Upgraded My Power Cables....

BrentMcGhee

Well let me first start this off by saying that for the most part i am not a very big beleiver in the whole cable makes a difference camp but recently i have toyed around with a few diferent manufactures of cables and are a litte unsure of my self now. Anyway, The power cables that were on my cd player and my amp were way to long so i decided to purchase some replacement power cables from signal cable.com and they arrived last weekend. I can definalty tell that there build quality is outstanding and being only three feet is a real plus. (well they also look really cool too :cool: )

But my point is when i first plugged the two differnt cables in and sat down to listen to my system, it sounded really differnt wich really suprised me. But it was different in a negative way! :eek: . All of a sudden the warm sound that i used to get from my 55i's, dennon 3910 cd player and my outlaw amps turned into a very bright and harsh sounding system. (Especially becasue i was not expecting to have any difference in sound at all becasue i am still unsure about the whole cable debate myself)

At first i kinda let it go and just said well maybe the mysterious burn-in that lot's of people always refer too is a real thing and these cables had to be burnt in. Well i got the cables on saturday and i have let the system play 24/7 since then. So it has been 5 days.

What gives.... has anyone else xpereinced this change when replacing power cables?

organ

Wow. Is it a 3 prong plug? Can you switch polarity on the outlet?

BrentMcGhee

both power cords have three prongs. however the cd player is only a two prong jack but the amp is a three. The plug will not go into the cd player the other way so i know the polarity has to be correct. ???

PolkThug

Did you make ANY other changes at all, or disconnect and reconnect any speaker wires?

madmax

Well, if different power cables can sound different then obviously they could sound better or worse, just like interconnects and speaker wire. Price and build quality isn't everything. It could be positioning of the wire, length (remember you now have a different antenna length) or capacitance/inductance of the wire. The real proof is to replace them with the originals and see if the sound improves again.
madmax

PolkThug

madmax wrote:

The real proof is to replace them with the originals and see if the sound improves again.
madmax

Yes, this will isolate the issue.

race4aliving

Cable Burn in. LOL just make sure you bast them well with the extra snake oil they include in the package.

janmike

Where do they come from?

madmax

janmike wrote:

Where do they come from?

Apparently VA in this case... :rolleyes:

madmax

danger boy

i'd replace one at a time with the older power cords.. and see which one is the culprit that's making things sound harsh.

i think it might be the one for the amp.

dragon1952

madmax wrote:

Apparently VA in this case... :rolleyes:

madmax

LOL!

Ferres

Hmm. Perhaps you're original power cords are of a better audiophile grade. Better power cords should help with warmth not brightness.

Cords that come with power amps are usually audiophile grade and matched to it.

BrentMcGhee

HAHA... well, now i feel like an idiot. I replaced one power cord at a time back with the orginals only to find that there was no change, the whole thing still sounded like crap. Now i was getting really frustrated. I then rememberd that when i ordered the cables went ahead and unplugged my components and put there stock power cords into storage. Well the ones i ordered did not come until about three days later and i guess that was long enough for my equipment to lose there memory settings so nothing was calibrated!!

I cant beleive i did not think to look there i spent a good 5days just getting fed up with how my stuff sounded.

O well all is fixed now, and i am happy with my purchase. As for any type of sound improvement with the new cables.... ummmm, no . however i do notice that to get the same volume out of my amp i do not have to turn it up quite as high, the new power cable to my amp seems to have increased the efficency by about 4db, so it was not a total waste, plus the cables look really cool

danger boy

good for you. not get outta here you nut job and get your listen on.. sheesh. i bet you feel really dumb huh?

ND13

Brent,

If you don't mind me asking, how much did those run you and what lengths did you get?
I'd really like to replace 4 of my power cables in my system, but don't want to spend hundreds to do so. I have one signal power cable that I got with the ASLs, from Doro and I'm using it on the MLP's power supply right now. I really like the look and feel, too . I'd say the only thing I don't like about it is it's lack of flexibility, being that it's pretty short and all.

PolkThug

BrentMcGhee wrote:

the new power cable to my amp seems to have increased the efficency by about 4db,

You more than doubled the power with a power cord?


Or, maybe thats why they call it a "power" cord.


I can't even change the power cord on my grunt Onkyo.

BrentMcGhee

ND13 wrote:

Brent,

If you don't mind me asking, how much did those run you and what lengths did you get?
I'd really like to replace 4 of my power cables in my system, but don't want to spend hundreds to do so. I have one signal power cable that I got with the ASLs, from Doro and I'm using it on the MLP's power supply right now. I really like the look and feel, too . I'd say the only thing I don't like about it is it's lack of flexibility, being that it's pretty short and all.

One of the cables was 59.00 and the other was 69.00, they were both three feet.... Just go to signalcable.com and take a look at all the different power cords he has, they are very reasonably priced i think.

BrentMcGhee

PolkThug wrote:

You more than doubled the power with a power cord?

Well to clarify, what i meant my that is that before the upgrade i would have the volume set to -29db to acheive refrence volume (75db) and now after the upgrade i only have to turn it to -33db on the volume knob to receive the same refrence level of 75db.

ND13

Thanks Brent . I can see that kind of expenditure for good power cables, just not the several hundred $$ ones I've seen around :rolleyes: . The one that was cheaper, is that the one you put on your source?

dragon1952

ND13 wrote:

Thanks Brent . I can see that kind of expenditure for good power cables, just not the several hundred $$ ones I've seen around :rolleyes: . The one that was cheaper, is that the one you put on your source?

I'll butt in Actually Signal has what they call a 'digital reference' PC for digital components and it's about $10 more. I'm using one now for my Jolida CDP and like it alot. I think I paid $55 shipped, used. Not extremely flexible though.
http://signalcable.com/digitalpowerHC.html
I also really like the Zu Cable Birth PC's. You can get these on Ebay new in 3ft length for $55 shipped if you're patient. These are nice and flexible. I have the Zu on my tube integrated and also had one on my CDP.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Zu-Cable-Birth-power-cord-1-0m-NEW_W0QQitemZ5816345091QQcategoryZ32833QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
Trying to decide which one to keep for the CDP so I may have one or the other for sale soon.

ND13

dragon1952 wrote:

I'll butt in Actually Signal has what they call a 'digital reference' PC for digital components and it's about $10 more. I'm using one now for my Jolida CDP and like it alot. I think I paid $55 shipped, used. Not extremely flexible though.
http://signalcable.com/digitalpowerHC.html
I also really like the Zu Cable Birth PC's. You can get these on Ebay new in 3ft length for $55 shipped if you're patient. These are nice and flexible. I have the Zu on my tube integrated and also had one on my CDP.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Zu-Cable-Birth-power-cord-1-0m-NEW_W0QQitemZ5816345091QQcategoryZ32833QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
Trying to decide which one to keep for the CDP so I may have one or the other for sale soon.

Cool, let me know when you decide and I'll take the one you don't keep. No hurry though. I've got a couple things I need to pay off in the next week or so, so if it's available in a week or two, I want it.