensive power cable? Do people really believe this garbage?
I do like the idea of a shielded power cable that's not radiating EMI/RFI into nearby audio-carrying cables.
Basic cable hygiene costs nothing.
Yes, but with shielding you will lose the Chocolatey midrange and buttery highs lol
Everything behind the wall all the way to power plant is unshielded. Most audio cables are shielded though.
Exactly!
@@jefflabute2946he's talking about interference with audio cables
my local audio shop is trying to sell me upgraded power cables, i told them hold off and let me look into it. glad i did.
The rage is "hospital grade" power cables. $100+ per meter.
Sonic argument aside, I don’t see anything wrong with dressing ones high end audio/video system with nice looking cables. There’s a level of psychological satisfaction that comes with that. Just don’t break the bank in your quest or if you’re a nut, who cares? I own some expensive amplifiers/equipment from Dartzeel, Burmester, Jeff Rowland & Boulder and connecting them to the wall with a cheap little black rubber PC seems like an audiophile sin. And, that will remain in the back of your mind as you try to enjoy the system.
Gene, thank you for your engineering experience and insightful video! Perhaps it will help reign in some of the ridiculous audible claims made by manufacturers and reviewers.
Thank you for discussing this topic! I am a metallurgist and quality assurance engineer, also a lifelong audiophile seeking equipment with high value/quality per the investment. The only time I have replaced a power cord is when the installation required a longer or shorter cable, or one time I noticed a power cord was getting warmer than expected, (damaged). I have had great success with replacement power cords in every configuration and length from Monoprice and Amazon, they are quite inexpensive. I usually opt for 12 gauge if available, considering the wiring in my home is mostly 14 gauge between the breaker box and wall outlets. Best wishes to all-
An explanation that made sense to me (from Hans Beekhuyzen) is when a high current device like your power amp draws power a electromagnetic field surrounds the cord which is modulated by the power demands and can induce noise on your your low level interconnects even though they are shielded unless great care is taken to separate them and, this can be difficult with many devices in your rack, this is why a well shielded heavy gauge power cable can make a difference. Please comment.
Hans Beekhuyzen uses a lot of technical sounding mumbo jumbo but he's a quack. He refuses to use any measurements to back up his claims.
@@DisconnectedAudio agreed 100%, saw his RUclips channel (Hans Beekhuyzen) and sensed that he’s more like a newscaster reading from a teleprompter rather than a reviewer or audiophile. Basically, Hans and a couple of others are just clueless but useful idiots to brands that sponsored their channel. Very fortunate that such misinformation are spread even given their limited audience and channel followers
Very rare that can occur if you use shielded interconnects. Virtually nothing will get through to double braided double foil shielded coax like Belden 1694A. Also, use XLR anytime you can and try to route power leads away from speaker cables and interconnects. I've never found a need to use shielded power cables.
@@Audioholics correct, use XLR for long runs, fuss-free and no worries of interferences. Much cheaper and more effective than those exotics cables that cost a kidney yet does nothing. Acoustics principles are known and proven scientifically for so long that it’s sad that unscrupulous sellers use disinformation to mislead the general public.
Your power cord has equal current flowing in both directions which creates magnetic fields that cancel each other out.
Well, Gene is correct with one exception, he literally mentions the exceptions and says to disregard it, I work with multiple rack components both at work and home and behind the these the interference between cables is massive, and most high-speed network and server cables have some shielding so, I do use similar cables at home, nothing too fancy, many reputable cables manufacturers make SJT UL-certified cables for 2 to 10 bucks per feet that can be used to reduce noise, and obviously this only applies if the system has multiple devices on the same rack with cable management, as having 2 or 3 cables away from each other will not cause any problems. So in summary buying spending hundreds of dollars of magical cable topologies is a form of snake oil, having reputable cable brand cables on a component rack will reduce "noise"/ interference from component to component.
Any noise induced or otherwise in the AC mains voltage going into your gear will be filtered by the rectification and filtration of the unit's DC power supply.
PERIOD.
Amir over at Audio Science Review shows this in some recent videos.
@@aussie8114 is that the point? Because that's not what most audiophiles say at all.
@@aussie8114 Sure, use shielded AC cables. You won't hear it but if ti makes you feel better, fine
But these people ("audiophiles") believe magic faeries are sprinkling dust on expensive audio cables and it makes them sound better, even though they measure exactly the same as a $1 cable.
@@aussie8114 thats audiophile nonsense. That the whole idea that the really expensive systems are more "highly resolving" than my medium priced system that I build is just nonsense. What exactly is it that my preamp or amplifier is failing to amplify that a $50,000 amplifier is amplifying, and that humans with tin ears can actually hear or perceive? Is my amplifier forgetting to amplify a cymbal crash? Is it failing to amplify a few bass guitar notes every once in awhile? Is it doing it on purpose? Like out of spite?
High-speed network and sever cables have some shielding? No, they don't, actually. That's almost always all just UTP. Unshielded Twisted Pair. They rely on the number of twists per foot withing the cable itself (on pairs of wires) to cancel out signal crosstalk among the cables. Almost no networking cables are ever shielded, with very few exceptions. Now, you can get shielded network cable, of course (STP) but unless you are in a VERY harsh, industrial-type environment with extremely high levels of EMI/RFI, that's not necessary at all and you are just paying for something that doesn't give you any actual benefit.
I changed the power cord on my microwave and now the popcorn tastes better ... I can even tell where the corn kernel came from. 😁
Gene - Would you be able to debunk some myths about power conditioners? Things to look for and avoid? Why some people think power conditioners degrade the sound quality and who is the right candidate for one? I use a commercial grade Middle Atlantic PDU that includes surge and spike protection, as well as EMI filtering. While it doesn't "condition" the power, it provides me the protection from my power line.
I will do a video on power conditioners. Long story short, I use them for power protection and to have a common connection point for ALL equipment in a rack. No magic.
@@Audioholics thats a great topic, i have 2 power conditioners 1 is a Panamax M5400-PM for all my media stuff in the LivingRoom and a Furman PL-PRO DMC for my Mini Home Recording studio. I have had a couple power outages and the only thing ive noticed is the devices turning back on immediately upon the power coming back up. Another small issue is that my Panamax does make some Grounding hum but it doesn't affect what i have connected to it. I do like that it tells me on 1 gauge that i have 123 volts and the otherside tells me the amp hours all my devices are using.
@ Better yet: invest in prayer beads.
I have a big Belkin that theoretically does something but mostly is a nice big surge protector they lets me know the line voltage.
