What annoys me today in marketing and media that too often today then talking on hi-fi, science is replaced by bizarre belief structures and marketing fluff, leading to a decades-long stagnation of the audiophile domain. Science makes progress, pseudo-science doesn’t. Hi-fi world is filled by pseudoscience, dogma and fruitloopery to the extent that it resembles a fundamentalist religion. Loudspeaker performance hasn’t tangibly improved in forty years and vast sums are spent addressing the wrong problems.
Business for Engineers: Marketers Lie article points tout that marketing tells lies — falsehoods — things that serve to convey a false impression. Marketing’s purpose is to determining how the product will be branded, positioned, and sold. It seems that there too many snake oil rubbish products marketed in the name of hifi. It is irritating to watch the stupid people in the world be fooled.
In EEVblog #29 – Audiophile Audiophoolery video David L. Jones (from EEVBlog) cuts loose on the Golden Ear Audiophiles and all their Audiophoolery snake oil rubbish. The information presented in Dave’s unique non-scripted overly enthusiastic style! He’s an enthusiastic chap, but couldn’t agree more with many of the opinions he expressed: Directional cables, thousand dollar IEC power cables, and all that rubbish. Monster Cable gets mostered. Note what he says right at the end: “If you pay ridiculous money for these cable you will hear a difference, but don’t expect your friends to”. If you want to believe, you will.
My points on hifi-nonsense:
One of the tenets of audiophile systems is that they are assembled from components, allegedly so that the user can “choose” the best combination. This is pretty largely a myth. The main advantage of component systems is that the dealer can sell ridiculously expensive cables, hand-knitted by Peruvian virgins and soaked in snake oil, to connect it all up. Say goodbye to the noughties: Yesterday’s hi-fi biz is BUSTED, bro article asks are the days of floorstanders and separates numbered? If traditional two-channel audio does have a future, then it could be as the preserve of high resolution audio. Sony has taken the industry lead in High-Res Audio.
HIFI Cable Humbug and Snake oil etc. blog posting rightly points out that there is too much emphasis placed on spending huge sums of money on HIFI cables. Most of what is written about this subject is complete tripe. HIFI magazines promote myths about the benefits of all sorts of equipment. I am as amazed as the writer that that so called audiophiles and HIFI journalists can be fooled into thinking that very expensive speaker cables etc. improve performance. I generally agree – most of this expensive interconnect cable stuff is just plain overpriced.
I can agree that in analogue interconnect cables there are few cases where better cables can really result in cleaner sound, but usually getting any noticeable difference needs that the one you compare with was very bad yo start with (clearly too thin speaker wires with resistance, interconnect that picks interference etc..) or the equipment in the systems are so that they are overly-sensitive to cable characteristics (generally bad equipment designs can make for example cable capacitance affect 100 times or more than it should). Definitely too much snake oil. Good solid engineering is all that is required (like keep LCR low, Teflon or other good insulation, shielding if required, proper gauge for application and the distance traveled). Geometry is a factor but not in the same sense these yahoos preach and deceive.
In digital interconnect cables story is different than on those analogue interconnect cables. Generally in digital interconnect cables the communication either works, does not work or sometimes work unreliably. The digital cable either gets the bits to the other end or not, it does not magically alter the sound that goes through the cable. You need to have active electronics like digital signal processor to change the tone of the audio signal traveling on the digital cable, cable will just not do that.
But this digital interconnect cables characteristics has not stopped hifi marketers to make very expensive cable products that are marketed with unbelievable claims. Ethernet has come to audio world, so there are hifi Ethernet cables. How about 500 dollar Ethernet cable? That’s ridiculous. And it’s only 1.5 meters. Then how about $10,000 audiophile ethernet cable? Bias your dielectrics with the Dielectric-Bias ethernet cable from AudioQuest: “When insulation is unbiased, it slows down parts of the signal differently, a big problem for very time-sensitive multi-octave audio.” I see this as complete marketing crap speak. It seems that they’re made for gullible idiots. No professional would EVER waste money on those cables. Audioquest even produces iPhone sync cables in similar price ranges.
