Kemper Power Cable Test (192kHz Wav)

Althegreat · Sep 30th 2014

Hi guys!

My first post to the forum since I bought the Profiler a month ago. I always wanted to test out if a hi-fi power cable made a difference in sound so I took a leap and bought one for my Kemper. The mailman delivered it today and I made a test right away. Turns out it does affect the sound. I hear a big differnce in the clarity of the notes and in the output. I recorded a couple of clips to demonstrate the difference. I used the Mesa Boogie Mark IV profile by KB and recorded a couple of riffs from the song Face To The Floor by Chevelle.There are two clips for each: one soloed and one with drums. These are quite big files so be patient. (~72 MB)

Tell me if you notice the difference.

Cable A:
Cable A With Drums
Cable A Soloed

Cable B:
Cable B With Drums
Cable B Soloed

Ezergeezer · Sep 30th 2014

No difference to me!

Anyway, power cable, are you serious?

Ezergeezer

Althegreat · Sep 30th 2014

Hehe, It's more subtle than you might think. To me the hi-fi cable has a slightly tighter low end and more clarity.

But yeah I like having quality cables

nightlight · Sep 30th 2014

Um... OK....

Gitarrenschlumpf · Sep 30th 2014

The KPA has a switched-mode power supply. I don´t think there is a difference between a hifi power cable and normal power cable + SMPS. But I will listen to your files at my studio.

paults · Sep 30th 2014

Welcome!

Althegreat · Sep 30th 2014

Thank you paults!

I think the difference is best heard in the soloed tracks. It is subtle but like I said above the low end is tighter IMHO and more punchy especially on the chords and the other thing there's more clarity or definition to the notes.

If you guys don't hear the difference, that's cool aswell.

drew_fx · Sep 30th 2014

Time and time again this has been debunked. It keeps resurfacing, and I don't know why. A basic understanding of physics will give you enough information to know that it is utterly absurd to claim that power cables make any difference to audio quality:
http://sound.westhost.com/cables.htm

Either you're trolling, or you're gulliable. Good luck!!

Althegreat · Sep 30th 2014

hehe, no trolling. I swear!

schneidas · Sep 30th 2014

Pardon my ignorance, but the Kemper is a digital device, thus a better "power cable" can make absolutely no difference whatsoever soundwise, no?

grorig · Sep 30th 2014

Any link for this cable please?

viabcroce · Sep 30th 2014

Double post

viabcroce · Sep 30th 2014

Welcome Althegreat

FWIW I'm all in when it comes to esoteric stuff
I believe some more accurate test would be more useful than a music track tho. We need measurements. You might reamp the same track, so that we can compare the two for example inverting the phase of one of them and summing them: any difference should pop up then.
Note tho that many other external factors might influence the results by greater orders of magnitude (the computer's random electric noises, and E/M interactions among cables, transformers, boards for example).

PS: I don't think you're a troll. What would the trolling be about? The Axe using better cables?

Althegreat · Sep 30th 2014

Sure here it is: Vovox Initio Power 100

Althegreat · Sep 30th 2014

Thank you viabcroce!

I agree 100% with you that this should be tested more thoroughly. This was just a 5 minute test that I put together. Unfortunately I don't have a DI box so I could try what you described.

In any case I'm happy with the upgrade and that's what's matters in the end, doesn't it?

grorig · Sep 30th 2014

I know these cables,I've tried one with one of my tube amps and is very good. I didn't know that it could work with KPA too.Thanks you posted this. (Kiitos !! )

Althegreat · Sep 30th 2014

Ole hyvä, grorig!

I just love Vovox cables. My first one was just a basic guitar cable and I was instantly surprised how different my guitar sounded compared to the Fender cable that I was using at the time. I then decided to try the speaker and a XLR mic cable and had the exactly the same experiences so that's what led me to try out the power cable. And like I said above, I'm happy I did.

Michael_dk · Sep 30th 2014

Even digital circuits are fed AC through a cable, and that current is used throughout the whole circuit.

However, there is a world of difference between switching a guitar cable and a power cable. Just look at the voltage involved in each.

For my part, I would definitely say that a simple contact cleaner on all the prongs would make a much bigger impact. That impact being miniscule, of course.

Switching out the last link of the whole line all the way from the power plant is negligible at best. What wires did they use inside the walls when they built the house? How old are they? How much corrosion on the contact points in the socket?

I don't think any of these are worth doing anything about. Much less the power cable from the wall socket to the KPA, but to each his own. I just would never recommend anybody to invest a good chunk of change in it.

Been some time since I listened to it, but here is a podcast about "clean power", where they test the results of some of those steps, and also do reamping to verify the results (null test).
http://www.homerecordingshow.c…h-ralph-skelton-and-more/

There WERE differences, but extremely small.

Don't get too hung up in just a small amount of signal loss. If the tone is good, it's good. If not, choose another profile or tweak a knob a tenth of a millimeter

The money that went toward that cable could have gone toward the MW pack

Ingolf · Sep 30th 2014

Quote from paults

Welcome!

Yes, welcome!

drew_fx · Sep 30th 2014

*sigh*

Rectification.

Share