I have an old APC S Type power conditioner S15 with 1,500VA of uninterruptible power supply. The thing is a beast and I cannot believe it’s still going for over a grand for one... while I paid $250 with shipping 10 years ago. Don’t remember why it was so cheap though, I tend to buy “broken” things and repair them, but I don’t remember in this case.
Well this hobby is all about experience and experiences.
I really wanted and new pair of speakers. The dealer brought them to my home. We listened and - nah. They didn’t bring the improvements I thought they might.
He looked behind my kit and suggested removing all the SMPS from the same distribution block. We listened, ooh, that sounded better! Free upgrade.
He said do you want to try something else?
Why not?, I said
He produced two mains cables. He plugged the first one into my amp.
We listened. It was incredible. The sound was a night and day improvement. Sound stage, texture and shape of bass notes.
He put the second into my dac. Again an improvement. Not as large but noticeable.
We removed both cables and my old system was back. We added the cables back and it was a vastly improved system. Not different sounding like a component change but a better sounding system. An improvement in all areas and repeatable. The cables were pre owned (customer had upgraded) and £350 each - an absolute bargain for the difference they made.
Before he left he smiled and went to his car. He came back with another different cable. Into the amp it went. My jaw hit the floor. I’ve listened to HiFi for 40 years and had heard nothing like this.
That cable was £2500. Way out of my league. However, I heard it. I heard it.
They are not sexy like a new shiny box but if I had £2500 to spend that would be my next purchase.
My experience.
Jim Ettridge no wonder the dealer was smiling 😁 after talking (conning) you into buying 2 pre owned (could even be faulty) power cables for £700 🤦🏾♂️
I'm going to get burned alive now 😂 I am so sorry everyone!
I was so skeptical on this subject that I had to try this for my self. I bought some "HiFi" power cords. Not expensive, but alot bigger gauge than the standard cables. I have done serious a-b testing, and had no reason to wanting to justify my purchase "not that expensive"
I am running a Marantz sr8012 bi-amped to a Rotel RMB1585 power amp. 5.1 system with Arendal Speakers.
All pieces of my equipment got a new power cord.
Again I am so sorry. But I can hear a difference. This is not placebo. I have done A-B testing with multiple non audio interested people and all could hear a difference. I can't argue with science, nor am I an expert on this subject. I do trust me ears though.
Please don't be to harsh!
I can't believe all reviewers who hear a difference are lying. There must be something more to this phenomena.
@@johnmann726 not lying, just delusional. Without a controlled blind test with instantaneous switching, the mind plays tricks on you.
@@Audioholics could be the case 🙂 but I am sorry, I and other non audio addicts can hear a difference. I can only tell people to try for them selves.
Lunatic! Haven't you heard that we have decided that power cords don't make any difference!? And who cares what YOU hear, as Gene said, you're clearly deluded. Having said that, I would never go back to the stock power cords, they suck all the life out of the music... but don't tell anyone I said that 😉
@@Audioholics not necessarily. His old cables might be bad/malfunction/broken. i can confirm from my experience that if cable is not capable for some reason to deliver current properly sound looses quality. In my case level of sound in right channel was dropping
You can buy *shielded* power cords for only slightly more than unshielded.
Gene, for the first time I disagree with you, I haven't bought expensive cables, but US$20 bulk cables from Alliexpress and the sound totally changed, more transparent, better positioning, more control in the low zone and more musicality. This time I affirm it with certainty because I have lived it.
Back in the day when I was experimenting with power cables I found that some makes of stock cable were more musical than others. You may have got lucky with the ones you bought. Snake oil doesn't exist at this level......
You would think a 5 or 10 thousand dollar amp would have a sufficient power cord from the factory and if it made a difference wouldn't they include that in the price of the amp
Would the same principles apply to power strips with surge protection?
Surge protection is a good way to save expensive audio equipment during thunderstorms with lightnings nearby. Better to switch off any equipment from powerline. But if you did not do it those surge protectors can protect from overvoltage surges.
Just saw a Audioquest cable manufacturing demo her on YT... Hillarious... they invented cold welding they say... ( crimping) 😂😂😂 sadly comment are disabled on their channel... wonder why...
Even if your new (expensive) power cord worked as described , this approach often results in no benefits to the system unless all other ground paths in the connected equipment can be totally isolated. An isolation transformer is not a substitute for the proper shielding or grounding of individual equipment. As G said...
Subscribing to premium electricity from your utility company makes a bigger difference.
Is everything really measurable? Take 10 violins, play open "A" (assume they are tuned) all will measure A440. I guarantee without a shadow of a doubt all 10 will sound differently.
Everything is not measurable, but you know what is? Power cable, speaker wire, and cables. Astounding that in 2020, we are still having this discussion and snake oil still putting other people's kids through college. As the man said "nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people"
@@oldb3139 my point was all the violins will measure the same but sound different. I believe there are too many people saying different cables sound differently. Unfortunately, I am not able to buy enough of them to do side by side comparisons and stay married... That said they may sound different but measure different as well. For example, the two Kimber speaker cables the Audioholic likes both sound and measure differently.
@@richardpeters2193 I'm confident you could measure the differences.
You could measure the difference with the right equipment. An instrument does not play a constant single tone like a tone generator does. They all color the sound to a degree. This is why a string intrument sounds different than a saxaphone or a piano or whatever. And each instrument will have a sound that is unique to itself. This is why when you go to buy one you play several different ones to see how they sound. And it can be measured if you can see the spectrum of sound it is putting out. The dominant tone will be 440 but there will be many tones around it. Pretty much everything you can hear (and can't hear) can be measured. Many of just might not know the technical term for it. If you think something sounds warm, bright, muddy or whatever it can be measured and compared to something else. And someone can tell you exactly what you were hearing that gave you that impression if you did indeed hear it. If it can't be measured it was probably your brain tricking you. Not everyone hears the same way and even something as simple as your mood can effect how you percieve sound. Humans are very poor measuring devices lol.
Yes it is measurable. It's called harmonics and every violin has variation there even if the fundamental tone is the same. Proper measurement devices are way more sensitive than human hearing. Do not trust manufacturers that don't show measurements (or at least extensive specs).
Diminishing returns definitely applies here, upgrading from 20 ga. lamp cord to something heavier and maybe shielded probably makes a difference, going from that to $5000 cables, well, I'd like to see some double blind test results on that.
its been done , no difference was heard
@@patthewoodboy Shielded cable definitely helped in my specific case of noise coming from my computer. I had ground loop hum and fixed that, but there was still noise when I moved my mouse or played more intense games. Switching to a shielded cable helped. It is still unbalanced cable though. Balanced cable probably would have eliminated the noise too.
