ML uses inadequate power cables?

[Stefan_DR3]

I don't know about your ML's jimbill (my meager Theos run on a 12V DC supply) but the answer I normally give to people obsessing about directional AC cords, fancy outlets or fuses is to remember that your amp/power supply is converting it all to DC in the end.

I do agree that high impedance of the outlet, such as when you have a long run going down to the panel can cause a voltage drop, but most gear is designed to work on 115V and my house is up around 119-120V so a slight drop is actually welcome. The real killer IMO is harmonic distortion on the line, something that varies depending on your neighborhood. My THD is around 4% so I run a fancy PS Audio power generator to provide a pure 60Hz sine wave that makes my amps audibly and measurably quieter.

 

[jimbill]

I may have confused people with my initial post. My point was if I paid $18,000 for a pair of speakers, why would I need to upgrade the power cord that came with the speakers? At that price ML should provide more than adequate cords.

And I don't think that power cords make any difference. The wires in the wall and the wires into the speakers, and the wires in the speakers... why would this three feet of power cord matter???

 

[amey01]

I may have confused people with my initial post. My point was if I paid $18,000 for a pair of speakers, why would I need to upgrade the power cord that came with the speakers?

You don't.

At that price ML should provide more than adequate cords.

They do.

Look - I understand ML's position - ML are "Damned if they do; damned if they don't".

If they supply Nordost Valhalla or some joke expensive cable, they are wasting money and making their product more expensive for no reason. And they'll lose a lot of sales by having a more expensive product that doesn't sound any better for it.

But if they say "we supply adequate cables", then there are quite a large contingent of audiophools who will say "well obviously YOUR speaker is not revealing enough to show the huge differences my Shunyata Vipers make".

So what to they do? Easiest solution is to have a bet each way - supply an adequate cable, but say that the speaker will respond to a better one.

 

[Don Quichotte]

For what it's worth:

I have a pair of Impression 11A. I have tried to replace the power cords with aftermarket ones and there was always a difference, but not always for the better. The stock cables are adequate and I'm still using them, but this will change at some point. I've recently heard what an expensive Synergistic Research Atmosphere level 2 High Current power cord with blue bullet could do to these speakers (well, I only had one power cord in the house so I had to test it with a single speaker). The impact was astonishing! Much more authority in the bass, better detail and refinement overall. If I had to choose without listening perhaps I'd rather have the Impression 11 equipped with a couple of such power cords than the Expression 13 with stock cords, at least if there's no requirement for big room filling capability.

 

[Nuri58]

To me the fun thing is that all wires inside the LS (or any other units) are standard cables. So the 500k 1m cables (power or interconnect) iis sort of should we say questionable . And adding to this what about the socket to ypur meter and from there to the power plant? Just wondering.

 

[Brandon Hartwick]

I can't believe people are still debating this. You can literally unplug them entirely from the wall and nothing changes.

I think I should start selling power cables, looks like easy money.

 

[Robert D]

I can't believe people are still debating this. You can literally unplug them entirely from the wall and nothing changes.

I think I should start selling power cables, looks like easy money.

Well, to be fair, maybe the cords do make a difference in the newer speakers that have woofers powered by amps in the speaker. It should make zero difference in the panel.

 

[Brandon Hartwick]

Well, to be fair, maybe the cords do make a difference in the newer speakers that have woofers powered by amps in the speaker. It should make zero difference in the panel.

Even still, it flies in the face of basic logic

Between your wall outlet and fuse box you have solid core copper wire running through your wall. Then you're buying a crazy expensive power cord to go between your wall socket and the speaker, then it goes right back to plain old 14 gauge electrical cable inside the speaker cabinet.

All this and you're still running the audio signal through an off the shelf industrial step up transformer and at least 3 sets of connectors. Also the bass is being converted from analog, then to digital and back to analog again through the DSP in the plate amp.

I don't believe it

 

[amey01]

To me the fun thing is that all wires inside the LS (or any other units) are standard cables. So the 500k 1m cables (power or interconnect) iis sort of should we say questionable . And adding to this what about the socket to ypur meter and from there to the power plant? Just wondering.

Precisely! This is what I've always said - anyone contemplating cables should at the very least pop open the case and have a look at what is on the other side!

 

[Robert D]

Even still, it flies in the face of basic logic

Between your wall outlet and fuse box you have solid core copper wire running through your wall. Then you're buying a crazy expensive power cord to go between your wall socket and the speaker, then it goes right back to plain old 14 gauge electrical cable inside the speaker cabinet.

All this and you're still running the audio signal through an off the shelf industrial step up transformer and at least 3 sets of connectors. Also the bass is being converted from analog, then to digital and back to analog again through the DSP in the plate amp.

I don't believe it

All valid points. In order for an upgraded power cord to improve on sound, the original ML cord would have to be the weak link and lower quality than even the wire in the walls.

 

[Robert D]

Could draw an analogy of putting racing fuel in a Honda Civic and expect it to run like a Acura NSX.

 

[Fidji99]

I use simple EC [UEL] certified shielded cables. Nothing fancy, just as a hygienic precaution, as I have speaker cable runs for my HT next to them [I have also shielded cables in the walls].
Not expecting them to perform any better that stock cable delivered by ML.

I have couple of hi-fi-friends that claim to hear every possible change and tweak [and also their wives have Webb-telescope level of hearing acuity] - unfortunately, as they cannot see cables in my set-up, they miraculously loose this ability. Including power cables.

