Do we need a high quality and expensive power cord?

[solderdude]

11V in a 240V system or 5.5V in a120V should not be any problem.

It would measure 0.4dB less output power.

The real question is whether or not there are measurements showing the supplied mains cable and an expensive and thick aftermarket cable having a measurable difference on the incoming mains when these cables are exchanged.
This I would like to see some objective evidence of.

 

[eliash]

11V in a 240V system or 5.5V in a120V should not be any problem.

23V (from 230V) voltage drop at let´s say (2x )15m of 1.5mm² cable (my actual total in-house case) would mean a cable power dissipation of 1.5KW, no time left to call the fire brigade...fortunately the 16amp fuse would solve that problem before...just joking...

 

[eliash]

As March just said the amp should be properly designed to operate from the normal variation in line voltage including the relatively tiny voltage drop on the power cord. The spec on my 30 year old 100 W RMS/Ch tube amp says it will operate with 110-120 VAC with 0.1% regulation of the PS voltages.

That makes sense for a tube amplifier.
It probably employs a mains regulating circuit, which improves the rather low intrinsic PSRR (yes, not PSSR...) of a tube amp (less feedback and gain, compared to transistor amps) by some 40dB (from 10% input varitation to 0.1% output regulation)

 

[eliash]

Not funny... Do you see gear drawing more than say 100W of power being delivered with a lamp cord ?

Again .... 1 meter or even 2 meters of power cord, even if it is 4mm2 does it make a difference from one with 1.5mm2 in output power when considering the mains tranbsformer and many meters of relatively thin wiring ?

?

 

[March Audio]

Still missing the point an amp should acheive its rated power at the lowest end of the supply range and that music rms power typically only reaches about 1/5th of the peak. So continuous power is totally irrelevant in the real world.

 

[solderdude]

This thread is about power cords is it not ?
And the need for an expensive cord...

The answer is you need a decent cord, the one that comes with the device is already decent. No need for an extensive cord.

I also wanted to know if there are actual measurements showing worthwhile differences between the supplied cable and an expensive cable.
Not between a lamp cord and supplied cable.

 

[March Audio]

This thread is about power cords is it not ?
And the need for an expensive cord...

The answer is you need a decent cord, the one that comes with the device is already decent. No need for an extensive cord.

I also wanted to know if there are actual measurements showing worthwhile differences between the supplied cable and an expensive cable.
Not between a lamp cord and supplied cable.

There are no measurements because there are no significant differences.

 

[March Audio]

Then we are aligned again, all calculations are correct, the only interesting thing is that nobody sells (real) power amps with 0.75mm² power cords...even though they are sufficient at decent length...funny...

It's not interesting at all. 0.75 mm2 is only rated for 6 amps. It entirely depends on the power rating of the amp and the voltage of operation. Also as many maybe most use IEC cables they bought generically in bulk so are sized for the maximum current. 1.5 covers all eventualities.

I don't source a 0.5mm cable for my small amp for the UK and a 1.5 cable for my big amp fir the US. I just buy bulk sized to cover everything, reduce cost and complexity.

 

[Martin]

It's not interesting at all. 0.75 mm2 is only rated for 6 amps. It entirely depends on the power rating of the amp and the voltage of operation. Also as many maybe most use IEC cables they bought generically in bulk so are sized for the maximum current. 1.5 covers all eventualities.

I don't source a 0.5mm cable for my small amp for the UK and a 1.5 cable for my big amp fir the US. I just buy bulk 1.5 to cover everything, reduce cost and complexity.

This is exactly why I purchased 14AWG cords. Smaller gauges were rated at 10 and 12 amps. The 14AWG cords are rated at 15 amps. My devices are all rated for 15 amps. I doubt they will ever draw anywhere near that amount, they’ll probably never even approach 10 amps. The difference in cost between 18 or 16AWG and 14AWG was only a couple of bucks so why not.

Martin

 

[eliash]

Still missing the point an amp should acheive its rated power at the lowest end of the supply range and that music rms power typically only reaches about 1/5th of the peak. So continuous power is totally irrelevant in the real world.

The better the amp´s transformer (lower impendance), the lower the difference between peak and continuous power, so for me a quality issue.

Some unsolicited background
The reason why I looked into the whole issue of max. amp. power was the desire to define a point on the pre amp volume pot scale (at 2 o´clock position in this case, leaving 12dB more preamp gain), where serious distortion will occur.
For that purpose I created a test signal with L/R alternating 400Hz bursts (20% duty cycle and L, R shifted ).
That leaves the thermal load on the bass/mid speakers at a decent level and has only little high frequency content to protect the tweeters. The nice thing about this signal is the easily audible detection of clipping.
Compared to a continuous sine wave on both channels there was little difference in vol. pot position, when clipping occured, which speaks for the amp´s (PSU) quality in my opinion.

Neglecting some 1dB DAC-oversampling-output-level overshoot from already clipped music tracks or the 5-10% variation in mains voltage, I can be relatively sure not to overdrive the system and maintain highest possible fidelity, when listening loud (e. g. for just a few old Yello tracks)...or very high dynamic performances (e. g. ECM´s Il Pergolese).

 

[Soniclife]

I don't source a 0.5mm cable for my small amp for the UK and a 1.5 cable for my big amp fir the US. I just buy bulk 1.5 to cover everything, reduce cost and complexity.

