Mains Power Cord Recommendations For Zenith SE and/or Satement.

[fas42]

3 hours ago, Blackmorec said:

Hi-fi is improving all the time. Devices are becoming more sophisticated, more customised, more refined and better sounding. As you improve things like room, speaker positioning, cabling, vibration control, power and networking the sound quality continues to improve.......if we allow people who post about this progress to be attacked and shut down then i think its a real pity. And that is already going on.  I’m not saying that people can’t disagree. What I am talking about is the derision, cynicism and respectlessness they receive as part of posting something new, controversial or whatever. 

Debate and disagreement    Fine

Derision, aggression and absence of respect    Not fine.  Not fine at all 

 

Indeed hi-fi is improving ... 35 years ago the standard was pretty awful, it was basically a waste of time listening to some fancy gear in  a dealer's shop, because the number of obvious shortcomings just overwhelmed any chance of getting any sort of decent picture of what the rig, or component was capable of. An ultra high-end show about 15 years ago showed that indeed the very, very best, and expensive, could put up a good show - things were getting better. And the last audio show I went to had about half a dozen rooms where key elements of competent SQ were "in the air"

 

Specs and measurements are still completely useless, of course. It is impossible to assemble a system just using published information, etc, with the guarantee that it "will sound special!" ... in this sense, we are still living in Model T Ford times - you always have to suck it and see; which in 2019 is rather pathetic ...

[sandyk]

29 minutes ago, fas42 said:

Specs and measurements are still completely useless

 

 No, not completely useless, but often a guide as to what should be a better than average performer.

[Ralf11]

maybe we need a measurements thread...

[fas42]

1 minute ago, sandyk said:

 

 No, not completely useless, but often a guide as to what should be a better than average performer.

 

The operative word is "should" - I am still amused at how poor the level of detail is for supposedly high performance gear, these days; compared to that in the user manual of the Perreaux power amp that I picked up 35 years ago - which still didn't tell me that it had a flawed PS, 🤪.

[Ralf11]

So what AC power cord would you recommend over the one the manf. supplied, Frank?

[fas42]

34 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

So what AC power cord would you recommend over the one the manf. supplied, Frank?

 

The answer is, if changing the power cord alters the sound then there is a weakness in the component that the cord is feeding - the mild filtering properties of the cables all vary, which means the lack of robustness of the internal filtering of the component against mains noise, etc, is being shown up. What to do? You could: dive inside and improve the internal filtering; or fool around and  spend lots of money playing with power cables to find the "best fit", or, add some type of filtering as a separate bit of circuitry, external to the component.

 

The goal is to make the component impervious to any sort of typical mains waveforms, or added noise, variations

[Ralf11]

will the OP have to solder the power cord on?

[fas42]

7 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

will the OP have to solder the power cord on?

 

Personally, that's what I do ... contact noise, and static behaviours are issues that don't go away, just because dealing with them is a nuisance - first rig those 3 decades ago was so tweaked ... why? Because I could hear the difference ...