HIFI Cable insulators/supports (expensive blocks that keep cables few centimeters off the floor) are a product category I don’t get. They typically claim to offer incredible performance as well as appealing appearance. Conventional cable isolation theory holds that optimal cable performance can be achieved by elevating cables from the floor in an attempt to control vibrations and manage static fields. Typical cable elevators are made from electrically insulating materials such as wood, glass, plastic or ceramics. Most of these products claim superior performance based upon the materials or methods of elevation. I don’t get those claims.
Along with green magic markers on CDs and audio bricks is another item called the wire conditioner. The claim is that unused wires do not sound the same as wires that have been used for a period of time. I don’t get this product category. And I don’t believe claims in the line like “Natural Quartz crystals along with proprietary materials cause a molecular restructuring of the media, which reduces stress, and significantly improves its mechanical, acoustic, electric, and optical characteristics.” All sounds like just pure marketing with no real benefits.
CD no evil, hear no evil. But the key thing about the CD was that it represented an obvious leap from earlier recording media that simply weren’t good enough for delivery of post-produced material to the consumer to one that was. Once you have made that leap, there is no requirement to go further. The 16 bits of CD were effectively extended to 18 bits by the development of noise shaping, which allows over 100dB signal to noise ratio. That falls a bit short of the 140dB maximum range of human hearing, but that has never been a real goal. If you improve the digital media, the sound quality limiting problem became the transducers; the headphones and the speakers.
We need to talk about SPEAKERS: Soz, ‘audiophiles’, only IT will break the sound barrier article says that today’s loudspeakers are nowhere near as good as they could be, due in no small measure to the presence of “traditional” audiophile products. that today’s loudspeakers are nowhere near as good as they could be, due in no small measure to the presence of “traditional” audiophile products. I can agree with this. Loudspeaker performance hasn’t tangibly improved in forty years and vast sums are spent addressing the wrong problems.
We need to talk about SPEAKERS: Soz, ‘audiophiles’, only IT will break the sound barrier article makes good points on design, DSPs and the debunking of traditional hi-fi. Science makes progress, pseudo-science doesn’t. Legacy loudspeakers are omni-directional at low frequencies, but as frequency rises, the radiation becomes more directional until at the highest frequencies the sound only emerges directly forwards. Thus to enjoy the full frequency range, the listener has to sit in the so-called sweet spot. As a result legacy loudspeakers with sweet spots need extensive room treatment to soak up the deficient off-axis sound. New tools that can change speaker system designs in the future are omni-directional speakers and DSP-based room correction. It’s a scenario ripe for “disruption”.
Computers have become an integrated part of many audio setups. Back in the day integrated audio solutions in PCs had trouble earning respect. Ode To Sound Blaster: Are Discrete Audio Cards Still Worth the Investment? posting tells that it’s been 25 years since the first Sound Blaster card was introduced (a pretty remarkable feat considering the diminished reliance on discrete audio in PCs) and many enthusiasts still consider a sound card an essential piece to the PC building puzzle. It seems that in general onboard sound is finally “Good Enough”, and has been “Good Enough” for a long time now. For most users it is hard to justify the high price of special sound card on PC anymore. There are still some PCs with bad sound hardware on motherboard and buttload of cheap USB adapters with very poor performance. However, what if you want the best sound possible, the lowest noise possible, and don’t really game or use the various audio enhancements? You just want a plain-vanilla sound card, but with the highest quality audio (products typically made for music makers). You can find some really good USB solutions that will blow on-board audio out of the water for about $100 or so.
Although solid-state technology overwhelmingly dominates today’s world of electronics, vacuum tubes are holding out in two small but vibrant areas. Some people like the sound of tubes. The Cool Sound of Tubes article says that a commercially viable number of people find that they prefer the sound produced by tubed equipment in three areas: musical-instrument (MI) amplifiers (mainly guitar amps), some processing devices used in recording studios, and a small but growing percentage of high-fidelity equipment at the high end of the audiophile market. Keep those filaments lit, Design your own Vacuum Tube Audio Equipment article claims that vacuum tubes do sound better than transistors (before you hate in the comments check out this scholarly article on the topic). The difficulty is cost; tube gear is very expensive because it uses lots of copper, iron, often point-to-point wired by hand, and requires a heavy metal chassis to support all of these parts. With this high cost and relative simplicity of circuitry (compared to modern electronics) comes good justification for building your own gear. Maybe this is one of the last frontiers of do-it-yourself that is actually worth doing.
