15 amp vs 20 amp


I installed a dedicated 20 amp circuit in the wall and use a very high end furutech outlet.  This is plugged into a 15 amp power conditioner and all equipment is 15 amp. 

If I were to buy a new power conditioner, is 20 amp better than 15?  or is it a waste of $$

 

Thanks much

 

mlapenta

Thanks for input.  I took the power cable for my amp out of the conditioner and straight into the wall and sure enough it did make a difference!.  

Hmmm. Good question. Ideally, a separate direct line, or if that is more than you can do, along with the amp. But, I have never experimented with adding a sub to the amp circuit. The sub is an amp… you don’t want to constrict flow. I am sure the former is best. Combining multi-Le amps will not be ideal. 

@jea48 always makes sound technical explanations

On a side note, you would be quite surprised how few amps you really draw if you were to measure your wall outlet to the system running at a high level. In the past, a similar system to my present was drawing less than 5 amps. So, headroom is very important, but 15 amp products are not going to impede your system.

@mlapenta Yep, cables do matter.

 

@bugredmachine  Thanks for the kind words.

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@bugredmachine  said:

On a side note, you would be quite surprised how few amps you really draw if you were to measure your wall outlet to the system running at a high level. In the past, a similar system to my present was drawing less than 5 amps.

Your ammeter was only reading an average, not very quick draws, gulps, of current peaks... The meter is not capably of reading much higher millisecond pulses of current. 

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Example: 

2x200W amp might take from mains close to 1kW during peaks. The problem is that peak supply current won’t be expected 8A, but rather close to 40A. It is because current is drawn only for very short time (millisecond pulse) at the peak of full wave rectified sinewave. It applies to most of LPS. Power delivered with such short pulses not only creates larger voltage drops in house wiring, but also heat-up amp’s power transformer, that has to be oversized (higher copper losses and higher core losses for eddy currents and hysteresis).
 

https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/329443/current-through-the-smoothing-capacitor-in-bridge-rectifier

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jea48 question:

Please explain what happens if the power transformer’s secondary winding voltage is lower feeding the rectifier, due to a quick AC mains VD event, and the electrolytic capacitors voltage is higher. Just going from memory the rectifier will not conduct and the caps do not get recharged for that "(millisecond pulse)" in time.

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@jea48   You are right - there will be no current thru rectifiers until capacitor voltage will drop below rectifier supplied peak voltage.  Theoretically it is possible to build LPS where capacitors keep average instead of peak voltage, but it requires huge inductor in series (in order of Henries) made with thick wire and AFAIK nobody is doing it.  One problem is lower rail voltage (average instead of peak) while the other is dependency on the load current.

http://www.r-type.org/articles/art-144.htm

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When the amplifier is plugged directly into the wall outlet the only thing that will cause VD at the outlet mains is the size and length of the branch circuit wiring. A 20A circuit breaker will easily pass 40amps of short quick draws of 40 amps of current all day long without tripping. 

How about the power conditioner you are looking at? Will it supply a steady state AC voltage feeding a power amp? 

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