Audiophile cord manufacturers

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There is always the subjective and objective views of audio.

IMO, there are basic electrical concepts that when followed allow audio equipment to sing. Proper grounding, vibration control, elimination of induced noise, elimination of component to component noise, unrestricted current flow. Screw any of these up and the highly resolving systems out there will be impacted.
 
mikeames said:
I use to be into HT 20 years ago but admittedly lost interest and stopped following so educate me. How will a power cord really impact anything IF, the branch circuit feeding it is the usual? I am assuming you want to make the power cord as electrically transparent as possible but why would that matter? What about the branch circuit, service, or the utility transformer? If that's all good then what are these ridiculous cords made from? What makes them so "good".
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For the most part I agree. Cords are a way to fine tune the sound via colorations. But a guy who spent $35,000 on his speakers and $40,000 on his amps wants something better than a lamp cord. And they do need to be robust to pass peak current. But they don't need to be more than $500 to be pretty acceptible.
 
Understood, I assumed Amps that cost $5k + a piece would come with a cord that wouldn't impact their designed performance. Like a Corvette does not come with mud tires.
 
A very good solution to audio issues is to use a balance power supply. Art 647 has the details, its a 60/120 set up, where its been used it solves a lot of issues. But can't be used in dwelling units.
 
Rex Hungerford said:
It looks like nice work Larry. I would keep it all on 1 phase. Its pretty common to have 1 to 2 volts difference between phases. That can translate into ground loops as the voltage difference works though the equipment.
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Each component's power supply should isolate the circuitry from anything like that affecting sound.

That shouldn't create any ground loops. They comes from voltages between chassis that carry signal ground.

I run #4 to subpanels too. That oven wire is easy to install.
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Oven wire? Aluminum service cable? I ran 6/3NM copper.

I then take the red and phase it green. Using both the red/green and #10 paper ground together will drop about 7 milivolts of potential between the ground and neutral at the subpanel.
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The components' power supplies don't care which, if either power input terminal is at zero volts to the EGC.

I always shoot for 0. If I'm running pipe and wire, my phase and Neutral are maybe #4 and my ground is then #2. I always double the size of the ground.
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Why? When it comes to multiple electronic components, bonding is more important than grounding.

And, my system is quiet when idling; no hum or hiss, especially when sitting under the CRT projector.
 
Each power amp has a switched 15a circuit, the subs share one, and everything else switched is on the fourth.

The projector has an unswitched circuit, the preamp/processor has one, and the rest unswitched share one.

Now, I would never put lighting loads on this panel, especially with electronic power supplies or dimmers.

By the way, there is less total voltage drop on a MWBC than on a single circuit of the same total capacity.
 
Rex Hungerford said:
... Its pretty common to have 1 to 2 volts difference between phases. That can translate into ground loops as the voltage difference works though the equipment. ...
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Can you show me the circuit that will help me understand how small differences in the line to neutral voltages can result in ground loops? The EGC is not part of the circuit. The circuit is only line to neutral to the equipment.
 
I cant draw a diagram. But consider this. Most serious audiophile have individual circuits to equipment. Usually 4. 1 for amps. 1 for preamps. 1 for digital gear and the final for infrastructure related to digital such as LPS feeding modem, router, switch.

Lets look at the amp and preamp. Phase A is 121 volts to my amps. The amps are feed by a dedicated Hot, Neut and ground. The preamp is feed by Phase A. Its 120 volts hot, neutral, ground. A difference of 1 volt. Not much of anything to standard residential or commercial equipment. But remember, we are dealing with equipment that has a transform that weighs about 1 OZ and puts out milivolts or power. That power is boosted to around 900 volts. Then bucked back to around 2 to 8 volts. Now, that amp circuit and preamp circuit acting independent would not have any issues. But I go and attache a wire between the 2 pieces of equipment that is tied to the signal. I now have one piece of equipment at reference Hot to Neutral of 120 volts and the other at 121 volts hot to neutral tied together. Now there is 1 volt of potential in the circuit. And what can that volt do when your manipulating the entire signal and power voltage to such extremes. That very small voltage potential can make all sorts of heard noise out the speakers.