2,691 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
Quantitative comparison (typical values)
Inductance per unit length
Configuration
Parallel wires (few mm apart)
~600–800 nH/m
Twisted pair (tight twist)
~400–500 nH/m
Coaxial cable (for reference)
~250–300 nH/m
So a twisted pair typically reduces inductance by 20–40% compared to untwisted parallel wires with the same spacing.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Marikudo Wood certainly will, the capacitance, resistance and inductance parasitics will be directly proportional to the length of the cable. However on lengths of less than a meter the chances of hearing a difference are zero.
Tomi Engdahl says:
What’s treble decay.
it’s a part of the package called ‘buyers remorse’. You pay unreasonable amount of money for cables that make no difference at all, but since you invested money in them your brain makes you “hear” the difference.
Obviously – we know from blind tests that nobody can hear the difference between best audiophile cables and solid copper wires used for electrical installations (provided there is no interference). But truth never stopped people from wasting their money on snobbery.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cable idea:
I just tend to use STP CAT6e, one pair (Balanced) or one of the wires (SE) as signal, the rest as ground, shield terminated separately to XLR Shell (important, break the shell/pin1 link if present) or on wire tails. Alternatively RG-316/U Coaxial cable for SE.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Why shielding beats braiding for RCA
RCA is:
Unbalanced
Uses the shield as signal return
Highly sensitive to EMI and ground noise
Because of that:
A solid coaxial design (center conductor + full shield) is electrically optimal
Braiding alone does not replace proper shielding
A poorly shielded braided RCA can be worse than a simple coax
Where braiding can help (but only secondarily)
If the cable is already well shielded:
Twisting/braiding the signal and return can:
Reduce loop area
Improve common-mode noise rejection slightly
Improve flexibility and durability
Tomi Engdahl says:
The best RCA cable design (electrically)
For short runs (≤1–2 m):
Coaxial geometry
Dense copper braid + foil shield
Low capacitance
Good connectors with solid ground contact
That’s why:
Studio and broadcast environments overwhelmingly use coax, not fancy braids
Brands like Canare, Mogami, Belden dominate professional RCA/XLR cables
Tomi Engdahl says:
“This is a weaved cable. It has high inductance and low capacitance.”
- agreed
“Low capacitance lets current flow easily”
- true that can affect if you have high impedance or inductive signal source
- on short cables connected to signal source with low output impedance (100 ohms or less) optimizing capacitance is pretty irrelevant
“and the high inductance filters out high frequency noise.”
- not very effectively
“It also creates a Faraday affect”
The Faraday effect term is defined as a magneto-optical phenomenon that has nothing to do with this cable.
“and shields RF and EMI.”
I would say it gives some shielding compared to just two bare wires in open space, but it is not very effective shield against RF and EMI. This is not a good construction for RCA cable in the RF and EMI perspective.
Tomi Engdahl says:
If someone claims “Faraday effect” in an audio cable, they are misusing the term.
There is no Faraday rotation happening in:
RCA cables
Speaker cables
Interconnects
Headphone cables
Tomi Engdahl says:
Not every speaker launched this year deserved its price tag. Some arrived with missing features, others regressed from their predecessors, and a few just couldn’t match their marketing promises.
Here are the five speakers from 2025 you should definitely skip, and what to buy instead: https://www.headphonesty.com/2025/12/most-disappointing-speakers-according-reviews-worldwide/
Tomi Engdahl says:
-twisted is not the same as coiled.
Any straight wire with a length greater than zero has inductance, capacitance and inductance and thus acts as filter. So what?
Tomi Engdahl says:
Audiophools decided that null tests “don’t work” even faster than they decided ABX double-blind tests “don’t work”.
Tomi Engdahl says:
They took the soul out of your music and sold it back to you.
Full story: https://www.headphonesty.com/2025/03/industry-insider-exposes-engineering-shortcuts-modern-dacs/
Tomi Engdahl says:
what on earth is that supposed to accomplish?
it will sound better, via confirmation bias. Not in reality.
