Premium power cables worth it?

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amzavareei

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I've seen premium IEC power cables from like 60 bucks to over a thousand! Magic power seems to have cheap ones, and cardas more in the 200 dollar range. Does anyone have any experience with these? Could one improve the quality of a tube mics power supply, or a preamp or interface? I thought it was snake oil, but a lot of people seem to dig them.
 
There are also DIY recipes for esoteric power cables around on the net. If you do a Google search I'm sure you'll come up with a few.
 
amzavareei said:
I thought it was snake oil, but a lot of people seem to dig them.
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If nobody dug snake oil, it wouldn't sell.

I'm not judging, just sayin'.....
 
amzavareei said:
I've seen premium IEC power cables from like 60 bucks to over a thousand! Magic power seems to have cheap ones, and cardas more in the 200 dollar range. Does anyone have any experience with these? Could one improve the quality of a tube mics power supply, or a preamp or interface? I thought it was snake oil, but a lot of people seem to dig them.
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Are you gonna open up all the boxes in your walls and use magic wire nuts? :rolleyes:

AC power can be dirty as hell, but there is *nothing* the last 6 feet of wire are gonna do about it. A properly designed power supply should feed nice, clean, ample filtered power to its unit, cable notwithstanding.
 
I'm with the last poster on this one, I'd worry less about the cables and instead make sure that you have a good power conditioner on your rack.

You have one of these, then the cable shouldn't really be much of an issue. If you don't, then I can't see how a "premium cable" would help you at all.
 
amzavareei said:
I've seen premium IEC power cables from like 60 bucks to over a thousand! Magic power seems to have cheap ones, and cardas more in the 200 dollar range. Does anyone have any experience with these? Could one improve the quality of a tube mics power supply, or a preamp or interface? I thought it was snake oil, but a lot of people seem to dig them.
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No. Snake Oil. Go Mogami and build your own. Power cables move power and don't care about noise etc. Power supplies take care of that.

(Hint: Why is high end equipment so expensive? Ans: Great power supplies cost big $$$. 1 good filter cap can cost $100 for AC 250V applications.)
 
So then how come so many companies make them? I mean, there must be something to them, right? Or are all these audiophiles just suckers? Then they're not really audiophiles? Just richers? I mean, if you don't have the greatest psu or power conditioner, these might help some, right? Or would the money be better spent on better caps, or even diodes, transformers or transistors??

These are only 60 bucks

This is kind of fun. $3,000 cable!
 
They sell some good ones at altex.com for less than $10.
 
amzavareei said:
So then how come so many companies make them?
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Dude, if you could sell maybe $100 worth of stuff for $3,000, wouldn't you?

I sure would. And I'd sell shielded speaker cables, too. Cheap, like $30/foot.
 
Well, I was skeptical at first and thought the same things that many other here have said. I still can not see how changing just the power cable can change things without changing everything upstream as well. However, I have talked with MANY people whom I trust alot who were just as skeptical as I am until they actually heard the difference. Take that how you will, but hearing is believing I guess.
 
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Okay but here's the rub...

are you recording Sting?

If not, then the answer as to whether or not you need this type of cable for your rig is probably clear.

I mean, I've yet to see an application where having a kick-a$$ power conditioner didn't do the job of cleaning up the interference in a home studio.

Mic cables... yeah, you want to get good ones, but I don't think that you're going to get anything great out of $1000 XLR cables running into your Behringer pre. If you need to operate at a level where that kind of gear actually makes a difference, then you're probably not worried about the costs anyway.

Just my $0.02
 
mshilarious said:
Are you gonna open up all the boxes in your walls and use magic wire nuts? :rolleyes:

QUOTE]

*** note, if you value your nuts, don't do this, ouch!

Daav
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You know, for all the discussion on that thread, nobody posted the obvious test:

Hook the different AC main cords into an A/D converter. No, I don't mean the power jack, I mean an input. Of course you would need an appropriately rated pad in the chain so as not to destroy the world--I think a 100K/1K/100K 1W U-pad would do the trick.

Then just record the signal on the AC main. If the cable is acting as a filter, it will be readily apparent.

In addition to that, the regular tests for resistance, capacitance, etc.

No subjective listening, recording of playback through monitors, etc., required.


Edit: if the current draw needs to be higher to demonstrate the effect, chain a pair of pads, the first with less resistance, say 1K/1K/1K 10W, the second as above.
 
Th epower cords cannot amke a difference to sound quality , the last 6 feet of cord have nothing to reduce , remove noise etc in the line , if it's coming out of your wall socket , it's going into your machine. The only way you can stop this is with a line conditioner or a UPS.

I use an MGE UPS battery backup systems with my gear , if you buy the full time ones the internal battery supplies all the power you need using a stepup transformer configuration and as it's from a battery it has a very stable , clean nature. The junk coming out of your wall socket just charges the battery .

This in itself doesnt make much difference to sound , but it does stop alot of stress on the internal power supplies of your gear !

http://www.mgeups.com/download/pictures/images2/0495.jpg

oh yea they rack mount too ;)

they arn't cheap but they are much more justified than spending thousands on cords alone .
 
the biggest favor you can do for yourself, is change over to a balanced power supply to feed all your gear, then all this is a mute point. That would make more differnce than any cable. Just make sure the guage of power cable is appropriate for the task. Besides if the gear itself isn't point to point wired you are going to have signifigant loss anyway. Take this for example(not pertaining to iec cables per say) You spend a ton of $$ on 12awg speaker cables from amp to speaker and pop open the cabinet to find 16 or 20 awg wire connecting the inputs to the speakers. So start with clean power and that all you should need to do!
 
petermiller said:
Besides if the gear itself isn't point to point wired you are going to have signifigant loss anyway. Take this for example(not pertaining to iec cables per say) You spend a ton of $$ on 12awg speaker cables from amp to speaker and pop open the cabinet to find 16 or 20 awg wire connecting the inputs to the speakers.
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That should not be a problem since the run is so short, and it doesn't obviate the need for the larger cable for the long run to the speaker. The analogy to a garden hose with a nozzle is far from perfect.
 
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mshilarious said:
That should not be a problem since the run is so short, and it doesn't obviate the need for the larger cable for the long run to the speaker. The analogy to a garden hose with a nozzle is far from perfect.
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what i mean is why waste money on an esoteric thing as such , when there is no need. Yes you are correct, but its only to state a point that if you are going to waste your time and money, you would have to go the full route or it does not make as much of a difference as to justify the expense.
 
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