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Anthony wrote:
 Some people have bought the boutique power cables and SWEAR they heard a difference. Maybe they did, maybe they just really, really wanted to hear a difference because they spent $100 on the thing. Or maybe their old cable wasn't making a good connection at the wall and was losing some voltage due to increased resistance. |
I think the biggest benefit would be in the shielding and 60hz noise that could bleed through to the audio cables. I try to run my power separately than my audio cables, but when you get to the actual piece of gear they do all come together in somewhat close proximity to each other. Each piece of equipment has it's own power supply, and part of that PS is a filtering system with rectifiers, transformers and other components. There is a tolerable input range that a piece of electronics can accept and still operate completely within it's specifications because the power supply is taking the input voltage, conditioning it and converting it to the numerous DC voltages that the electronics require. So unless the power cable was just so bad that it wasn't providing the correct input voltage, I personally think it's the shielding to prevent noise bleed that's more important.
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maybe they just really, really wanted to hear a difference because they spent $100 on the thing.
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Interesting story/analogy (at least I thought so
). Years ago I was back home visiting and I went with my dad to pick up some auto parts. The new split fire plugs had just come out. I asked the guy at our local small town auto parts store if they really made a difference and this is what he said:
"Ya know... at $8 a plug I think people see a difference because they spent that much money. Personally, I don't see any major difference."
I think that applies with cables too. There is a point where cost vs perfomance no longer matters and it starts to become a brand name image factor. I see this all the time with HDMI cables.
Here is what I do... when I get a new piece of gear, I throw out whatever cables that came in the box except for the power cord. I go with better quality/build cables, but not necessarily the big name brands like Monster (Sorry about that Monster Cable). Unlike the split fire scenario, I do think going with better cables than what came in the box does make a difference, and the biggest differnce is to go with a good quality speaker cable, but again- don't pay just for a name.
So in a long winded way I guess I just said I agree with Anthony and Otto