Tomi Engdahl says:
No. NOOOOO!!!! NNNNoooo!!!
These metal ring-springs definitely generate distortion. Also… no cheap-plastic riser can work. This has to be EXPENSIVE at first. If you pay $100 per item, then it may work. But better make them from some expensive metal… titanium or tungsten are good candidates. And price them at $500 price point per item.
There is clear, proven, obvious relation between audio quality and price point. Absolutely the same audio item sounds magnitudes better if it is 10 or 100 or 1000 times more expensive. The more expensive (overpriced, ripoffed) it is, the better is audio quality.
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1AJe6exsDA/
Tomi Engdahl says:
I can agree that sometimes cable differences heard or not can depend on the system. For example with cable interconnects there can be 1:100 difference how much cable properties(cable capacitance, electrical shielding) affect the sound depending on the properties of signal source and destonation properties (mainly source impedance). Pro audio typically has low output impedance and not sensitive to minority cable differences. Passive preamps and tube equipment typically have higher output impedance, meaning the cable details affect more to sound – some people seem to consider this type of equipment revealing and some other consider then technically deficient.
Tomi Engdahl says:
right on. I’m perfectly fine with people buying pretty cables because they are pretty. It’s the pretending they sound different that is garbage.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The only advantage with optical is the units are separately earthed which may help with the delicate signal retrieval in the DAC, as you might get analogue interference through the earth contact using coax. But they’ll likely be indistinguishable.
Coax has the potential to introduce a ground loop, which could introduce hum. It isn’t going to influence imaging etc.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Why can’t you hear the difference between amps?
Full story: https://www.headphonesty.com/2025/03/audiophiles-keep-failing-test-end-amplifier-debate/
Tomi Engdahl says:
If they’re so confident the cables they made are superior, why are they so resistant to any form of testing to verify that they’re better? Couldn’t possibly be they’re either huffing or selling snake oil, could it?
If you’re not using a 3 foot thick diameter solid copper cylinder, for every connection, you are just an amateur and you have never heard proper sound. Merry Xmas!!
I should sell these kind of garbage with 1000% profit on them to who believe in this fairytale… seen some similar power cord as well… I bet they could not make a difference between noise and “the highs are so rich”….
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.parts-express.com/8TC-Multiple-Strands-Twist-16-Core-OFC-Copper-Speaker-Cable-Hi-Fi-Audio-File-Loudspeaker-Wir-100-950?quantity=1
Tomi Engdahl says:
If they’re so confident the cables they made are superior, why are they so resistant to any form of testing to verify that they’re better? Couldn’t possibly be they’re either huffing or selling snake oil, could it?
Jasper Calaby it doesnt matter to cable people. they’ll give you all kinds of cope. they’re the flat earthers of audio. if you dont hear the difference it’s because your gear is shit and you are deaf and it is never because of placebo.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sometimes you can hear the difference between some different cables because because the gear used is technically shit – with properly built gear no noticeable difference
Tomi Engdahl says:
buyers are rewarded with much-improved casework that will grace any system which includes it.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1JUUjGKDqr/
I feel a need to plant a flag. It’s the flag of rationality. Audio needs a healthy dose of rational thinking, as evidenced by the polarization of discourse, which is focused on bullshit that does not “make a difference”
Arguing about power cords and the sound of DACs is literally depressing. May as well be arguing flat Earth theory. Here’s what affects sound the most, by far:
The recording. Specifically, the VERSION of the recording you are listening to.
Speakers. Still the most influential component in the system itself
The Room: The most important single ingredient.
I’m intentionally avoiding room correction, but it may be the single most important ingredient of all, because of the influence rooms have, and the reality most music lovers are not going to build an optimal listening room for the specific system they buy. (But that is a thing, FWIW. Often manifesting as home theaters.)
In this context, the “contribution” of a power cord is laughable.
Ultimately, you can spare me the rhetoric about unmeasurable qualities. If you claim something sounds different, they you are saying that the final FR graph you can render at the main listening position will change in character. Audibly. And to measure that you need just a simple temporal measurement of some stereo sound.
If a cable swap changes what you can reliably and repeatedly measure, then fine.
You have documented a change in the sound. But that shit had better be lab-quality data, repeatable under scrutiny, and not some audio show magic trick. Because the BS is piled higher and deeper, as usual.