Agree completely. I only have a 'special' $40 OFC cable on my custom toroidal transformer going to a class A headphone amp I use for IEM's. Can't say I heard an improvement, but for an extra $30, why not get a really nice looking cable with OFC for shits and giggles
Great video. I like your reference to UL. I want to further point out another scam here. Some power cord vendors will buy OEM UL listed plugs and even IEC connectors. Then they claim "see our power cord is UL listed". WRONG! As you probably know Gene, replacement or OEM connectors are only UL listed by them selves. That listing does not extend to the entire cord assembly. In order to have a legally listed power cord, the entire assembled product must be submitted for testing. Just using UL listed plugs doesn't cut it. And what is scary is the unknown raw wire they use? Is it rated and listed for AC line voltage application?
And another issue are these UL listed OEM plugs and wall outlets that are then re-plated with some exotic metal or cryo treated by the cable charlatans. Any listed electrical product that is modified beyond the OEM's instructions is no longer listed. That UL stamp on a modified plug or wall outlet now means nothing once it's re-plated or cryo treated. Harmless? You tell me? How was it plated? Is the plating metal compatible with the OEM surface plating or will it flake off over time and cause a metalized conductive track? Did the cryo treatment weaken the plastic to where the outlet or plug can split apart when connected exposing live terminals?
Yes I think power cord make a difference but we don’t have a proper way to measure it yet
Quite arrogant of you to say
Answering a question from somewhere below.
Pull a 20 amp home run from the panel. Remember the breaker is there to protect the wire from overloading, it's not there to protect whatever equipment is on the circuit. One 20 amp circuit generally has 10 outlets on it so if you run a dedicated line with a double box your good and make sure to use 20 amp outlets. If you have ground issues and your line in is flown look outside by your meeter and make sure the green ground wire is connected to the copper rod they drove in the ground.
Lalalalalala I can’t hear you! I just spent $20k on power cables and it lifted a veil on the soundstage, improved detail and image the micro dynamics came to li....pffffbwahahahaa I can’t do it!
Do cigars taste different? Can you measure that? I don't smoke. I guess you could try to explain it to me but I would not truly understand until I developed my taste for them and learned the differences. Sound is the same thing. I hate cigars, cigarettes but I believe in the freedom we have to enjoy those things. If I can tell the difference then why do you care so much. Are you just a Fan Boy?
If there are facts and proof then its just subjective because you blew that kind of money and someone made a good profit. I hear you. Which is a demo done in truetone electronics, Toronto. May be a fraction difference. But again depending on my brain
@@jackryder6732
Agreed. I mixed live audio for many years. I peaked on what I could learn on my own. I hired a degreed audio engineer and what he showed me was mind blowing but sometimes the.difference between a good mix and great mix were very small changes.
@James Tremblay You are just a fan boy.
They do in my system, I've proven it several times over the years. Remember, everything has some effect and the power chords are part of the power supply to your rig.
Maybe organize a double blind test with a few audiophile people who know their music very well and bring their own tracks and source gear....also with the proper gear to switch instantaneously. That will be something..the debate will be put to rest😆
Little story:
The house I'm in years ago had ground loop audio problems, electric guitars with bad ground hum got worse in this house, some guitars that behaved elsewhere had hum, the relays in a professional video editing deck keep failing.
Finally I discovered only 110 volts was coming from the power outlets.
Finally a storm dropped a tree on the power service line.
The original service line was about 250 yards long, the wire was 1946 stock aluminum and corroded.
The service line was replaced and reconnected to a nearer pole (50yds),
All electric problems solved, 120 volts achieved.
Gene, we appreciate you. You have saved us thousands of dollars.
An audiophile once suggested that I tear out the inbuilt power cord in one of my vintage amplifiers (rated at up to 15A) and "upgrade it" by installing an AC inlet so i could use a high-end power cord. The garden-hose variety, of course.
Powercords , Usb cables, intercons, power conditioner etc can have a positiv impact on the audio quality.
I trust my ears, if something contributes a positv it stays.
I had to make a power cord for an amp I am building. I bought ends that cost $50 just because they looked very high end and cool. I bought fancy nylon braiding for the outside. However, the base for the cord is just high quality 14/3 power cord. So, I have a power cord that looks very high dollar but only cost about $70, and works just as well as any expensive cord.
This is hands down the most honest and accurate info on power cables I've seen. Thank you! Not much else I could add that you didn't cover already. Cheers!
I would have been the last person to believe in power cords as well. That said, I run a pretty nice headphone system around my gaming pc. I have a discreet DAC and separate solid state and tube amps. I purchased a reasonably priced Furman power conditioner, mostly for better protection and sure enough, it didn't really make any difference to the sound. Later, I bought a handful of $30 'audiophile' power cords just to try out. I put one on each audio component and the pc and then left them all alone.
It wasn't day and night, but I absolutely noticed that the solid state amp was closing the gap with the tube amp. The sound stage debth was more coherent and over all sounded more real. The tube amp didn't seem to benefit much. I brought out my older DAC/amp all in one that I felt didn't have the resolution of my newer gear. With the new power stuff, it also seemed more on par with the other electronics.
I am a person who didn't think power cables could make a difference and always laughed at people who did. Also, FWIW, I think AB testing is good for finding frequency response or tonality differences, but not spacial cues. I take more time to explore the 'space' of the sound and then have to be familiar with both pieces of equipment in that way to make a comparison. To my ear anyway, these kinds of spacial cues are where higher end gear duke it out, over lower end gear, since it's not that hard to achieve frequency response and resolution these days.
All that said, I still wouldn't advocate expensive cables, or expect to hear a difference right out of the wall. I also can't hear any difference between my $30 and $200 interconnect cables, either.
Gene, I would like to say how much I appreciate your solid "logical" work in the Audio/Video world. I am an EE also "from long, long ago" and get so tired of the claims by some companies. Thank you for exposing them and showing the truth based on solid engineering principles. As an aside, I first came across one of your videos on RUclips several years ago and you had a cutout of Spock and Kirk beside you in the background. I instantly thought "I should listen to this guy" as I am a original Trekkie. I was just entering the 7th grad in the first season. When they were going to cancel the series after the second season, I was one of those Nerds who wrote a letter to NBC to not cancel, which we won and did get a 3rd season. I hope it was okay that I posted your videos when you had COVID-19 to show people what it was really like . Those videos were very helpful and I was very happy when you recovered. Again, keep up the good work.
