Power cord thickness

[Stranger Danger]

dude, I was referring to the AWG in that post, not only the cable thickness

if you're running a 1,000 watt amp, the 14 awg wire will stay cooler
advantage

You're talking to the most respected amp builder on this site. Whatever the topic related to amps he knows more than you do and he's not your dude. Dial it back and learn something today.

 

[Ric5]

I like it when power chords are thick and full and loud ...

 

[Mark Reccord]

I use and have become an advocate of Essential Sound power cords. From a technical standpoint, the multiple small conductors have less resistance than a normal 3 conductor cable. All I can say is that my rig sounds somewhat better and more dynamic with.

All the people in my band and our sound guy can hear and feel the difference.

It's not small or super flexible, but the Essential Sound MusicCord Pro sounds better than a standard IEC cable. Yeah - it's not cheap, but I get my money's worth in performance

We could have done without shilling for nonsensical products in this thread. From a technical standpoint ESP is full of it. Anyone who actually understands how amplifiers work knows that their claims are total bunk. I bought one a few years ago and ran a slew of tests (including listening, high power and step/square wave tests) on it against a standard IEC. I found that there was absolutely no difference in the performance of my GK MB500 with it and also found no differences when I used it to power the amplifier of a very very high end hifi system. So I sent it back.

That was back when they had a graphic on their site claiming that their cable would extend the frequency response of whatever it was plugged into both high and low. I also tested that. It didn't. The owner of ESP actually emailed me to ask why I sent it back and I told him. He never replied.

 

[Mark Reccord]

$250 for a 6 foot cord? Not on my budget!!

That's only the tip of the iceberg. That's a low end power cable in the hifi world. I've seen and demoed cables costing $25k+ and I'm not even kidding.

 

[aborgman]

Thousands of dollars in your rig and a $8 monoprice power cable but hell it works

Voltage Drop Calculator

10', 18AWG cord @ 500W
Voltage drop: 0.53V
Voltage at amp: 119.47VAC


10', 14AWG cord @ 500W
Voltage drop: 0.21V
Voltage at amp: 119.79VAC


10', 18AWG cord @ 1000W
Voltage drop: 1.06V
Voltage at amp: 118.94VAC


10', 14AWG cord @ 1000W
Voltage drop: 0.42V
Voltage at amp: 119.58VAC


Power variation considered acceptable for US mains 120VAC: 102VAC -138VAC

Amp power supplies are designed for standard mains variation. They can handle anything from 102VAC-138VAC. Compare that to the difference made by the power cord sizes folks are talking about....

 

[aborgman]

From a technical standpoint, the multiple small conductors have less resistance than a normal 3 conductor cable.

No, they do not.

Resistance is completely determined by cross sectional area and length.

 

[Coolhandjjl]

Gotta luv TB! An engineer who designs these amps replies on page 1, pretty much tells it like it is, yet the thread goes on for 5 pages.

 

[Killed_by_Death]

and before that I told it like it was

You're talking to the most respected amp builder on this site. Whatever the topic related to amps he knows more than you do and he's not your dude. Dial it back and learn something today.

I didn't need to learn anything, because what I was saying was not incorrect.

I'll repeat it here for you to understand, 14 awg wire is a larger diameter than 18 awg wire & thereby can conduct more amps.

Dial it back & read & understand before jumping on someone else when it's not warranted.

 

[aborgman]

I didn't need to learn anything, because what I was saying was not incorrect.

I'll repeat it here for you to understand, 14 awg wire is a larger diameter than 18 awg wire & thereby can conduct more amps.

Yes... and both can conduct WAY more amps than your amplifier needs, unless you're using a 1000' power cord or playing a 10,000W amplifier.

NEC consider 18AWG good for ~14 amps CONTINUOUS. That is about 1700W... or almost what a 1000W pure class A amp would draw.

 

[Killed_by_Death]

I wouldn't plug in more than a 1,000 watt amp to 18 awg wire & I'd keep the length to under 10 feet.

a 10k watt amp would need at least 83 amps (on a 120v system), before you dragged a 1,000 foot power cord to it

 

[mark beem]

All the 'standard issue' power cables that came with my equipment are currently stored in a box. I purchased a couple of GadKo hospital grade, green dot power cables (14 AWG) which I now use with anything that has a C13 plug.

 

[aborgman]

I wouldn't plug in more than a 1,000 watt amp to 18 awg wire & I'd keep the length to under 10 feet.

A 1000W continuous draw on an 18AWG cord is only slightly more than HALF what NEC allows. 1000W continuous is ~8.333A. NEC allows 14A for 18AWG.

A 10', 18AWG cord at 1000W is dissipating less than 10W in the power cord.

 

[Joe Ty]

And everyone seems to forget, it's all the same $0.30 a foot romex cable that gets it to the outlet your plugging into for power to begin with!

Yes, but the Romex doesn't need to bend and is solid vs. strand, so it's a superior conduit gauge to gauge.

 

[Killed_by_Death]

1000W continuous is ~8.333A.

A 1,000 watt amp doesn't draw exactly 1,000 watts at full power, and I repeat, I would not plug more than 1,000 watt amp into a 18 awg wire power cord.
It's getting too close to it's max capacity.

 

[Joe Ty]

I am not sure where all the discussion is, but electricity is pretty simple. If your rig is trying to drraw power and the cords are not proper size, you will increase the heat. Enough to cause a fire? Depends. But if you have a honking big cable, there is no downside to that unless the cable is stupidly long, like hundreds of yards?

So you need to look at not just your power cord, but what its plugged into. Griswalds Xmas tree lights equals fire.

Potentially one also needs to consider everything on the circuit. Standard fuse 10 Amps, 150 vols - 1500 watts. You plug an 1200 watt in, guitarist -lugs a 500 watt amp in same circuit , it is overloaded.

If I can, I go with 12 to 14 guage and my own outlet (fusebox).

Are you talking about in the wall? You should always go with the proper gauge to match the fuse; not thicker and obviously not thinner. If you go thicker you may confuse the electrician digging in the wall 50 years from now that sees the wire and thinks he can pop a higher amp breaker in the box not knowing what the rest of the circuit looks like.

 

[aborgman]

A 1,000 watt amp doesn't draw exactly 1,000 watts at full power, and I repeat, I would not plug more than 1,000 watt amp into a 18 awg wire power cord.
It's getting too close to it's max capacity.

A 1000W class AB amp will draw about 1600W at full capacity. 18AWG is good for 1700W continuous.

...but music doesn't draw continuous power. Even a pure sine wave played continuously has a crest factor of 1.414... so even a continuous sine wave that draws a peak power of 1,000W will only draw ~707W average.

~707W average with class AB amp will be ~1100W draw from the wall outlet. That is only about 65% of the allowable current for 18AWG.

A bass guitar signal has a significantly higher crest factor (usually more like 6-10), thus a significantly lower average draw compared to peak.

 

[RoadRanger]

Oy vey, gotta get out the waders again ...

 

[Killed_by_Death]

I guess someone is trying to impress us, but I'm still going for at least 14 awg if I'm plugging in an amp with more than 1,000 watts.

 

[Stranger Danger]

Yes... and both can conduct WAY more amps than your amplifier needs, unless you're using a 1000' power cord or playing a 10,000W amplifier.

NEC consider 18AWG good for ~14 amps CONTINUOUS. That is about 1700W... or almost what a 1000W pure class A amp would draw.

Some people can't be helped.

 

[Killed_by_Death]

or they simply don't need help

citing an imaginary application that would require more than 10x of the power being discussed is hardly helpful

especially considering that imaginary project would require a much large diameter of wire