Happy holidays, audiophiles!
https://okhuman.com/oPHL8Q
Tomi Engdahl says:
The effect of an audio cable on sound is mainly determined by:
Resistance
Capacitance
Inductance
Shielding against interference
In short RCA runs (0.5–2 m), with line-level signals:
Differences are vanishingly small
The human ear cannot distinguish them
A cheap but decent cable transfers the signal perfectly accurately
Tomi Engdahl says:
Absolutely…..Cables can and do make a difference. Anyone saying otherwise simply doesn’t understand the topic. Whether you notice it depends on your system: in lower-end setups, differences are often subtle or masked by other limiting factors. In higher-end systems, improvements in clarity, imaging, and tonal balance can become perceptible. It’s not night-and-day, but it’s real. It’s not snake oil And obviously need oil exists, unless you’re paying ridiculous prices for gimmicky cables that can actually make things worse.
“Cables can and do make a difference.”
Cables can make difference. But very often the difference between few meters decent cable connected to decent equipment does not show significant difference. There are some places where cables affect more than on some other.
“Whether you notice it depends on your system: in lower-end setups, differences are often subtle or masked by other limiting factors.”
Masked by other limiting factors or technically good design.
“In higher-end systems, improvements in clarity, imaging, and tonal balance can become perceptible.”
You want a low output impedance from your source, a low capacitance interconnect, and a high input impedance on your power amp for the best, most accurate sound transfer in high-end audio.
Not everything has ideal low output impedance, especially tube equipment.
“It’s not night-and-day, but it’s real.”
It can be real or it can be imagination.
“It’s not snake oil And obviously need oil exists, unless you’re paying ridiculous prices for gimmicky cables that can actually make things worse.”
Some expensive cables intentionally try to change the sound, and some might just like the change…
I can agree that sometimes cable differences heard or not can depend on the system. For example with cable interconnects there can be 1:100 difference how much cable properties(cable capacitance, electrical shielding) affect the sound depending on the properties of signal source and destonation properties (mainly source impedance). Pro audio typically has low output impedance and not sensitive to minority cable differences. Passive preamps and tube equipment typically have higher output impedance, meaning the cable details affect more to sound – some people seem to consider this type of equipment revealing and some other consider then technically deficient.
Tomi Engdahl says:
“The tone of the console tends gives you a candy to replace the candy of standing in front of a trumpeter”. Brilliant!!!!
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1A57p5z6Ko/
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/18C4y87ZcR/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Can stock power cords affect audio quality?
Stock power cords can have some impact on audio quality, but the extent of their influence depends on various factors.
The debate centers around the power cord’s ability to deliver clean power. Some argue that stock power cords can introduce noise and distortion due to factors like:
- Resistance and impedance
- Electromagnetic interference (EMI)
- Radio-frequency interference (RFI)
However, others claim that the impact is negligible, especially if the equipment is well-designed and the power supply has adequate filtering.
Upgrading to a high-quality power cord might potentially improve audio quality, but the noticeable difference would likely be subtle and dependent on the specific system and environment.
Some audiophiles swear by the benefits of aftermarket power cords, while others find the difference imperceptible. Ultimately, the impact of stock power cords on audio quality varies from system to system.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Can you have a
“High Performance”
Stereo with
Stock Power Cords?
Tomi Engdahl says:
For the room.
For those asking *how*—audio-grade power cords aren’t magic. They’re designed to shape the electromagnetic field of the AC signal while shunting high-frequency noise to ground, allowing a narrow 50/60 Hz bandwidth to reach the component without the high frequency RF garbage attached. The physics isn’t controversial. The implementation is where the engineering lives.
Theodore Walton Denney III it’s so simple to include that filter in the chassis and be tremendously more effective with real components. Or does high end ignore basic design practices that have been used for decades ?
Jerry Love out of curiosity, what’s the mechanism you have in mind?
If you put a filter inside the chassis and leave the external cord generic, how do you see that negating the electromagnetic field around the cord itself and its interaction with nearby cables and components?
In your model, is AC power essentially electrons flowing down a wire, or is it the electromagnetic field guided by that wire?
