Does fixing your electrical make signal cable differences insignificant or minor?

link doesnt work ?

when they were doing the test with the cables, were they done pretty much at the same time or different times of the day ?

reason why I ask this is that ac power is cleaner in the early morning and late at night .....but as the day goes on, more usage of ac is out there, which could / might explain cables sounding " different " .

how many times have we read in forums where members will say that their system sounds good during early morning or late in the evening vs during the middle of the day ?

caesar said:

How much difference do cables make if electrical is up to par? Once electrical is up to par, how big are the differences between cables?

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If a system is not working correctly, for whatever reasons, then playing with cables is "flavouring" the sound, by adjusting the level and spectrum of the problems one can hear in the playback. Best solution is eliminating the audible artifacts, and that should mean that changing cables has zero, nil, zip influence - quite often the artifacts originate because of the noisy power feed, so cleaning that up most likely will reduce variations.

Shielding does almost nothing at all in respect to the properties of what a power conditioner does. There's a relation, yes. Shielding prevents the spread of the EMF from cables. It also helps reduce some noise from coming to the cable. A power conditioner attenuates the noise but has no affect on radiation except what's in itself.

Cable geometry can increase or decrease some attenuation, and mostly the size of the field it exerts. The geometry factor determines a lot of the capacitance and inductance properties. For power cables the capacitance doesn't affect signal like with interconnects or speaker wire. Essentially the lower the inductance and more attenuation by more cross sectional area, the better; those typically increase capacitance some, but again it's not an issue with no signal.

Cables... I'd say many, so many, alter the sound. But it's subjective for what you want so there's not much of a "wrong" per say. In fact sometimes they help compensate for your electronics deficiencies.

Will a power conditioner make cables less important? No... well, depends on perspective. Noise is purely cumulative. But not all noise is equal so you can accumulate more and less of certain types. A power conditioner can reduce certain noise that otherwise could radiate, say, to you interconnects. But it's important to recall there's no such thing as a "brickwall" in electronics, everything is based on voltage division which means "0" doesn't exist. What's the point of recognizing voltage division? Well if power cables reduce some noise they will continue to do so even if the power conditioner also does so... maybe you could spend less time with concentrating on power cables, but they still have value because they help lower the noise.

(Noise has a voltage or it doesn't exist, that's why I speak in terms of "voltage" when I say division)

caesar said:

Link is fixed now - my apologies...

The impression one gets is that if one's electrical is not up to snuff, the cables are trying to compensate for that, by making background more black, better dynamics, etc... But they can't quite accomplish what well designed electrical can do...

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As per my last post... it isn't accurate to say that necessarily. It's not one or the other, it's division. You can't replace the function of good power cables with better electronics, you can only improve the overall quality. Good electronics will attenuate more noise than any cable can. Cardas has some cables that do a little more.

But the argument could be money is better spent on electronics prior to huge investments in cables. That said there's still a point where cables can be too much of a bottleneck.

A good AC power system reduces the likelihood of noise & leakage currents using your interconnect cables to get back to their voltage source.

Does fixing your electrical make signal cable differences insignificant or minor?

Multiple dedicated AC lines, topnotch outlets, excellent conditioning and cables (Shunyata) and superb gear are all necessary and important to achieve the best possible sound quality.

In random order:
a] Oversize conductors
b] Twisted pair plus ground (the Bill Whitlock method)
c] For most systems, one circuit
d] For large systems, one feeder to the room, then split into different circuits
e] Top shelf industrial/commercial/hospital receptacle
f] Short cords
g] Try to reduce the length of cables & cords from hi-fi component
h] No power conditioners unless absolutely necessary and then industrial units