Billy
Offcourse that sellout pretend he have covid, cause he is sellout and a lier.He is lieing about audio for years.
@@billyshows5675 You know Gene deserves it.Better have low manures than be a lier and sellout.
If he was a human, i would treat him like a human.But he is a ****.
Agree 100% ! Companies goes to great lengths to design and make high performances audio gear and they wouldn’t sabotages their products with unsuitable power cords. That would be highly counterproductive.
I can see how people without any knowledge of electrical systems could believe power cables make a difference but to anyone with even the most basic knowledge (most audiophiles i imagine) its just ridiculous they coukld believe a power cable could make any difference. Its insanity! These people need to be locked up in a padded room especially they audio reviews claiming " oh this cable really added volume to the mids!" wtf!
Please talk about ground loops. I have one that I isolated to my cable box cable. I put a noise filter on the cable to suppress it but is there a better way to eliminate it , instead of just covering it up? I would love to learn more....Thanks for teaching us so much, Gene!
If "audiophiles" were actually concerned with real measurements as well as the actual limitations of human audio physiology, there would be 90% less companies out there hawking products designed for and marketed to fools.
i spent £ 1500 on power cables.i listened to both arguments for months you and paul at ps audio and others, then made my own mind up to go ahead and build some. i liked how my set up looked when finished. but ive got to say that one time my interest got the better of me one time. i went out and purchased a length of Furutech DPS-4.1 Limited Edition High End Audio Grade Power Cable that cost £ 400 per meter. i dressed the ends up with top line furutech plug and socket then tried it out. i was sure the music did sound more clearer. but it could just be the placebo effect.i didn't un plug it and try a normal cable as the cable was that thick it was difficult to get it in and out of the socket / appliance. lol. so it sits there till now. if anything ,i like to think sound different. i look at it this way, if your intp your hifi and building rigs ,then why not build / buy good cables ,if only for the looks.
Must be a strangely wired system that the power cables are on display to see. I like to put my money in what I can hear, being it is an audio system. Maybe that's just me, being I have ears.
"Limited edition power cables" right...
Dear Gene. The thing about power cords is not about filtering the sine wave, but shielding the environment from the alternating magnetic field inducing the 50 or 60hz current into the speaker and rca cables. That's how the theory goes. I myself don't own a shielded cable, but lets not beat the wrong horse.
Many thanks for being the voice of reason in this insane hobby. I use inexpensive aftermarket cords. Mostly when the stock cord cannot reach, or when I have one that was not made well and keeps working itself loose. Sorry, no cable risers, power conditioners, and other such tweaks here.
In my early days, I did play around with power cords. One day I got serious and replaced an entry level $60.00 cord with one that retailed for about $1,250.00. It had exotic silver strands instead of copper, a woven inner metal wrap under the dielectric and sheath, with a super special esoteric geometry that dissipated EMI, eliminated noise from your outlet, and protected your components power supply from RMI etc.
Lesson learned; it did not improve my systems midrange clarity, nor reduced the preamp's noise floor. Even at the 90% off liquidation price of a $150.00. I consider myself duped.
I'm going to very politely disagree. I do understand this plays with the guys that critique audiofools and to the measurement crowd. And my counter is the question do different components in an electrical (audio) component sound different? For example do engineers and audio designers hear differences between capacitors of the same value but manufactured differently? The answers are yes, of course they do. Nelson Pass and others talk about the sound of various circuits and components. They switch out bits and listen to them in circuits and decide what to include and exclude based on cost and sound quality. You get the end result of that design process. Of course it includes measurement and testing but a lot of listening. Audio amplifiers are designed with different types of feedback and the types of feedback used and in what ratios, global and local change the sound as well as stability of the amplifiers. We buy those results and we all agree we can hear differences between different amplifiers, integrated amps which again are based on design choices which included listening and yes the bias of the designer. We can hear differences in rooms, anechoic chambers sound different then home listening rooms and if you have four friends with four different listening rooms each room will sound different. You won't need a measurement to tell you that. Then all of a sudden when we get to cables, which after all are only electrical components, we claim we can't or shouldn't hear differences. These cables are constructed differently, are drawn from different metals, may include varied amounts of different metals, different shielding, different terminations (again all electrical components) but somehow the measurement crowd says, well I couldn't measure a difference and all of a sudden though our ears and brains are sophisticated enough to hear differences between a compendium of electrical choices our gear represent, the rooms we listen in, etc. they are not sophisticated enough to hear differences in cables. All I can say is that you are wrong and the angst this perspective brings to the table is the result of pricing choices made in a capitalistic economic system. I get that many things are way way over priced, but unfortunately this is a market problem. We have allowed our market to become bifurcated by income and seduced by our desires for luxury into overpaying for gear that ought to be more reasonably priced. But that fact that many cables cost too damn much does not mean they all sound the same, nor does it mean that because engineers haven't figure out a way to measure these differences yet that they don't exist. Engineering schools by in large teach their students that electricity is electricity and wire is wire it's probably the first thing they learn in school. By the time they graduate they have absorbed this mantra so much that it has become a paradigm. They are stuck in it and they can not measure their way out of it and so it persists. As an audiophile in the hobby for more than 35 years and also selling audio gear for more than 20 years, I have heard different renditions of this over and over again. I would say to you all trust your ears with your gear and your cables. You are always looking for synergy to get the best out your gear. The engineers that built your gear have gone through similar processes of listening when choosing components, designing power supplies etc and so should you with cables and watch your own wallets not everybody else's. I have built my own power cables using different wire and different terminations and they sound different. I saved a lot of money doing so and I would suggest you try it as well. Lastly, even with Ul certification not every cable is inspected, in the same way not every slaughtered chicken in inspected. If you don't feel comfortable building your own cables then just stick with stock but if you try various cables you can at least tune the sound differently, at the end of the day whether something sounds better or worse will be a subjective one which may or may not be also measurable. The last issue I want to address is this issue of noise, the wire coming into the house versus the cables you use to connect your equipment. Obviously there is a lot of noise on the grid and yes to varying degrees equipment is designed to filter out some of that noise. The diagram was nice but to not point out that the choices engineers make in designing those components that filter noise have implications for each piece of gear's ability to filter out that noise. Not everyone builds a robust set of filters into their gear due to market based price constraints for the piece being designed. The noise to be most concerned with is in your own house, The number of computers, network based devices, refrigerators, freezers, poorly designed lights etc, all bring more noise, a properly designed power cable (I put ferrite cores on all of my own hand built power cables) So a power cord can help as a first filter if long enough and designed well and then can change the sound depending on the metals used as one example. copper versus silver or combined sound differently in your system and may or may not help you find synergy in your gear but you have to listen to it to decide. Lastly, it is not the cost of the wire that matters. I have heard really expensive cables that I did not think sounded better or were not synergistic in my system and if the cost of something is way out of proportion as many things are these days than just don't buy it. The price thing won't be corrected until the economy gets corrected which unfortunately, I don't see happening anytime soon but that is a different conversation...