Theodore Walton Denney III typically a simple ladder LCL shielded filter at the AC input. Anyone who has studied the slightest theory is well acquainted with this. Doesn’t matter if you want to talk electrons or field, it stops both at the input to the chassis. Then the well designed power supply does the rest of the job. It’s really not hard, just an established practice.
Question for you … where does your knowledge come from? Any engineering studies ?
For the room: Jerry’s answer is useful because it makes his model explicit.
He’s saying: “A simple LCL shielded filter at the AC input stops everything—electrons or field—at the chassis. The power supply handles the rest. Basic established practice.”
That model only works if you treat the chassis as a hard boundary where the outside world stops mattering.
But here’s the problem: whatever that inlet filter is cleaning up is exactly what the power cord delivered to it. The cord’s geometry, shielding, and insulation materials determine:
∙ How much RF noise rides in on hot, neutral, and ground
∙ How that noise distributes between the line and chassis
∙ How strongly the cord’s field interacts with nearby signal cables before it ever reaches his filter
Change the cord, and you change what the filter and power supply are being asked to fix. You also change how much noise coupled into the rest of the system on the way in. An internal filter shapes what happens after the inlet—it doesn’t undo the field environment the cord created around the box before the signal got there.
So the fork is simple:
Option A: The chassis is the boundary. Everything outside is irrelevant once the inlet filter meets spec. But if that’s true, then dedicated lines, external conditioners, and most real-world EMC cable routing practice are all pointless too—not just power cords.
Option B: The system includes the field around the box. Then the cord shaping that field is part of the problem, not something “established practice” waves away.
As for where my knowledge comes from: 32 years of designing power-delivery products, listening to the results, and refining based on what customers actually hear—combined with Maxwell’s equations, the gold standard for electromagnetic field propagation since 1865. That’s a different kind of study than textbooks alone, but it’s not “no study.”
Theodore Walton Denney III where does all this RF noise originate ? Does your installation include bundling the power cable with signal cables ?
I spent a career cabling studios, computer networks, and power distribution for said equipment. All with a 10kw AM radio tower less than 1000ft away. We did encounter RFI and an occasional EMI problem, but in every case was remedied by proper routing of cables. Amazing equipment worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, and never once did an upgrade cable over the supplied cable resolve a problem. And we had a staff of golden ears to critique the end product. Belden, Canare, and Mogami stock cables are all that professionals use.
You just asked the key question: where does all this RF noise originate?
Short answer: everywhere.
Inside your house, you’ve got switch-mode power supplies in every wall wart, router, modem, TV, computer, LED dimmer, phone charger, smart appliance, and thermostat. Outside, you’ve got cell towers, Wi-Fi mesh networks, broadcast radio, powerline data signals, and industrial equipment on the grid—all riding the same conductors that feed your audio system.
That’s why so many people notice their system sounds better at midnight than at midday. Fewer devices running in the neighborhood. Less switching activity on the grid. Less man-made RF noise in the environment. The physics is the same as what you experienced cabling studios under a 10 kW AM tower—just spread out across more sources.
And that brings us back to the fork:
Either RF and cable routing can change what real systems do—which you’ve already acknowledged from your studio work—in which case managing the local field at the cord and inlet is part of the same problem.
Or none of it matters, in which case every RFI/EMI fix you made through “proper routing of cables” was an illusion.
You can’t have a world where RF and geometry clearly matter in professional environments but magically stop mattering the moment we talk about a high-resolution playback system at home.
Theodore Walton Denney III missed the point. You do know the RFI source interference follows the inverse square law. 10,000 watts of AM modulated power 1000 ft away creates much stronger interference than a few milliwatts of wifi. That frequency is highly unlikely to make entry into any audio amplifier. Granted, some switch mode supplies can create a nuisance. But I fail to see how using an exotic power cable will solve that problem. A better supply, or add a LCL filter if it is missing. Can’t imagine high end systems using a cheap wall wart anyway.
We were seeing the RFI on cable that was a hundred foot long or more. That’s not going to be found in a typical home system. I encountered cellphone interference on an old vintage preamp. I added the LCL filter to the mains inside the unit, totally solved the issue. It’s so much easier to solve problems with actual components rather than using exotic cables that are probably only 10% as effective.
