As many record collectors do, I sell on Discogs. And just between you and me, on occasion I’ve listed a record for sale that did not have an exact match with a release already in the database, and I’ve fudged and listed that record as being a release that was close but not “technically” an exact match for that release.
In every case these were records that I and just about any other collector would not consider “collectible” and that I’d hoped someone whose level of seriousness about record collecting was casual enough to land on just such a title and buy it. I’d hoped also, for the sake of continuing to build my own collection, to convert a few space-taking pieces of plastic and cardboard into a few bucks that I might spend on something of greater interest to me.
Over the years that I’ve been selling records on Discogs I have had a few occasions where a buyer, and more than likely, also another seller, has reported me for listing a record incorrectly. I won’t presume to know your feelings on this subject, but if you’re a Discogs seller and you’ve ever gotten one of these “cease and desist” notices you know that at the very least it’s annoying and at its worst, downright maddening!
On one occasion I took to the Discogs forum and posted a thread asking the question, basically, “don’t these Discogs ‘tattletales’ have anything better to do with their time?” The response I got was a RESOUNDING “NO!!!” We don’t have anything better to do with our time than police other sellers for how they list their records because, dagnabbit! We have a responsibility to ALL the other collectors on this planet to prevent the inadvertent purchase of the WRONG pressing of Theodore Bikel’s Songs of Russia Old and New, and we’ll prove it by spending even more of our apparently not so precious time finding EVERY LAST record in your inventory that’s not listed correctly and report THOSE as well!
It was a grim introduction to time spent on forums and what can go wrong there. Needless to say when a friend suggested I spend more time on audiophile forums sharing some of my revelations about system setup, I wasn’t in a big hurry to run out and start another thread. But as I’m always looking for ways to draw more readers to The Broken Record, I did relent and start a thread on Audiogon forums about power cords.
Fortunately I’d learned a few hard lessons from my first forum venture and was able to apply them on this outing. Insulting my audience in the forum thread introduction, I now knew, was not a good way to start.
Hi All,
I read a recent thread here on power cords and it reinforced a view I have that most audiophiles use aftermarket power cords, and the vast majority recognize that they make a very big difference in the sound of their system. I’m definitely in this camp, but a recent experience has changed my view of the merits of that difference.
I went back and compared my Transparent power cords to the stock cords I got with my CJ amp and pre and was surprised to hear that with the stock cords my components delivered more natural and tonally “correct” sound. There was more “air around” the instruments and the vocals, overall better clarity and depth and less glare.
The Transparent Premium Power cords gave the sound a very “hyped up” quality that, while exciting and rather appealing at first, wore on me over time. I didn’t realize this was happening until I tried the stock cords again, which I’d never done before. I even went so far as to try the power cord from my VPI RCM with my amp and that even netted an improvement. Crazy!
Has anyone else had a similar experience?
As you’ll see if you read the thread, I did find a handful of other audiophiles who also doubted the benefits of high cost aftermarket power cords for the sound of their systems. But soon there were those that pointed out the obvious flaw in my approach – I only listened to one aftermarket cord from Transparent and therefore had not heard enough cords to make such a judgment.
Fair enough, and as I say and meant in the thread, I remain open to trying other cords at some point to see what other designer / makers have to offer. One forum member expressed their preference for “only solid core power cables,” which apparently include brands such as Nordost, Acoustic Revive, Furutech and Oyaide, among others. I have yet to explore these but certainly will if I ever decide to revisit power cords.
Aftermarket power cords as standard audiophile practice
And explore, it seems, I should. According to one forum member I really HAD to reconsider aftermarket power cords as I would no doubt be making a GIANT audio blunder if I abandoned them altogether after hearing such a puny sample. This forum member had tried Transparent products himself and found them to have the “hyped up” sound that I was hearing and not liking with mine. He assured me that a different, better cord, would bring me back on the PC bandwagon. For this gentleman, and I expect many other audiophiles, we must hold fast to this rarely disputed near fact that a high performance aftermarket power cord is an essential part of absolutely ANY great sounding system.
As the forum thread went on it took an interesting turn into POWER MANAGEMENT that began to net some pretty helpful advice. As one forum member put it, seeking “clean power” in my system was the key if I wanted to “get off of the equipment merry-go-round”, and “if you address the dirty AC power and you’ll be done.”
Sources of “dirty power” in and audio system
With the introduction of this topic came some VERY HELPFUL facts about the sources of “dirty power” in a system – the system components (digital ones in particular), household appliances such as refrigerators, TV’s, computers and flourescent lights as well as “dirty” or distortion-producing power that comes from the utility’s power transmission devices and even from the utility itself. Any or all of these things can and likely will affect the power that brings an analog signal to life. The question then is – what do we do about it?
Some “fixes” for dirty power
Answers to this question included the more obvious solution of using high quality conditioning devices or “audiophile” power strips to try to isolate our system from these many sources of dirty power. I had found that REMOVING the conditioning device from MY system ACTUALLY IMPROVED the sound quite a bit, and, ironically, helped to reduce the noise. Perhaps the answer was the Acoustic Revive RTP strips on forum member suggested? These strips are designed to reduce noise without any filtration, which sounds like the ideal approach. But do they work? It’s going to cost me or anyone who buys one to find out.
Other suggestions from another forum member were more budget friendly and included a recommendation that I “Golden plate” all along the electrical house grid main stations and use Shungite plate plus a copper taped sheet on the external side of the application. I tried to research these and wasn’t able to figure out what exactly this forum member was referring to. In any case, many of the tweaks this gentleman has employed (I’m assuming this is a guy as only a guy would do this kind of nutty audiophile stuff ), however effective or not, clearly won’t hold up to spousal scrutiny. At least not in my house.