Can't say your not passionate about the topic!🤓😎
You’re so right. Good powercables made my system go to another level. The level I didn’t expect to reach with the gear I have
Elton, that is perhaps the most intelligent post that I have seen on audio discussions. Seriously. And you have nothing to sell. I will think about this next time I buy a cable or eat chicken. Cheers.
I think you explained it very well. I thought the audiophile world was all BS until I bought my 1st McIntosh pre-amp and amp. Wow, night and day difference from my $2k Yamaha. Then I tried several power cables from $75-600 dollar range. Had a party with about 6 of my friends, did a blind test with stock vs upgrades PC's. Everyone in the room heard the difference. I guess we are a full of sh** according to this crew!!
Dang! I was hoping to see the word "synergistic" right away, but you made me wait till the end. Well played, sir. By the way, Walmart has a sale on tin foil. Better hurry!.
There are differences in power cables. But non of those differences influences influence the audio production of your hifi components, providing you’ve selected a cable with adequate current carrying capacity.
There are differences in the quality of power cables. It’s well worth shelling out a little extra for a cable which is nice and supple/flexible, not overly rigid and is solidly terminated. It’s nice to witness someone in this industry who’s got sufficient backbone to broadcast some straight talking. I think that keeping all cables, not just power cables to a minimum length is your best friend.
Great video Gene. Is there a benefit to using shielded power cables? Not to shield the power line but to reduce emissions from the power cord to nearby equipment (provided the shield is grounded at the plug end).
It's not a bad idea if that's a problem but just realize many shielded power cords don't meet UL due to fire safety issues. Personally keep power cord away from line level stuff and you will be ok.
@@Audioholics thanks for the reply, makes sense to me.
I made some Lapp cables with good quality plugs for all my gear that required an earth. No change in sound quality, except now I can listen to AM radio without all the interference. Strange but true.
That guy in Japan would beg to differ, he had the power company give him a dedicated power line into his house lol
future shock There is a guy near New Haven, CT who has his own transformer pad on property. And if I remember correctly, it’s 3 phase too.
But not for “clean” power... but actual POWER! I wish I could find the article, I read it mid to late 2000’s. He has over 20 vacuum tube amps powering 30 tower speakers. His average annual power bill was $200,000 at the time.
That video is legendary, any link to the wsj full video ?
The Internetwanderer
OMG, I’m laughing so hard right now!
@@robertsteich7362 lmfao get out
Does the power company supplies him with DC or AC 😂
I DIYed my power cords. Hifituning and nanotec. Each 100bcks. 5.5mm² coppers. I used IeGO glod plated copper plugs on each end. Not overly fancy, but good quality. You talked about certification for power safety, some brands like supra have them, but they are pricey. Most people like the look to thick powercords. I which i could say people bought audio gear only for sound but that isnt true for cables or anything audio or anything else for that matter. Looks, brand, price, build quality, touch quality all factors into purchase decision. Many people with 50k or 100k setups dont like even the look of $10 powercords let alone atking the time to listen test them. Your video will help budget conscious or budding audiophiles, but not deep pocketed seasoned audiophiles that wont care.
This is what I’ve always thought intuitively. I recently heard another science-based testing site. The only thing he said that gave me pause is that the low voltage signal interconnects can possibly pick up electromagnetic interference if put in close proximity to a power cord passing high current power. So my interconnects from preamp to power amp would not go through a transformer. This is assuming that the cables are not properly shielded. Is there any validity to that?
If you run your high impedance interconnect cable alongside the AC power cord carrying a high current, there will be some interaction. But the interconnect cable is shielded, and that will block the interaction. I don't think you can buy unshielded RCA to RCA cables. You would have to make them up yourself from pieces of wire.
Gene great insight .You hear some of these audiophile utubers say how ac power chords make big improvements.bass is richer and there is space between the instruments and vocals blah ,blah, blah and meanwhile non of them have the credentials you have maybe a high school equivalency in their back pocket.
I bought a cheap pangera power cord from audioadvisor. Hooked it up to my McIntosh MC 352 amp. Right away I
heard more bass. So I bought one for my preamp. Didn't hear any difference. Just my 2 cents worth
Gene makes all the rational arguments, however he overlooks some truths that can affect sound quality in a high quality listening system. As just 1 example, all power cords act to a greater or lesser extent as both an antenna and a filter. Both can affect the SQ, even with a short length between the wall and your component. Second, connectors matter ALOT. High quality power cords use much better connectors, metal welding techniques instead of soldered connections, copper and gold instead of steel, and tigher fitment with the IEC connector. All of which can affect the SQ in a high quality system. Third, purer copper as well as gauge and geometry all can make significant AND MEASURABLE differences to the performance of the cable, and thus the SQ based on how it interacts with your specific electronics. Thatis partly why this topic is so subjective....everyone's system is different electrically, acoustically, and qualitatively. It's well established AND MEASURABLE that resistance, capacitance, and inductance all have an effect on SQ in a high quality system. Nice try Gene, but respectfully, you need to re-think your simplistic position. You are misleading alot of people out there with your opinion.
You’re just making bald assertions, and comically responding to “all the rational arguments” with “truths”. Where are the rational arguments and measurements for the “truths”, or are the only arguments left irrational ones? If it’s the latter, we’re talking about faith. This stuff gets into the realm of religion, astonishingly enough.
We’re talking about power cables here. Did you happen to miss the entire part of the video where he explained the power supply? The power cable delivers AC into the power supply of your device, which converts AC to DC, the process of which filters out anything you might be worried about, basically by definition. The rest of the circuit is powered by whatever unvarying DC current that was generated by the component’s power supply. The 60hz AC and whatever might have ridden in with it is long “forgotten” by the time you’re in the circuit. But lets say you’re right: the thing is, if the component requires 3ft of fancy power cable to do its best job, then it’s a failed design (not “high-quality”), and was never worthwhile in the first place. If you think it’s worthwhile to put a $100-5000 power cable on an amp with a broken power supply, well it’s your money.