Jerry Love your studio story is valuable, but it also shows the limit of the model you’re using.
You’re assuming RF is binary: you had a gross problem, you re-routed cables and added an LCL filter, the crackling went away – therefore the issue is finished. In that frame, anything beyond “no obvious noise” can only be snake oil.
Maxwell doesn’t work that way. EM fields have shape, not just presence or absence. They overlap and interact continuously. The same RF environment that used to give you a blatant RFI problem doesn’t disappear when the clicks stop; it keeps modulating:
– soundstage size vs. compression
– highs that are sweet vs. edgy
– bass that’s tight vs. muddy
– timing, depth, image stability, fatigue over an hour
Your fixes simply moved you from “obviously broken” to “no gross artefacts.” They did not mean RF and field shaping stopped affecting anything; they just dropped below the crude binary you were watching for.
So the fork is simple:
– Either RF and EM fields only matter until the first audible glitch disappears, in which case every low-noise analog design, layout, and shielding practice we use in high-end audio is pointless;
– Or you accept that field management keeps shaping the signal after the blatant noise is gone – which is exactly the territory power cords, grounding, and cable geometry live in.
You can’t say “routing and filters fixed my RFI, therefore fields are now irrelevant.” The same physics that solved your binary problem is still at work in all the nuance you’re not measuring.
“Good enough to turn the gear on” is a different standard than “good enough not to shape what you hear.”
A stock cord will absolutely deliver voltage and current. On that level, you’re right—it works.
But the question in this post is high performance, not “does it power up.”
On the AC side, you don’t just have clean 50/60 Hz power and silence.
You’ve got wideband RF noise riding on the line, ground noise, impedance mismatches, and field interactions between the cord, the chassis, and everything else plugged into that circuit. Power cords don’t touch the audio signal directly—they shape the electromagnetic environment that the power supply and analog circuits live in.
Change that environment and you change the noise floor. You change intermodulation products. You change how deep into low-level detail the system can resolve. That’s not controversial physics—it’s what every RF engineer and mixed-signal designer deals with daily.
The HDMI analogy misses this. Digital links are designed to be discrete and error-corrected—they’re built to hide a lot of ugliness and still deliver a perfect result. An analog audio chain at high resolution is the opposite: it exposes the environment instead of masking it. Every bit of noise, every field interaction shows up in what you hear.
So the fork is simple:
*Either* you believe the electromagnetic environment around a component can affect its behavior at the noise and resolution level—in which case the cord that shapes that environment can matter.
*Or* you believe those variables don’t exist or can’t matter audibly—in which case no power treatment, no grounding scheme, and no shielding should ever change what we hear.
Both positions can’t be true at the same time.
I’m not asking anyone to like power cords. I’m just pointing out that “it turns on, so it can’t matter” is a model choice, not a law of physics.
Yes. A power cord makes no difference to your system. None. Zero. Zilch. As long as there is power going in? It’s doing what it’s supposed to. End of. The science proves it. Trust the science, not that HiFi equivalent of ‘Flat Earthers’.
Paul Brunsdon that answer really just defines your reference point.
If your only standard is “there’s voltage at the IEC, so the cord makes zero difference,” then of course you’ll say the science is finished.
The people who’ve spent years voicing high-resolution systems know the opposite: power cords are often the most dramatic cable change in the chain.
The fork is simple – either your personal experience sets the boundary of what’s possible, or you allow that there are levels of performance you just haven’t heard yet.
as long as the stock cord is rated for the current demand, it will perform enough. and nothing, no snake-oil coated gear will be better.
If the high end manufacturers ship the power cables with their sets, yiu can assume they are up to the job.
Like with all cables, there are only bad cables, eg not/badly shielded. The rest has no influence on audio.
A good shielded cable is good, be it €5 or €5000.
