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It's the small things that drive you nuts...

Out of curiosity and if you had your choice, would you prefer the power cord or power jack to be on the right, left or center of the chassis of a component ? For sake of clarity, we will assume that you are looking at the back panel when choosing right, left or center. I will assume that we would all prefer to have them situated near the bottom of the chassis and not up towards the top of the back panel, etc...

While i know that this sounds petty, the reason that i ask is that it gets kind of frustrating trying to route power cords around interconnects when some of the power cords come out on opposite sides of the chassis, in the middle, etc... It's almost like manufacturers set it up so that you HAVE TO have a cable mess on purpose. If all products were made using some type of industry standard, it would make things MUCH nicer and neater in terms of being able to route cables, etc... This might not seem like a big deal, but i have 15 power cords to deal with in one system, two different systems with 10 power cords each, 9 in another system, etc... I think you get the idea. Can you feel my pain ??? : ) Sean
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sean

Showing 1 response by plato

plato
1,543 posts
 
Sean -- it's a major annoyance! If you have a high-end system with multiple outboard power supplies you literally need to carefully position them and map appropriate routes for your various power cords and interconnects. Even when I do my best to strategically locate components in areas of least traffic (as you've said) there always seems to be one or more components that have less than optimal cable routing paths. And if you do manage to do it right, it looks like a mess although it may function wonderfully. That's why whenever I see an uncluttered, clean-looking installation I always feel that things have been compromised for the sake of neatness.

My own tangled mess resides in a finished basement and I can't imagine any "significant other" allowing such an arrangement in a nice living room.

I have often thought of doing things to scale down the complexity of the "web," like not bi-amping and using a one-box CD player or a full-function preamp, but I've come too far for that...

NAY! I say! I am actually proud of my strategically-positioned power supplies, and my various make-shift cable bridges and my interconnect clover-leafs. It took me too long to plan and construct my intricate road system and now it holds a certain sentimental attachment for me.

But wouldn't it be great if all the cables that comprised one's unique super-highway system were exactly the right length... and if adding that one extra component didn't screw up 3 others!!!
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