I agree that connectors are important and must be sufficient to task, but they are hardly high technology or worth any great deal of money. It seems pretty safe to assume good-quality manufacturers are going to use power cables that don’t have faulty connectors.
Similarly, yes, good internal connections are important, but what real difference do fancy “metal welding techniques” make over normal techniques, solder or otherwise, especially given the receptacle you’re shoving that fancy plug into has *screwed-on* connections to romex behind it, not to mention at the power panel, at the sub-station, and untold other connections upstream?
All that said, I do own some aftermarket power cables, but only as seldom-seen “jewelry” to dress up the appearance of the system. They look good, feel nice in the hand, and get the job done. I just don’t kid myself that they do anything more than that.
And even more said, I know this was all a waste of time to type in. Sometimes I can’t help myself. You do you and I wish you continued happiness with your setup. At least we can agree we like to listen to music - and I bet you have a cool system :-)
Gene the timing of videos just right, i got a couple of power cables to compare with the stock ones.if power cords don’t make a difference then do the power filters or conditioners do anything?
I recently got a filter, that can filter from a bit to a lot. When it filters a lot (on the amp) it makes the sound worse. When it filters a bit, it changes the sound - making some records sound better and others worse...
Can they? Possibly, depends on the power in your house. If you have power issues in, or coming to your house then yes they can make a difference. If not then it probably won't do anything but give you piece of mind. I use UPS's in my system because my power cuts out randomly sometimes. Will they make a difference in sound quality? I highly doubt it. Like he said this is what the power supply in the component is for. The component is already regulating, converting and filtering the ac signal. Filters and conditioners should be a safety concern, not a quality of sound issue. If I had a really exepensive system I would probably have some nice line conditioners just to help protect all that gear. And most likely an insurance plan that covered it too. I wouldn't expect it to make it sound better though. For lower end stuff like I own UPS's made for computers work just fine. That is what I use. They help with voltage spikes, cut outs and if the power goes out it gives me some time to shut everything off properly. If you hook a fancy line conditioner up to your system and it makes a difference in your audio quality I would highly suggest you call an electrician because you have issues in your house.
Rather than spend stupid money on factory made power cords, I built some of my own using high quality connectors and various types of 12 gauge wire. I was not able to do any immediate A-B testing, in other words, I had to listen for a while, stop the playback and swap out the cable, then listen again, but I've used this process for all my A-B testing. I believe I could hear a difference between the OEM cables and my home made cables, although that difference was VERY small, only very slightly audible. I was able to pick up on these small differences by going back and forth with the various alternatives I created. I have a triamp active system so I tried the various cables on the different amplifiers and found that one slightly improved the highs and another slightly improved the bass, and a third made no audible difference. Two other things I was able to accomplish with this task, one was that I twisted the three wires on each cable so that the grounding wire now wraps around the live and neutral wires, providing better shielding of the cable, something I do not believe the high end cables do, and the other was that I discovered many of my components did not utilize the grounding pin, or had a two wire AC cord permanently attached to the component. So in order to utilize my new cables, I installed IEC connectors in all my components. This change made the greatest difference in the reduction of noise from my system because prior to these changes, some of my components utilized a grounding wire and some did not, which resulted in some components finding this grounding through the shielding of the interconnects, which I believe was the source of the noise (slight hum) I had been getting prior to the changes I made.
Spare Change had an interview yesterday with Garth Powell about how great the AQ cables with batteries are.
Puke
batteries included ... for the movie only 😉
They are really good. I bought a used pair of Rocket 88 cables with the 48V DBS. Biggest improvement in my system.
Im running a Krell KAV400xi integrated and the manual says to NOT use a 3rd party cord. It came with a 6 foot 14 awg power cord. I needed a shorter one so I purchased a 14 awg UL certified cord for 13 bucks. Spent the other $287 on actual vinyl so I had something to listen to on my system.
I switched to extra crunchy peanut butter and it raised my sound stage. I’ll have to do a side by side comparison it seems to be make a hissing noise now.
Ground loops are very much a hum problem to be solved if present. I've heard humming can also be from DC simultaneously being on the AC line, as it biases transformers into saturation resulting in hum and strain. Unrelated to that tidbit, I feel that people who use turn tables with RCA interconnects, and magnetic coil cartridges have the potential of picking up electromagnetic fields created by current moving through power cables and home wiring. If the neutral of the RCA signal picks up stray energy through induction, this energy on the neutral is going to cancel with the signal on the hot, the hot signal needs to balance with the neutral, every bit of pollution on the neutral will be chipping away at the potential between the hot and neutral, at low signal strength levels to later be amplified during amplification. Allot of efforts are made inside amplifiers to braid wiring and use toroidal transformers to contain stray electromagnetic fields to reduce the noise floor and the Total Harmonic Distortion. So I can see the reasoning in trying to protect interconnects from stray power cord fields through the use of shielding, or braiding. I use an A-1-1 certified Surgex power conditioner, which boasts a 6000v tolerant air core inductor to rebuke incoming noise and surges on the line, plus capacitors to absorb elevated voltage transients and automatic voltage disconnect under 90v and over 140v (Us 120v) it's got 20 amps on tap at every socket, and comes with the power cable soldered in, so cable upgrading is not even on the table for my main power distribution unit, but for the rest of the rats nest, I feel inspired to get shielded Power Cables, but where are those shielded energies going to go? to polluting my ground which will mess with my DAC clock referencing? no thank you! It's the same consideration between RCA interconnects, and Balanced XLR inputs. RCA is just neutral hot, so any shielding is basically just going into the neutral, which is why grounding the chassis can be super helpful. While Balanced has a dedicated ground for shielding allowing hot and neutral to hot pick up any stray field energy which would deplete the potential between the two. But you gotta remember your signal is coming from the DAC and the DAC needs the purest ground possible as reference for it's clock, so if the system is super shielded it's also turning the ground into a noisy antennae. So I even feel like it's worth running a second ground wire, either for the DAC, or some kind of faraday cage running around all your hifi gear's electrical spaghetti. The other cool thing about the surgeX is that it doesn't shunt or send any noise to the ground, it just handles it lol, so it keeps the ground clean. Typical Power strip surge protectors rely on MOV technology to redirect surge energy into the ground, so any flicker of the lights is possibly polluting your ground. When MOV Metal Oxide Varistor surge protectors get old, the MOV's get leaky and actually pollute the ground with trickles of energy, your typical Monster Brand power conditioner has a bunch of movs but also filter capacitors that by design fresh out of the box send high frequencies to ground. Great for creating a clean a hot-neutral RCA type stereo analog situation, but problematic for your DAC's clock if you're going digital. So whether you have a analog turn table with a coil inside of it susceptible to electromagnetic fields, or a DAC that needs a clean clock, will probably determine whether you would want a shielded power cable, or an unshielded power cable. At least, that's what I feel at this point. If you run a second ground cable for your DAC clock, make sure the interconnects don't create a ground loop by bridging the ground with the ground of the other devices through the cable shielding. The interconnect will need the shielding disconnected on one side, many come that way, and have arrows showing the side that's disconnected. It's likely that an XLR interconnected Digitally sourced hifi system will not hear any difference in power cables, but an analog record playing RCA interconnected hifi system might.