 

[audioxcel]

Even still, it flies in the face of basic logic

Between your wall outlet and fuse box you have solid core copper wire running through your wall. Then you're buying a crazy expensive power cord to go between your wall socket and the speaker, then it goes right back to plain old 14 gauge electrical cable inside the speaker cabinet.

All this and you're still running the audio signal through an off the shelf industrial step up transformer and at least 3 sets of connectors. Also the bass is being converted from analog, then to digital and back to analog again through the DSP in the plate amp.

I don't believe it

I don't know why changing power cords work but they do at least on source equipment and preamps. I have not tried changing cords on my speakers yet though. The higher resolution your equipment is capable of the more likely you will be able to hear some difference. Change the cord on a $50 clock radio and it probably will still sound the same but put that new cord on a highend CD player and you will probably hear a difference. I know I do.

I suspect that particularly with CD players and preamps the effect is due to the power cord cleaning up some of the extraneous RFI and EMI that is added in the wiring before the receptacle as you point out.

 

[amey01]

due to the power cord cleaning up some of the extraneous RFI and EMI that is added in the wiring before the receptacle

BUT!!! I thought good quality cables were supposed to be as transparent as possible.......to pass through exactly what goes in? Wouldn't a bad quality power cable be better at filtering out stuff?

 

[ttocs]

BUT!!! I thought good quality cables were supposed to be as transparent as possible.......to pass through exactly what goes in? Wouldn't a bad quality power cable be better at filtering out stuff?

Ok, now you're just being like me when I was in 7th grade and I decided to give my older brother a little bit of a hard time with his question: Who did I think was the best drummer in the world? I answered Ringo Starr, and my humorous reasoning was that he was in the best rock band in the world, so, he MUST be the best drummer in the world. My brother went nuts trying to convince me otherwise, but I never let on that I was laughing inside. To this day he never found out.

 

[amey01]

Ok, now you're just being like me when I was in 7th grade and I decided to give my older brother a little bit of a hard time with his question: Who did I think was the best drummer in the world? I answered Ringo Starr, and my humorous reasoning was that he was in the best rock band in the world, so, he MUST be the best drummer in the world. My brother went nuts trying to convince me otherwise, but I never let on that I was laughing inside. To this day he never found out.

HAHA to you. Except I'm not joking. I can't believe the number of audiophiles who believe what amounts to nothing more than fairy tales, despite the presentation of all logic to the contrary.

Power conditioner......yes ok.
Power cable.....mmmmmm

Look - I'm not against tweaks. But when you start spending the amount of money that could net you a 100% better component upgrade, it starts to get ridiculous. If a $5,000 amplifier with $5,000 worth of power cables sounds better than a $10,000 amplifier with the stock power cable, something is very wrong in this world.

 

[Fidji99]

Hey, let's keep this beautiful forum "cable free". I think there are enough other places where we can discuss this contentious topic.

My life experience - never try to convince audiophile, that it is not possible to hear smth. You know, we are different to the rest of the humans and our listening rooms have completely different set of laws of physics.

 

[Don Quichotte]

Hey, let's keep this beautiful forum "cable free". I think there are enough other places where we can discuss this contentious topic.

My life experience - never try to convince audiophile, that it is not possible to hear smth. You know, we are different to the rest of the humans and our listening rooms have completely different set of laws of physics.

Or - let's not! A forum is a place for sharing, not for convincing. It isn't about religion, so it shouldn't be about "agnosticism" either. I don't need anyone to believe that some power cords can change the sound, so to each their own. But if someone has had an experience that could be helpful to me (such as "I tried this particular cable, not hugely expensive, it sound better than stock in this and that way") then learning about it on this or any other forum is exactly what I'm looking for and I see no reason to ban or criticize the act of sharing information. We are grown ups, we can agree to disagree now and then.

 

[DanR]

Or - let's not! A forum is a place for sharing, not for convincing. It isn't about religion, so it shouldn't be about "agnosticism" either. I don't need anyone to believe that some power cords can change the sound, so to each their own. But if someone has had an experience that could be helpful to me (such as "I tried this particular cable, not hugely expensive, it sound better than stock in this and that way") then learning about it on this or any other forum is exactly what I'm looking for and I see no reason to ban or criticize the act of sharing information. We are grown ups, we can agree to disagree now and then.

Thank you for that comment, I couldn’t agree more with every word of what you said!

 

[audioxcel]

BUT!!! I thought good quality cables were supposed to be as transparent as possible.......to pass through exactly what goes in? Wouldn't a bad quality power cable be better at filtering out stuff?

You are confusing signal cables (interconnects, speaker cables) with power cables. A power cable should not pass any noise. So, it should in fact work as a filter. With a power cable we are not worried about loosing signal as we would in an interconnect or speaker cable. For years I have used ferrite cores (filters) on my power cables as a cheap way to reduce or eliminate EMI. Ferrite cores are good for high frequency noise but not much for lower frequencies. That is where cable geometry comes into play.

Electrical wiring can also act as antenna that receives radio frequency signals. You definitely don't want those carried into your audio system.

For a while I lived in a house that was near a freeway. One night I was awakened from a sound sleep by a VERY loud voice coming from the living room. It sounded like somebody yelling into a bullhorn. I thought WTF? It happened a few more times in the next few weeks and one night I got up and found that it was coming from my Sequels. I did some research and figured our that either the speakers or some of my wiring was acting as an antenna that was picking up overpower CB signal from a truck passing by. I rearranged all or the wires in my system and the problem seemed to resolve at least at volumes loud enough to identify as words. The point is that wires can carry noises that are not desirable and degrade the sound of your system.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferri...nown,electronic noise in electronic circuits.