question on pwr cords

Once you go beyond 1.5 m from the wall, you must use 10AWG or larger conductors to maintain good energy transfer -- especially for a power amp.

Unfortunately, that rules out anything 'unobtrusive', except for the Aural Thrills "Silver Big One", or the "Triple 10" which are both 10AWG and only about 3/8" in diameter.

http://www.auralthrillsaudio.com/SBO.htm

I have three of them on my Martin Logan electrostats and Depth subwoofer. Great product beautifully crafted. You can speak with Tom Kenny if you need special lengths. Note: although they are VERY unobtrusive (small) they are kind of stiff, so straight runs and gentle curves are necessary.
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For something that short, the only really important thing is good stranded 10 AWG copper (twisted) and decent plugs (AC and IEC) If I were you, I'd make one myself with parts available from one of the many PC mnufacturers here on Agon that provide DIY parts.
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newbee -- first let me answer your specific question: no there's probably not going to be much difference between a 1.5 and say even a 6.5 meter cord of identical construction. As you get longer than twenty feet though, there IS going to be voltage drop, so if one can go up by a wire size, that's a good thing.

What I meant was, that ALL amps should use 10AWG (even if they're not that high powered) because the name of the game with amps (and apparently DACs for some reason) is energy TRANSFER. This is what Jim Aud of Purist has always emphasized, and why his PCs are among the best sounding.

His Dominus PC is an effective 9AWG and I think PS Audio even makes a 6 or an 8 AWG PC! And this ALWAYS raises the question we've heard a million times: "what's the point of using a PC that has bigger conductors than the ones in your wall?"

The answer is that they do different things. The wall wiring is like a resevoir of AC. The hot conductor is just sitting there cycling from plus to minus looking for a ground. It's sort of like a big river flowing past your outlet, and all of a sudden, you stick a power cord on it or in it (like a water wheel) to get some of this flowing energy. Now, there's lots of potential energy stored in those wall conductors, even if they're not that big, because they have the reserve (inertia) provided by the entire wiring system. So if you can stick a big enough pipe into the stream, you can use it and return it back to the stream (complete the circuit) without any bottlenecks.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that the large conductors of a PC have a different function than the size of the wire in the wall. The wires in the wall just have to carry their assigned amperage without getting hot and burning down the house. The PC has to grab that energy, use it (spin the water wheel) and return it to the river without any traffic jams.

Even a lower powered amp has constantly fluctuating energy requirements, every microsecond, so it's important that it can get exactly what it requires and then return the power to ground without encountering resistance, AC intermodulation distortion (a big problem with small conductors on med to hi powered equipment), inductance and other impediments that build up in smaller conductors.

Again, with PCs, if "quick and clean" energy transfer is accomplished, power handling capacity is pretty much automatically taken care of.
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And while we're on the subject of OEM PCs, most of them aren't that bad. For one thing, the conductors are WELDED to the plugs before the molded casing goes on, so it's a great connection, but usually they are about one or two conductor sizes too small for my taste.

The second problem is that they are (generally) unshielded; although in defense of the manufacturer, let me explain that if they WERE shielded, the shield would have to be connected to the ground pin of the plugs AT EACH END! Otherwise, the manufacturer couldn't get UL Approval on his product. If the shield IS connected at BOTH ends, guess what?? You have a giant ground loop!! So even though all digital equipment (DACs, processors, CDPs) should be supplied with shielded power cords to keep them from radiating digital RFI (hash) into the air, they usually aren't, and so OEM cords on that kind of equipment should always be replaced IMO with PCs that have a "floating" shield (only connected to the ground pin at the AC plug end.)

For the DIY inclined, if you got a shielded OEM cord with your digital equipment (it'll say so on the jacket), then do this: cut off the IEC connector and strip back the jacket AND THE SHIELD an inch or so. Slide some matching black shrink tubing over it and connect the conductors to a new IEC plug of good quality. Voila! You have an OEM PC with a floating shield!
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Unsound, your question isn't quite clear to me. All three conductors in a power cord are connected to the plug at each end. One to hot, one to neutral and one to ground. If, in addition, the cord has a shield (usually a metal "braided tube" right under the outer jacket and surrounding the three conductors) it will capture any stray RFI in the air and drain "it" to ground, by connecting the shield to the ground pin of the AC plug.

As long as the shield is ONLY connected at ONE END (the ground pin of the AC plug) it cannot conduct any current (like from one end of the cord to the other.) If however, it's connected to the ground pin of the IEC plug as well, then you have two separate but connected "wires" (the shield-wire, and the ground conductor-wire) connected together at each end of the PC. If you draw a diagram of this, it's what's called (in circuit terminology) a loop -- in this case a "ground" loop. It can then act as an antenna that will pick up electromagnetic radiation (mostly 60 cycle AC from the cord itself, or other nearby sources of AC) and you get devilish hum.

Some PCs (like Cardas for instance) employ a double floating shield. There are two concentric shields (insulated from each other) and one is connected to the AC plug ground pin (only), and the other is connected to the IEC ground pin (only) and I guess that's about as good as it gets ;--)
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Warren, the fellow I have in mind is Chris venHaus. His website is:

http://www.venhaus1.com/diymains.html

He also makes cords to order quite reasonably if you're not into DIY. My point about "that short" is that you're really asking for a plug "pigtail", not a power cord. And that's fine. Something "that short" isn't really going to need or benefit from shielding, vibration resistance, fancy alloy or silver conductors, etc. All it requires is big enough conductors to transfer the power required by the amp, and decent plugs for a good connection. If you write Chris and expain what you want to do, I'm sure he could create something appropriate for very little money.
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