Another forum member described how he’d painted his local transformer power box with Total Contact , likely not a solution for most of us and certainly not for me, but no doubt interesting. Other, perhaps more “practical” tweaks suggested were using WA cable chips on the power cords and Acoustic Revive REM-8 EMI busters on the power transformer. Yet another was using EMI/RFI rejecting material on the junction boxes and power supplies.
It turns out there are no shortage of ways audiophiles try to “clean up” AC power. No doubt this would be a more helpful and informative article if I’d taken the time and the trouble to purchase and employ each and every one of the above options and provided a detailed account of my experiences with them. Alas, I have no evidence to offer here that any of these methods work, or not.
Are power management devices the answer?
What turned out to be most helpful about the many recommendations I received on the thread was to drive home the fact that, YES, dirty power is an issue and one that any serious audiophile should learn to address. The conventional approach – buying a relatively high end power management device – had not worked for me. Once I’d made crucial changes to my system that included getting rid of my expensive aftermarket power cords and finding a better sounding set of interconnects, among others, the negative impact of my power management device was glaringly obvious.
And what WAS the negative impact of this device? For starters it was robbing my system of transparency. Now that the device is out of my system, I’m in a much better position to evaluate the effect of whatever other power management approach I might take, not to mention the strengths and weaknesses of the records I play.
But which approach to take? Thankfully I’d already gotten some very clear, albeit unconventional advice from Tom Port at Better Records. During the recent lengthy conversation Tom and I had recently, Tom mentioned, as he has on multiple occasions on his blog, that unplugging devices and appliances had proven to be an effective way of improving the sound of his system. I had read just about all of the posts in which Tom mentions this approach, and of course noted his comments during our interview, but for whatever reason I had never tried it.
A solution that works!
Then a few days ago, during an in-depth listening session when my system was nice and warm and, seemingly firing on all cylinders, I went to my electrical box and started throwing breakers, switching off parts of my house. I had already unplugged my internet modem and router, and that had made a small but noticeable difference in the cleanness and resolution of the upper mids. Now I switched off the breakers on my electrical stove, then my washer, dryer and refrigerator, and then a few other plugs and lights.
As much as I embraced the improvements that switching back from my aftermarket power cords to my stock cords made in the sound of my system, the much better tonality in particular, there was a loss of some power and drama. No doubt it was that power and the more dramatic presentation that convinced me they were a good thing in the first place. Our ears and and our minds get used to so many things with our systems. By this time I was already getting used to the more laid-back presentation my stock cords delivered.
But after shutting off several sources of “dirty power” in my house, I immediately heard that power and drama return. The difference being that this time, it was not at the expense of spaciousness and tonal accuracy. The most striking effect was on the bass, which became bigger and better defined, as well as the soundstage which was suddenly higher, wider, deeper and more open.
A friend of mine came over that day and I switched off the circuit breakers while he was there. It was crystal clear to him as well that the sound had improved substantially. The improvement reminded me of the first time I had plugged my amp in with the Transparent power cord when the sound became bigger and more dramatic. I now realized that this relatively simple and entirely no cost approach to power management had given me everything I got from the aftermarket power cords without all of the problems those cords brought to the sound of my system.
I suppose the effect I experienced and described above is what other audiophiles are trying to achieve or perhaps have achieved in the myriad ways they suggested in the forum. Admittedly, the approach I took is not that convenient. My wife keeps asking me why the internet isn’t working (I keep forgetting to plug it back in!), and it’s looking like I’ll soon need to defrost my freezer.
Understanding how to manage power
Still, I feel like my experience is a way for us to understand what power management really means. Perhaps effective power management is essentially eliminating or reducing the sources of “dirty power” in our systems and the noise and distortion they cause, as well as reducing the demand for current many of these dirty power sources require so that more of that current can be delivered to our audio system. Is this the way it actually works? I honestly can’t really say, but it IS the way it sounds in my system.
I decided to reach out to Tom Port again and see what he had to say about how all this unplugging business worked. Here’s what he had to say:
“I remember that Krell used to talk about needing more current coming through the wall plug to feed their massive amps (which are some of the worst sounding I have ever heard by the way). I do not know that there is any evidence to support a problem with demand. I actually have discovered quite a number of different devices that, when left on, markedly improved the sound of my stereo. A ceiling fan did at one time in one circuit, but then we took it out of that room and no matter where we hooked it up, the sound got worse. Go figure.
My current printer makes the stereo sound better.
The kitchen lights were on a dimmer. Dimmers are usually very bad for stereos, as are lights that are controlled by multiple switches (this one is easy to test by the way). The kitchen lights all the way up on the dimmer made the stereo sound better. No other lights in the entire house had a positive effect on the sound. Now in the studio the lights in the listening room are on batteries because they clearly damage the sound.
All of this stuff is unpredictable. Nobody understands it. All you can do it test, and keep testing as your stereo gets better, because things will change.”
It would seem from Tom’s comments and experience that delivering more current to components is not the issue here. It would also seem that we need to look beyond just our audio components when considering our “system” and what in that system might be impacting its sound.
As time goes on I hope to deepen my understanding of power management. For now it appears to me that power management devices are yet another high cost item we don’t necessarily need for a great sounding system, and that the positive benefits of aftermarket power cords can be had in a much cheaper and more effective way without all of the mischief they can bring to a system.
In the meantime, I plan to follow Tom’s lead and continue experimenting. At this point I’d venture to say that for every dollar I’ve spent at Better Records I’ve saved AT LEAST a dollar and probably more in equipment I might have bought but no longer need, and all while DRAMATICALLY improving the sound of my system. Furthermore, the experimenting I’ve done so far has helped improve my ear A LOT, and it turns out THAT is the thing that really matters most in audio. Without good critical listening skills we simply cannot find our way forward in this hobby.