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Does it really matter?

DrThumpenstein

DrThumpenstein

Living for the groove
Supporting Member
Feb 8, 2015
2,527
9,924
St Louis, MO
#1
We are gearing up for our first gig as a band. The guys who owns the PA equipment and just purchased a couple of these 50 foot extensions (3-prong to IEC) for the powered subs and mains. We are all chipping in on new acquisitions for the gigs and we need a couple more.

FC3971D7-D7ED-44BA-947B-6D4A37376599.jpeg

These cost about three times more than a regular extension cord of the same length and rated current. He maintains it will “dirty up“ the power if we plug the cables that came with the PA into extension cords. I think that if we use extension cords that are rated for enough current and plug the original IEC cords into an appropriate gauge extension cord, there should be no issue. What are the thoughts of those with experience in this world?
 
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#4
Yeah he's crazy. Get nice cords. Heavy Guage (at least 14....and remember, the SMALLER the number, the larger the wire....so 12 is bigger than 14).

But you're already using a wedge connection at both ends anyway. (Maening that tue prongs on the male end are being wedged into tue power outlet, and holes of the female IEC end of the cord are wedged onto the prongs on the back of the speaker.) One more won't hurt. The guy is WAY over thinking thing. It will literally make zero difference.
 
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#6
two fingers said:
Yeah he's crazy. Get nice cords. Heavy Guage (at least 14....and remember, the SMALLER the number, the larger the wire....so 12 is bigger than 14).

But you're already using a wedge connection at both ends anyway. (Maening that tue prongs on the male end are being wedged into tue power outlet, and holes of the female IEC end of the cord are wedged onto the prongs on the back of the speaker.) One more won't hurt. The guy is WAY over thinking thing. It will literally make zero difference.
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Totally agree. A long IEC cable at 16 or 18 gauge is no better or worse than an extension cord of 16 or 18 gauge of the same length.

I agree with going with a thicker gauge extension cord - 12 or 14 would work and I have done that myself over long runs.

Only issue is, thicker gauge extension cords are not cheap, either! In my neck of the woods a basic 12/3 extension cord is about a $1/foot while 16/3 is about half that (Canadian pesos).
 
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#7
two fingers said:
Yeah he's crazy. Get nice cords. Heavy Guage (at least 14....and remember, the SMALLER the number, the larger the wire....so 12 is bigger than 14).

But you're already using a wedge connection at both ends anyway. (Maening that tue prongs on the male end are being wedged into tue power outlet, and holes of the female IEC end of the cord are wedged onto the prongs on the back of the speaker.) One more won't hurt. The guy is WAY over thinking thing. It will literally make zero difference.
Click to expand...

As for the last bit, maybe the OP’s PA owner should hire an electrician and directly wire the system to the closest transformer. Just to be sure. ;-)
 
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#8
DirtDog said:
As for the last bit, maybe the OP’s PA owner should hire an electrician and directly wire the system to the closest transformer. Just to be sure. ;-)
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Funny you should mention that. I used to be an industrial electrician. Back when my pro band had racks of power amps and lots of PAR cans, we had an electrical distribution box ("distro"). It had 6 ga wire with open ends. I had breakers for all of the common panels and was tasked with direct wiring us up to the nearest panel. (I also had the most common 3 and 4 wire range and dryer plugs I could use as well.)

I had to get pretty creative in a few situations to get us power. :D

And as a former electrician, and current medical equiprepair guy, I can safely say OPs PA owner is just being weird. You want electrical connection tolerances that CAN make a difference? Work on an EKG sometime. But 120V AC plugs for PA speakers..... nope.
 
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#10
two fingers said:
Funny you should mention that. I used to be an industrial electrician. Back when my pro band has racks of power amps and lots of PAR cans, we had an electrical distribution box ("distro"). It had 6 ga wire with open ends. I had breakers for all of the common panels and was tasked with direct wiring us up to the nearest panel. (I also had the most common 3 and 4 wire range and dryer plugs I could use as well.)

I had to get pretty creative in a few situations to get us power. :D

And as a former electrician, and current medical equiprepair guy, I can safely say OPs PA owner is just being weird. You want electrical connection tolerances that CAN make a difference? Work on an EKG sometime. But 120V AC plugs for PA speakers..... nope.
Click to expand...

Exactly. I recalled you had an electrician background. My last band we had an electrician. Whenever we had a tricky situation, we had to make sure we got him before he drank too much! Union guy: “I’m off the clock”! :laugh:
 
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#13
two fingers said:
Funny you should mention that. I used to be an industrial electrician. Back when my pro band had racks of power amps and lots of PAR cans, we had an electrical distribution box ("distro"). It had 6 ga wire with open ends. I had breakers for all of the common panels and was tasked with direct wiring us up to the nearest panel. (I also had the most common 3 and 4 wire range and dryer plugs I could use as well.)

I had to get pretty creative in a few situations to get us power. :D

And as a former electrician, and current medical equiprepair guy, I can safely say OPs PA owner is just being weird. You want electrical connection tolerances that CAN make a difference? Work on an EKG sometime. But 120V AC plugs for PA speakers..... nope.
Click to expand...

Thanks for all the responses. I always love it when TB confirms my thinking!

Yeah, EKGs are really sensitive. I read a lot of them and identifying the causes of intermittent artifact can be a true “ghost in the machine” mystery! But yeah, this isn’t that!
 
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#19
DrThumpenstein said:
We are gearing up for our first gig as a band. The guys who owns the PA equipment and just purchased a couple of these 50 foot extensions (3-prong to IEC) for the powered subs and mains. We are all chipping in on new acquisitions for the gigs and we need a couple more.

View attachment 4714742

These cost about three times more than a regular extension cord of the same length and rated current. He maintains it will “dirty up“ the power if we plug the cables that came with the PA into extension cords. I think that if we use extension cords that are rated for enough current and plug the original IEC cords into an appropriate gauge extension cord, there should be no issue. What are the thoughts of those with experience in this world?
Click to expand...

He is wrong and you are spending the extra cash for no reason. Just get normal extension cords, they are a much sounder investment.
 
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