And I don't recall anyone else doing it either, so if I bought something that consumes more than a minimal amount of power and it came with a skinny cable it would give me pause for thought. I could work out it was safe, but the initial impression would be off, not an impression you want to give right out of the box, however dumb the impression is.

 

[eliash]

It's not interesting at all. 0.75 mm2 is only rated for 6 amps. It entirely depends on the power rating of the amp and the voltage of operation. Also as many maybe most use IEC cables they bought generically in bulk so are sized for the maximum current. 1.5 covers all eventualities.

I don't source a 0.5mm cable for my small amp for the UK and a 1.5 cable for my big amp fir the US. I just buy bulk 1.5 to cover everything, reduce cost and complexity.

I thought so, the cables amp rating is probably also depending on mechanical wear, i.e. # of broken leads in the stranded wire over time and worst case self-heating...

 

[garbulky]

Hi Greeny

Please do not take the following as dismissive.


Seems to me that you are in the process of building a system and are asking questions to usual Hi-Fi shops. I would suggest you to not listen to anything they say from that point on. Define a budget. Discuss it with the people here, with us.
In the meantime do know the following:

Cables have no sound, should not have any ... There are several brands that build/sell excellent cables (Interconnects, USB, Speakers, yes! Power cables too) .. They do not need to be expensive. Two brands comes to mind. Blue Jeans Cable and Ghent Audio. Those people make excellent cables. I would lean on Blue Jeans if you live in the US.

As for the Electronics... Thanks to the tests and reviews of Amir, we know that $200 can give you a headphone system capable of driving any headphones on the planet to dangerous level with vanishing level of distortion. Affectionately known here as the ASR SPecial., this combo of the Khadas Audio Tone Board ($100) + The JDS Lab Atom headphone amp ($100) rivals in performance anything ou there, drive any headphones known to men, from the most sensitive to beasts such the HE6 and AKG K1000 with aplomb. Same amp dues to low noise drive sensitive IEM as well...

Speakers/transducers are where you spend your money. Depending on your room and tastes, think about adding 2 or more subs... Difficult to pull off but well worth it. For headphones .. Same: do not overspend ... in my new book, $500 is the limit .. Think cans like Sennheiser HD650 or my personal favorite HifiMan HE560 ... There are many others. One of the best websites on the subject is from a person who post here: Solderdude... https://diyaudioheaven.wordpress.com/headphones/recommended-ones/

Stay, ask questions. The answers here, more than, any other Audio enthusiasts sites, are deeply rooted in science and/or technology, a few opinions for sure but not wild things.

Peace and Welcome!

$500 is the limit? I promise you things can sound better than the HD650!

 

[solderdude]

$500 is the limit? I promise you things can sound better than the HD650!

Maybe you misinterpreted what @FrantzM said.

He did say:
do not overspend ... in my new book, $500 is the limit

That is HIS limit in his book and may not be yours or someone else's.

FrantzM also said:
There are many others (besides the HD650 and HE560).

I don't think he said things cannot sound better than the HD650.
Aside from his recommendation to visit my site I can't see much wrong with the reply.

 

[garbulky]

Maybe you misinterpreted what @FrantzM said.

He did say:
do not overspend ... in my new book, $500 is the limit

That is HIS limit in his book and may not be yours or someone else's.

FrantzM also said:
There are many others (besides the HD650 and HE560).

I don't think he said things cannot sound better than the HD650.
Aside from his recommendation to visit my site I can't see much wrong with the reply.

I had no idea you had a site. It looks quite informative.
I like this

 

[amirm]

There are no measurements because there are no significant differences.

I did measure this. My Mark Levinson amplifiers while playing as loud as I could tolerate, would cause no voltage drop on the mains. I plan to do more detailed measurements at a later point.

 

[Speedskater]

23V (from 230V) voltage drop at let´s say (2x )15m of 1.5mm² cable (my actual total in-house case) would mean a cable power dissipation of 1.5KW,

That means that 65 Amps of current is flowing into your house! That's 13,000 plus 1,500 Watts total consumption.

 

[eliash]

That means that 65 Amps of current is flowing into your house! That's 13,000 plus 1,500 Watts total consumption.

Great, I like the 13KW, almost open air rock concert power...it was only an assumption, what has to happen, when a 23V voltage drop occurs...besides, our houses main fuses are rated at 63 Amps times 3 = 43KW, could become interesting doing a quick charge on an EV battery...which immediately causes me to think about a 400V battery driven driven power amp...think about the PSRR of DC, into 4 ohms, would result in a nice 5KW audio amp (or so)...

 

[North_Sky]

I know I know, you can save roughly $5 to $10 by buying lesser expensive quality AC power cords say rom Monoprice, etc.

• https://www.amazon.com/Audiophile-P...ZE4HPS0XSD2&psc=1&refRID=C262TWBA4ZE4HPS0XSD2

But for $5 to $10 power cords you won't get those nice hospital grade end connectors.
Why not put few dollars more (five bucks) and get those hospital end connectors to it (just the two connectors are worth $20 by themselves).

My two cents, your mileage may vary, in my honest opinion, all that power cable jazz ...
And have a lovely day.

 

[eliash]

I did measure this. My Mark Levinson amplifiers while playing as loud as I could tolerate, would cause no voltage drop on the mains. I plan to do more detailed measurements at a later point.

...why not check on (shielded) power supply cords in the vicinity of signal cables, would be interesting to get a quantitative idea on actual crosstalk issues...