Theodore Walton Denney III Most electrical engineers will point out that the Amplifier or Preamp (or really any of the home electronics you use for sound reproduction) use power-supplies [PSU] that convert AC to filtered DC. Most engineers would state that any RFI filtering or adjustments / improvement to the AC voltages and AC waveforms that a custom cable might provide “will be rectified out” by diodes [as in the AC waveforms, ‘benefits and all’ are almost completely ‘annihilated’ via the full-wave rectification process], then filtered and smoothed (with big – large value- capacitors),and then regulated and filtered some more until a clean (ripple and noise free) DC voltage (that meets the design parameters) is presented to the active and passive components internal to the electronics. I myself will not go so far as to say “there is no audible benefit” to after-market power cables, but it is worthwhile to note that some major high-end manufactures (such as Pass-Labs) will give you just that – a normal heavy-duty AC power cord [NEMA 5-15P to IEC 60320 C15] to use with the amp or preamp that you buy. The sound of Pass-Labs gear is pretty “High-End” just with what ships with the systems, so I guess the answer to your question is “Yes.”
So do you guys that believe your power cords are special also run the same shielded power wires in the walls from the breaker box and use a shielded outlet?
Well gypsum doesn’t stop EMI but inductance can reduce it. So, some inductance with a twisted pair config could help the converter do it’s converting thing. However, I’d argue that if you’re getting that much EMI on a small IEC cable, then there’s some issue with filtering somewhere else in the setup. Decoupling the wire from floor would likely yield more results than twisted pair… doing both would likely reduce EMI contamination but wouldn’t totally eliminate it. The power cable would be less of an antenna, and therefore there’s a chance your sinwave output is more “pure” from artifacts and less offset.
I’d argue that a good power cleaner and regulator like equitech would go far further in terms of sonic improvement via AC mains.
Balanced linear xformers remove any offset between + and -, which is most important for the digital stuff. Regulators help keep the transistors stable, which also reduces harmonic distortion or saturation.
While many of the products are snake oil, the concepts aren’t.
Act-chew-ally in my case, I have no power cords at all. I don’t have interconnects. I don’t have speaker cables and I don’t have fuses. I don’t have big honking capacitors or transformers. That’s a lot of noise and distortion I avoided.
Source https://www.facebook.com/share/1QScbntCKw/
Tomi Engdahl says:
For the room.
For those asking *how*—audio-grade power cords aren’t magic. They’re designed to shape the electromagnetic field of the AC signal while shunting high-frequency noise to ground, allowing a narrow 50/60 Hz bandwidth to reach the component without the high frequency RF garbage attached. The physics isn’t controversial. The implementation is where the engineering lives.
Theodore Walton Denney III it’s so simple to include that filter in the chassis and be tremendously more effective with real components. Or does high end ignore basic design practices that have been used for decades ?
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.headphonesty.com/2024/07/audiophile-priest-million-dollar-setup-public-listening/
Tomi Engdahl says:
John T
All of us that have been around a while have seen and hear all kinds of “specialty” cables from Monster to the kitchen sink and none have proved to have added any significant improvement to the sound quality. If you indeed have something that remarkable, get some independent lab testing, patent it and revolutionize the pro recording and audiophile industries.
I’m serious here.
Then you can tell us all “I told you so” and I will publicly apologize for doubting you
Carlo
The best recording studios use standard kit. Don’t try and claim they use boutique shit.
Carlos Oliveira
I highly suggest you go for a visit around Abbey Road sometime. You’ll find out just how ridiculous your statement is soon enough.
Decent equipment was built by talented engineers using theory and specifications to achieve their goals. Recording studios also follow this rule. They don’t spend vast amounts of money on products that cannot back up their claims with data.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/analog-subwoofer-phase-control-how.45835/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/365235/what-is-the-advantage-of-optical-toslink-over-rca-coaxial-cable
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.reddit.com/r/audiophile/comments/kx3beb/if_youve_ever_felt_useless_remember_gold_plated/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/691835/inductor-of-twisted-pair-cable-and-of-a-wire
Tomi Engdahl says:
7 Hi‑Fi ‘Snake Oil’ Tweaks That Actually Work, According to Audiophiles
https://www.headphonesty.com/2025/12/hi-fi-snake-oil-tweaks-work-audiophiles/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://neutrinoaudio.eu/blog/our-blog-1/post/differences-between-spdif-coaxial-toslink-i2s-usb-audio-and-aes-ebu-aes3-signals-connectors-wires-bit-depths-and-rates-8
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://telos-audio.com.tw/earth-grounding-standard-edition-build-in/