Having good shielding around the RCA interconnect cables between your source and your preamplifier matters the most, because that signal is soon going to be AMPLIFIED. Any noise in that signal will be amplified too.
I took a Kimber Powerkord and plugged it into a FM radio. The chance in reception was night and day. Very very audible. The changes it makes in other equipment is debatable.
Please, please make a video about grounding loops.
Look up Bill Whitlock (Quad-Eight, Jensen Transformers, former AES President). If you have an AES membership you can watch a two hour presentation he does on the subject but if not the powerpoints are out there freely available in PDF format. There are two of them, just search "bill whitlock ground loop" on google and you'll find them.
I really really want to buy the top of the line audioquest cable just to take the outer case of it and put it in to a regular cable and give it to someone who already own a lower end audioquest cable to see if they will notice a big difference .....
Try a power cable at the level of a Nordost Valhalla V2. If you can't hear a major change in sound, then you either have hearing issues or shouldn't be considered a reviewer of audio. I understand that it doesn't make any sense, but the sound quality is what I care about. Power cable sets the tone for the entire system especially at the source.
LOL you're a victim of placebo effect but if it makes you happy, enjoy.
@@Audioholics You are a victim of ignorance, but, hey, ignorance is bliss, right?
@@ujwiersma8482 no I'm a victim of education. 6 years of Engineering school + 7 years designing electronics took the magic and mystisticm out of cables for me.
@@Audioholics Yup, seen that many times. You EE guys talk all the techno talk, but fail to explain why so many people can hear differences. BTW, as far as science goes, you don't need double blind testing. It does not matter if the person changing the power cords during a trial knows (is not blind to) what pcs are being used at the moment. As long as that person does not convey that information to the listeners.
@@ujwiersma8482 you obviously aren't well versed in psychology or science. A blind test doesn't mean you blindfold the listener. It just means they aren't aware of what DUT they are listening to. Placebo effect and expectation bias are far better indicators of the "differences" people think they hear when swapping a device that has no measurable difference.
unplug the cable , undo all the connections and re do them , replace the fuse , plug it back in. Job done
Your channel is fantastic!
Totally agree, what ever is coming out of the wall outlet is what you will get at the component. If your electricity is dirty coming out of the wall, a power cord will make no difference. If you have dirty power, something adding noise or a hum to the circuit, check the circuit, pull the outlets, tighten up the plug and switch connections.
If you are needing big dedicated power, call an electrician and have him drop a dedicated circuit, I would add two at a minimum to your gear location, if you have room in your panel. Run a 12 AWG Romex, and install a 20 amp breaker in your panel.
Now, I do buy Pangea AC-14 power cords for two reasons. I can get them in exact lengths and my cat will not eat them due to the braiding on the cords. Inexpensive, serve a specific purpose, look good and Tony will not eat them.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and knowledge. You should make a video about isolation feet for Hi-Fi components. That would be interesting
In my house, there is 35m of wire length inside the walls between the fuse box and the power outlet where my AMP is plugged it on 3rd floor. This should illustrate the insignificance of the need for any "audiophile power cable".
I have played with power cables, and yes going from the supplied cable to a £35 upgrade did make a difference. I think this is down to the low quality and thin cable that came with it. I then tried at £300 cable and this made no difference that was obvious. Replaying the wall socket also helped but not as an upgrade, but due to the old one had got damp. The point being is knowing what your kit needs to perform and checking these things are in place.
This is what I like about Gene. He's always keeping it real! Thanks, Gene!
They make a difference in Paul McGowan's personal bank account.
I like the hospital power cables. They’re designed to not fail. Very solid quality and only around $15.
Of course they do! They make your wallet lighter, bank account emptier, and your ego larger. These power cords are so good they don’t even need any IEEE approval.
"You're just jealous because you can't afford it"
@@zemstafreda who cant afford a 2.000$ power cable? Any grown person with a job can afford that. But a smart person would not buy that snake Oil
@@chriss881000 you dropped this 🧠
Love it. Now since I’ve watched this, if I need a good laugh I watch these comedians talking about how great their power cables are at expanding the universe of audio bliss. There are a few guys I watched and trusted and enjoyed their reviews etc, who now I sneer at because they are damn fools or just outright liars. Thanks. You are the voice of reason
But my wifes chocolaty BF can hear the difference from the bedroom.
Rofl!
fucking lol
Power transmission is important. My solution is to run dedicated lines direct from the main panel which is surge protected at the box, not at the wall outlet.
In my system better quality power chords DO make a huge difference. Its audible and repeatable. However it works it does work. So completely don't agree with you.
Gene: I recently had a new hi quality 200 amp service to my house. The installer set it up in a way grounded to make it "cleaner." I noticed an improvement in the sound of my tube power amp and preamp. The prior service was c 1950 very dated.
Always interesting with these debunking videos, thank you for making them. A video on ground loop-issues would be very much appreciated Gene! :)
Its crazy Paul from PSAudio says the COMPLETE opposite and defiantly says you can hear a difference and says if u dont believe him then march down to PS audio into their music listening room and he will prove it. He uses an Audioquest Dragon power cable that is 5 grand!
Gene what are your thoughts on power conditioners?
@StringerNews1 thanks for info, I was about to buy one myself
You power cable upgrade is not complete unless you add the Mapleshade Floor Trestles ($55), Mapleshade Wall Trestles and Mapleshade Traid Cable Lifts to keep those wires off the floor.
You are one of the few people that actually uses common sence and electrical engineering to debunk all this snakeoil. Thank you so much!
