Thanks for all the info and civil tone, I understand the basic principles you mentioned. I have never been under the impression amplifier audio signal somehow travels through the AC cable. So my guess as to why the AP AC cable made the JCM800 sound better is that the AP hollow oval geometry cable may have provided slightly lower resistance along with plugs made of high conductivity material, and allowed the AC current to flow to the transformer and meet the demand of larger transients faster, allowing the transformer to work better. Large transients, meaning palm mutes and hard strums through a high gain amp, with the improved efficiency of the current transfer from wall to transformer resulting in more dynamics and slightly more frequency extension.
With audio signal transmission we are concerned with fidelity and frequency response, and with AC we are concerned with efficiency, right? So doesn’t it makes sense that any design which lowers resistance, as the hollow oval design claims, could benefit both audio and AC line transmission?
Basically no. Resistance itself for a 120-220VAC signal over halfway reasonable power cable lengths is negligible as far as input to the transformer goes. Very little really matters as long as that transformer gets something within its operating range.....which generally have a pretty wide margin for error. They're designed that way.
That doesn't mean that power
never matters. But, it does mean that unless you have very dirty power, you don't have any real problems.
At least IME, it's actually much more common for most consumer (and audiophile) grade power gubbins to make the situation worse, unless you're buying industrial level equipment or
very few actually good prosumer level things.
Case in point, I think I own 5 of the exact same model of prosumer UPS for various computers and other electronic things in my home. Because they're the only ones I've found that actually work and aren't crazy expensive for home use. All of the other consumer grade ones I've tried trigger a reboot when they take over from wall power because the wave they output is so far off from a clean sine wave that while my (high-end) PSUs will run off them, they won't stay running through the transition. Which kind of defeats the purpose of having a UPS. I was very happy I found them, because I was about to spend the price of ~2 very decent gaming PCs (before the GPU price explosion) just for industrial/pro level UPSs that were overkill but at least functioned as UPSs.
The HDMI cable spec doesn't define a maximum length which is why working at the extremes of the spec is actually full of stuff that only kind of works.
So, while I generally agree with your "If it's in spec, either it works or it's broken" comment, some specs leave too much room for error that makes the extreme edges of the spec hard to meet reliably. Not ever cable is tested off the line, tolerances vary in manufacturing processes, tolerances across the receiver, cable and sender can add up to an over all integration that floats just out of spec, etc.
But, this is the extreme end of transmission here. Not the bog standard rates we're dealing with over USB and audio gear. And certainly not the mundane AC on power lines in houses.
Wow.
You're right. I made the mistake of thinking HDMI was similar to every other sensible spec I've actually looked up. That's.....really stupid. At least displayport specifies minimum performance for various lengths, though not the actual lengths. Does HDMI not specify signal integrity or performance, or did I miss that too?
Can we put this one in the "consumer electronics are a joke" column?
His current runs through a mess of shit wires on the street and inside his house,
View attachment 108016
Buys a $300 audiophile power cable to run from the wall plug to his amplifier
It's really shocking who falls for it.
The OP is in good company, at least as far as successful careers in audio are concerned. Unfortunately, all those people are also in the bad company of people who think rocks and hockey pucks improve acoustics.
At least, most of the time, the cables don't make it worse.
Case study in confirmation bias right here, damn. People double down in order to avoid being wrong about something, blows my mind.
Really?
People don't like being wrong, and they don't like wasting money. When you try to convince someone that they wasted a lot of money on something that made no difference to something they understand and feel passionate about, especially when they went on record as hearing an obvious improvement....they're very likely to double down rather than accepting that placebo effect is a thing.
I knew that if I heard a difference when I upgrade my speaker cables, it was going to be placebo. I still bought them. And I don't regret it. But, mostly, I just think they're cool.
