What do you think of this power cord?

Yes, 12 awg is adequate :-)

Other than aesthetics, I doubt they offer anything else that a simple standard copper cable cannot provide. 10 gauge is an overkill and does not make sense on a 120 Volt circuit since it is able to carry about 45 amps but your typical household outlet and panel fuse will only allow up to about 20 amps. If you have an amp with about 1000 WRMS/channel, then maybe you may need such a wire. But then again, such amps are typically wired to a 240 Volt circuit.

cleeds,

That is why the factor of 2.5 was mentioned.... to account for differences in the class of the amplifier and more as described below:

The back panel measurement is done with a 1khz STEADY sine wave signal. The REALITY is that with music, especially if you happen to be listening with max power on, the dynamic passages may require a lot more power.

In addition, the speaker load impedance is not constant. With different frequencies, it may sometimes drop down to as low as 1 or 2 ohms, in which case a LOT more power is drawn than mentioned on the back panel.

The safety factor of 2.5 takes into account all those situations.  I just did not want to go into all the detail but it seems like some people need the explanations.

Hi bob540,

How much power does your amp require ? Add up the wattage of all channels (in case you have a multichannel amp) of your amp, multiply that by 2.5 to account for losses and very dynamic music passages and the peak power requirement, and that is how much power you need to draw from your mains outlet. Divide that by your mains rms voltage (typically 120 in the US) and that is roughly your current requirement.

For example, if you have a stereo amp with 300 Watts RMS per channel from a 120 Volt supply:

- your power requirement is (300 + 300) x 2.5 = 1500 watts.
- your max current requirement is 1500 /120 = 12.5 amps.

to be on the safe side, say 13 amps.

Most houses are wired with 15 or 20 amp max Romex mains cable, which will most likely be 12 gauge ( https://www.cerrowire.com/products/resources/tables-calculators/ampacity-charts/ )

So ANY multistrand pure copper wire <= 12 gauge would work. In fact, at the 60 Hz mains frequency, even a solid wire would be much more than acceptable but a multistrand cable will bend more easily and be flexible.

THE BOTTOM LINE IS, YOU DO NOT NEED ANY FANCY CABLES FOR POWER. ANY fully copper cable 12 and lower gauge will work more than satisfactorily.

Having said the above, if your amp is more of a welding machine than an audio amp (power requirement > 2000 watts), then you have to think of using 220/240 volt mains anyway, in which case, all the calculations will have to be remade.

So save your money. DO NOT spend too much on power cords and maybe even speaker cables. Where you should spend your cable money is on properly SHIELDED cables on your phono stages and ANALOG low level signal stages. Also, just like power cords, you do NOT need to spend money on DIGITAL (HDMI, ethernet) cables either as long as they are within the speed specs, they do not bring any benefit, it is all snake oil.

As "turnbown" also very importantly indicated above, make sure whatever you re buying is UL certified unless you want to make your insurance company happy for not having to pay you for the fire which you may cause.

cleeds,

Please read a bit more about amps, dynamic & transient loads

As I said previously, please read some more books about amps, especially when the speaker load drops to 1 or 2 ohms of impedance at certain frequencies.

Here is some very basic education to start with:
https://geoffthegreygeek.com/speaker-impedance-changes-amplifier-power/

All this is for over-engineering and increasing the safety margins so you can sleep better at nite :)