Because of this very issue, there is hot debate over 1 circuit for everything, or multiple circuits. 1 circuit means everything is at the exact same potential. Unless of course you are using esoteric power cords of different lengths, geometry, gauge etc. The way the cord is built will impact the inductance and capacitance through the cord which will also affect voltage at the gear. Gear that has a signal wire tied together. Many people advocate a loom of wire from one source for this reason.

I always advocate using multiple circuits because I feel the parasitic noise from each piece of gear needs some conductor between them to reduce its impact. And I will put certain devices such as servers and DAC on a filtering power strip to keep that noise from feeding back into my amps and preamps.

Audio is way more complicated than people want to admit.
 
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Rex Hungerford said:
Neutral of 120 volts and the other at 121 volts hot to neutral tied together. Now there is 1 volt of potential in the circuit. And what can that volt do when your manipulating the entire signal and power voltage to such extremes. That very small voltage potential can make all sorts of heard noise out the speakers.
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If leg A of your service has 120V to ground, and leg B of your service has 121V to ground, and the audio equipment is sensitive to the voltage between leg A and leg B, then that isn't a 1V difference...it is a 241V difference.

I could see how capacitive coupling across the power input circuits in this situation could couple 60Hz noise into the system, or could cause some sort of 60Hz coupling that causes distortion in the audio circuits.

IMHO this would be an example of a design flaw in the audio hardware.

Perhaps it shouldn't be powered from the AC mains at all. I bet there is a market for 'pure DC power', using a large bank of batteries charged by solar power without any inverters to sully the pure current. People could argue about which weather conditions promote optimal sound quality.

One of the issues with audio equipment is the use of the grounded shields of signal cables as the current return path for the signal.

This can make the audio signal path sensitive to noise injected by the power circuits.

IMHO this is another example of the sort of design flaw I described in my previous post.

-Jon
 
Rex Hungerford said:
I cant draw a diagram. But consider this. Most serious audiophile have individual circuits to equipment. Usually 4. 1 for amps. 1 for preamps. 1 for digital gear and the final for infrastructure related to digital such as LPS feeding modem, router, switch.

Lets look at the amp and preamp. Phase A is 121 volts to my amps. The amps are feed by a dedicated Hot, Neut and ground. The preamp is feed by Phase A. Its 120 volts hot, neutral, ground. A difference of 1 volt. Not much of anything to standard residential or commercial equipment. But remember, we are dealing with equipment that has a transform that weighs about 1 OZ and puts out milivolts or power. That power is boosted to around 900 volts. Then bucked back to around 2 to 8 volts. Now, that amp circuit and preamp circuit acting independent would not have any issues. But I go and attache a wire between the 2 pieces of equipment that is tied to the signal. I now have one piece of equipment at reference Hot to Neutral of 120 volts and the other at 121 volts hot to neutral tied together. Now there is 1 volt of potential in the circuit. And what can that volt do when your manipulating the entire signal and power voltage to such extremes. That very small voltage potential can make all sorts of heard noise out the speakers.

Because of this very issue, there is hot debate over 1 circuit for everything, or multiple circuits. 1 circuit means everything is at the exact same potential. Unless of course you are using esoteric power cords of different lengths, geometry, gauge etc. The way the cord is built will impact the inductance and capacitance through the cord which will also affect voltage at the gear. Gear that has a signal wire tied together. Many people advocate a loom of wire from one source for this reason.

I always advocate using multiple circuits because I feel the parasitic noise from each piece of gear needs some conductor between them to reduce its impact. And I will put certain devices such as servers and DAC on a filtering power strip to keep that noise from feeding back into my amps and preamps.

Audio is way more complicated than people want to admit.
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And none of that has anything to do with a ground loop. I am not saying it can't be an issue for audio equipment, just saying I don't see any possible way that creates a ground loop on correctly installed equipment.
 
