Good Grief! Just use the power cords supplied by the manufacturer of your audio gear. That is all you need!
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Imagine you have a pair of 100 Watt Class A Monoblocs. Thats 200W. Now, at 30% efficiency for Class A that would come to 600W (a little more including input stage, etc). At 115 volts that comes to 5.21Amps!
It would take 2300Watts of total power to exceed the capacity of a 20Amp AC outlet :-)
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What are you trying to say, dlcockrum? I thought we were discussing the electrical requirements of Home Audio Gear? And do you actually believe that manufacturers of high-end audio gear are fitting substandard wiring to their products? |
I just measured the drop across the 5.5 foot original power cord on my 1964 Scott 222D Integrated Amp. and found it to be 0.2Volts [120.8VAC at the outlet and 120.6VAC at the circuit side of the power fuse. This is with 18guage lamp cord! |
Why do folks insist that "Power Cables" need to have a bandwidth equal to that of a very high-spec amplifier’s audio bandwidth? Are you people INSANE? We are talking about 60Hz AC here!
If your power cords are carrying Khz range signals or noise there is something horribly wrong with your amplifier that needs to be corrected immediately, if not sooner because you are essentially operating a Radio Transmitter in violation of Federal Law! ;-) |
geoffkaitRe. Pop Quiz "
How come HDMI cables are directional?" They are not unless they have active circuitry built in to compensate for unusually long runs. ;-) |
williewonkaMy example of 5.51 amps for a 100 watt amplifier refers to full power operation. If you are operating with the volume control high enough that the amp is being driven into clipping on transient peaks you need a more powerful amplifier, and not a thicker power cord because you are asking the amplifier to whack that drum harder than it is able ;-) |
I have to dispute the assertions of the article referenced by you in your post. Current is not drawn in pulses. That is what the rectifier and filter capacitors are for - to store enough charge for smooth operation. And if the charge in the power supply is sagging below full supply voltage it is because of excess power consumption or a failure in the power supply! A IR voltage drop of two volts across a very long power cable will not cause an equal 2 volt drop in filament voltage in a vacuum tube amp. It certainly will not cause a two figure loss in power output! That is ludicrous!
If one desires increased dynamic range in their music reproduction, one needs 1. More Power. 2. More efficient loudspeakers. 3. Less sound absorption in the listening room.
Expensive power cords will not do the job!
Good Night!
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My personal quest is to find power cords that look inconspicuous hanging from the power outlets and running along the floor moldings. ;-)
RG
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Quote: Ralph K. " I’ve seen a 2 1/2 volt drop rob an amplifier of about 30% of its output power. The cord was rated for 10 amps, and the draw was about 6 amps. This measurement was done with a simple 3 1/2 digit Digital Voltmeter."
How about we all relax and drop this useless back and forth griping? That is my plan :-
RG
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I remembered seeing that cartoon somewhere, so I looked it up. It is good to "Lighten-Up" when one gets too serious, isn't it? |
A full-wave rectifier uses both halves ot the 60Hz input flipping the negative phase of the sine wave to create a 120Hz positive-going input to the power supply filter capacitors. * These are not square pulses with high harmonic content though. https://electronicscoach.com/full-wave-rectifier.htmlDarn it! I wish I knew how to post a image directly! Oh! Vacuum tube rectifiers like 5U4/ 5AR4 are full-wave. |
Time for a quick nap. Then some TV. ;-) |
How long has this (thread) been going on?
- apologies to Paul Carrack for borrowing his lyric. ;-)
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"the mains is only directly in use 5 to 10% of the time since the power supply system’s inherent design is to fill capacitors that provide smoothed and constant direct current for the supply rails that ultimately amplify the signal"
Then, once the BFCap's are charged to peak voltage, only a "trickle" charge is needed to sustain my 150Watt amplifier? Are you folks nutz? At very low volume level my Adcom 545II breaks-up into heavy distortion and dies completely in only one or two seconds after switching off power.
The only ones "not knowing enough about electricity" are those buying-in to concepts like this!
P.S. The power cable can not "assist" in delivering more AC current than the amplifier’s power transformer is capable of delivering once its iron core is magnetically ’saturated’ and the reservoir capacitors are sagging!
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wmarkhall"Oh, dear..." Indeed! For sure, I never intended to start a filter capacitor power-reserve competition but alas, that might be what I have done? I am so ashamed... * And not only that! I see that my speaker cables are ’backwards’ - the printing reads [left to right] from speaker to amplifier. Oh No! But, at least both channels have the same "fault"! ;-) |