The end of the world argument against audiophile power cable: if power cables make a difference in sound quality do you think high end hi-fi products manufacturers would spend a lot of money in R&D to then sell you their stuff with shitty power cables that make their effort worthless? Wouldn't it be like Mercedes Benz selling you a brand new cars with retreaded tires on it?
If you buy a car that you want to put on track to race, you won't go on stock tires 😉
OK, 50 seconds in to the video and Gene earned the thumbs up on this video :D
There's only one reason to buy them - they look freaking awesome
To match your carpet 🙂
I am not an audiophile to open this up. I use a 200 watt Sunfire amplifier that to this day I enjoy. I'm 55 so my hearing is not what it used to be. On my amplifier is a joule VU style meter which measures incoming power. It sits dead steady at 390 joules. I switch cords and it's 390. So zero power flow increase. And I cannot hear a difference. I hear more by removing my speaker grills. Thanks for the video.
That Sunfire was a beautiful component series, when I first saw the preamp and power amp combo I liked it just as much as the beautiful sounding and looking Classe audio systems. 💎👍
Biases do exist, I 100% agree that placebo and confirmation bias is a real thing in audio and in many other things. Having said that, I find these 'trust the science' type videos to be slightly arrogant. Truthfully, there is a lot we know about electricity, losses and sound, but there is still a lot that we don't know. I think we should give the benefit of the doubt to some people who experiment with different power cords and hear improvements or detrimental impacts to the sound of their system. To just essentially imply that they are stupid and imagining things is a bit condescending in my opinion. There is a lot of truth to what he is saying, but its a very hardline stance. I wish he would take up the Synergistic Research challenge and fly over there and do a true double blind test with his own ears and let us know what he thinks. Sometimes people can be too smart for their own good. I've been humbled many times in my life by people and I think having a little bit of humility is a good thing, especially in audio where there haven't been billions and billions of dollars spent researching such a niche hobbyist market.
Experimenting is fine if it's done controlled. Simply swapping out power cables and doing a sighted test is highly flawed and reveals nothing but placebo. To ignore objective data to help make a purchasing decision is both foolish and arrogant. The "Synergistic Challenge" was a ruse simultaneously tied to a threat for litigation from their attorney. It was never a legitimate challenge. Nice try.
@@Audioholics Just so I fully understand, are you saying that if we used three different power cords, all UL and all 12 AWG solid high quality pure wire from the same manufacturer and not found to be limiting the current delivery in any meaningful way. If we got these cords and had their contacts treated, one with gold, the other with silver and the other with tin plating, that they would sound identical? Now again, I’m not saying one would sound better than the other, but if they measured the same electrically, do you believe it is even possible within any stretch of the imagination that they would sound different whatsoever?
@@isobutylquinoline If you tin them with a metal less conductive than copper, then resistance will increase and you can potentially have power loss and an audible difference if severe enough. If all 3 power cables have the same DC and AC resistance, then there will be no difference. Not rocket science.
@@Audioholics Gene. Your little adders of 'nice try' and 'not rocket science' and these little jabs is worrying. I like your channel and you've helped me a lot when it comes to setting up my subwoofer and I really appreciate the Star Trek stuff as well. I don't know if its the whole Synergistic Research thing, which we don't have the full story on, or maybe you've been attacked by a lot of zealots talking about how cables make a difference, but something isn't right with you recently. Maybe I just misjudged you initially and saw what I wanted to see, but the Gene from a few years ago wasn't so abrasive. If you pray, please consider praying about it. I am glad that you enjoy your sound and your system and its good that you have a channel and can share your experiences with others.
Power cable make a huge diffrences, you dont know what you’ve been missing
Try between copper and silver cable on your dac, do some blind test. See if you can differentiate, do the same thing on speaker cable.
If you are in search of the best sound from your hi-fi you should always try for yourself. Try fuses and power conditioners, linear power supplies, audiophile network switches and cables including interconnects and power cables. The enjoyment and rewards of hi-fi come from experimentation, discovery and listening. Is it always placebo? Are measurements always definitive? Can so many companies really be selling so many products for so many years that really make no difference? Should one person determine your entire outlook?
Power conditioners don't improve audio, fuses never do, and cables rarely do. Yes snake oil thrives when placebo is very strong with audiophiles that want to believe. Sadly thry often never address the things that have the most impact on sound like room acoustics, speaker placement and calibration.
@@Audioholics I refer the honourable gentleman to the answer provided above.
One of the most effective arguments made against conspiracy theorists who believe the moon landings were faked is the thousands of people who were involved in that incredible event and therefore must have been "in on the deception" but, unsurprisingly, no one has ever been found out or confessed to the fraud.
(i would just note here that there is, of course, also physical evidence mirrors/images of the landings but i digress)
I am a long time subscriber to your channel and respect your approach. I use your reports with other feedback to inform my decisions about what to try and purchase.
I am interested how you account for all the businesses, and all the customers who have been buying power cables, power conditioners and fuses for so many years and continue to do so? and are there really so many professional hifi journalists that would print lies or remain subject to confirmation bias/placebo and never correct themselves?
It all seems about as likely as the moon landings being faked.
@@AH-wr1ir False equivalency. Yes placebo is a dominant factor that keeps audiophiles buying into the promise of better audio. I use the same analysis/measurement process the engineers that design the gear you listen to and use. They learned the same electrical theory in college and on the job to design the gear. You are basically refuting that science and knowledge and replacing it with magic and hope of better sound without independent verification or facts on your side. It's called Kool Aid. If you like to drink it, be my guest.
Most reviewers are NOT technical people and lack any sort of engineering / electrical knowledge so I don't think it's malice that they write about the wonders of exotic cables. They just don't know what they don't know.
@@Audioholics Thanks for your reply. I would be very grateful if you could look at this short video from Puritan Power Conditioners and comment on the measured improvements? thank you. ruclips.net/video/svQDoGdZJWY/видео.html
Audioholics credibility went out the window for me when he stated that power cords and other cables do not make a difference. I have a high end system and power cords definitely make a huge difference. It’s not subtle at all. So I don’t understand how this guy, who is a dealer, hasn’t noticed this. Is he just so close minded that he won’t accept it? Does he, and other nay sayers, really think that intelligent people continue to spend additional money on cords if they make no difference? Maybe they don’t if you have a system that isn’t very good. But on a very good system they do. Believe me when I say that if they didn’t make a difference I would not pay good money on them.
Will a heavy gauge extension cord be okay if my power cable isn't long enough?
Gene, you sir, are the best! Thanks for putting the truth out.
"pay no attention to the man behind the curtain"