Ill risk being that guy, but this is where I think people get way over zealous or technical. As stated if this was really noticeable then equipment manufactures should dedicate way more resources to the PS of the equipment OR why not sell DC power systems where you have a big battery as the supply and a charging system. Not exactly convenient but if people are spending $15k on a power cord money is not really a thing. I am sure they would be proud to show off a big bank of caps and batteries much like Car audio enthusiasts do. I was into that in my younger years. Seems silly to put so much money into a cord if there are more effective ways of solving that problem. Maybe a solar powered HT with a tesla battery bank and direct DC bussed into the equipment all shielded in a faraday cage.

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Rex, your arguments may have had merit in the olden days of tube amps and grounded chassis, but with modern power supplies, the power-supply transformers provide complete isolation, and form what we refer to as separately-derived systems (sources).
 
mikeames said:
If that's all good then what are these ridiculous cords made from? What makes them so "good".
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A good sales job and a gullible customer with more money than brains!

Lets talk about Hubble 8200 receptacles that some "entrepreneur" dips in LOX and sells them as cryogenically treated low distortion pure power receptacles for $2500.

Then there are $peaker cables...

Personally I would be ashamed to take advantage of mentally challenged people like that. If I didn't know any better I wouldn't care. But I know this stuff is complete and utter BS. Doesn't matter if someone is willing to pay me for it. It's out and out fraud and theft.

-Hal
 
What's funny on all this is that apparently special line cords sprinkled with holy water or whatever can make an audible difference, but the romex, wirenuts and backstab receptacles, aluminum buss panel, contactor in smart meter, aluminum service conductors, corroded polaris connectors in u/g utility handhole, and 40 year old overloaded transformer have no effect whatsoever...

There is/was a small audio cable manufacturer, they made nice cables expensive but an appropriate price for what they are and left out the snakeoil. They did a blind A/B comparison with monster cable speaker wire and some coathangers. None of the experts could tell the difference. When the cable co published the findings of the study monster cable threatened to sue them. What monster did not realize was that the owner of the cable co was a high power trial attorney specializing in that type of business litigation. Monster got smacked down hard that day.
 
Well there is something to this stuff.....They have studies of people being told they are drinking some ultra high cost fancy wine vs cheap wine, when in fact it was the same thing, and the pleasure center of the brains lit up more when they thought it was the high dollar wine.
 
The “Audio Cable” (RCA-Optical-speaker wire) snake oil is a great profit game for those companies, and in times of light work- I go to estate sales and buy them for 50cents/ea or less and sell on eBay for $50 (a deal for a $299 RCA cable) I’ve also listed equipment that I’ve rehabbed w “bonus” rca cables of the high-cost I mean quality variety, and it helps get the bids up. Beyond this, as long as it isn’t a dollar store RCA w tiny ga wires and a jacket you could strip w your finger nails, not a big difference.

I do like one brand that allows you to clamp the outside fins down on the female RCA. Just don’t try to yank them out!!! Damaged a component this way- they REALLY hold hard.

All of these ppl would be better served by acoustically treating the room, it actually makes a huge difference.
 
hbiss said:
A good sales job and a gullible customer with more money than brains!

Lets talk about Hubble 8200 receptacles that some "entrepreneur" dips in LOX and sells them as cryogenically treated low distortion pure power receptacles for $2500.

Then there are $peaker cables...

Personally I would be ashamed to take advantage of mentally challenged people like that. If I didn't know any better I wouldn't care. But I know this stuff is complete and utter BS. Doesn't matter if someone is willing to pay me for it. It's out and out fraud and theft.

-Hal
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How TRUE! People buy expensive stuff just to brag that they could buy expensive stuff. They will never be happy with low priced stuff that works just as well. Audiphools are true believers in Snake Oil.

There is NO equipment that needs or even could possibly show an improvement in using a power cord that costs anything over those for sale in Home Depot. Just typical Audiophool Snake Oil. A fool and his money are soon parted, is a famous quote that applies to most all Audiophool discussions. :p
 
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