Do any of y'all substitute shorter IEC power cords for the OE cords that ship with each component? I have used the Middle Atlantic cords a couple of times and it did help with cable management. My concern is on a Denon AVR that has 5 foot 16/2 cord with a 13 amp rating. The MA cords are 18/3 with no rating.

There is a reason that receivers do not have grounds. Ground Loops through the system. I would not use a XX/3 cord for any receiver or amplifier regardless of ratings. You are bound to run into ground loops whether it is right away or down the road. I had this problem a few years back that took forever to troubleshoot. System worked perfect when I haded it over to the client, then summer came and the A/C caused a big prob in the media room. Scrolling lines and hum throught the spks. Found one of my guys had not used the proper cord for the Denon rcvr. They had lost the original and ran to rad shack.

Even though there is no ground prong on the receiver end of the cord?

? ? ?

The socket (chassis) end of the Denon two-wire power cords have two openings in them. The spot in the middle where the third prong, the ground, would insert has no opening. This is done on purpose so that you can't put a two-prong cord onto a device needing a ground, because that third prong on the chassis will hit the plastic and keep the cord from seating.

You can, though, put a three-wire cord onto a Denon, and it doesn't matter that you can. Since the Denon has no ground prong in the middle, the ground socket of the cord doesn't connect to anything, and you still have a two-wire connection.

Hence the question marks: the hum problem that VSound solved could not have been caused by a three-prong cord on a Denon, because there's no ground prong on the Denon to connect to it...unless there was, in which case it should have used a three-wire cord all the time and a two-wire cord was illegally used at first.

I would stick with the same wire gauge. This thread is finally inspiring me to collect the miscellaneous sources I've found of interesting power cords, and by the end of this coming week I should be able to offer a replacement power cord to you.

I have wondered at the idiocy of plasma adverts showing them hanging on the wall with no wires at all. On top of that, you open the carton and find what appears to be a 14 gauge eight foot power cord. The client wants the plasma as close to the wall as possible and I've got eight feet of garden hose to hide. Right. Based on EVERY plasma ad ever made, the cords should be three feet or less. There's also no reason for the length of a Denon cord. Again, I would not get a smaller wire gauge.

My point exactly. I also agree about not using a lighter gauge cord. Time for me to get the Velcro and hide the excess.

Vsound...your logic escapes me. If the Denon side is only 2 prong male then I don't care how many prongs you have on the other end, it's still only having connectivity to the 2 prongs. And many amplifiers do have 3 prong grounded....are you lifting all of these?

Why don't you just cord cut at the male end to the proper lenght and terminate with a new end. I do this all of the time in my large MA racks makes for a great way to manage my AC cords. Good quality ends can be found at HD or any electrical supplier.

Careful there...in most areas that's treading into the realm of electrical work. Are you a licensed electrician?

So, the issue here is power dissipation in the power cord, and voltage drop in the conductors causing issues for the electronics. Let's put a little perspective on this.

A 16 AWG copper conductor is about 0.0134 ohms / meter. The info I had handy was metric... or Real men use metric! :-)

A 18 AWG copper conductor is about 0.0214 ohms / meter.

Since an entire circuit makes twice the voltage drop (power cord is hot and neutral, gnd should technically not carry anything), we would double the numbers above for ohms / length of cord.

The above works out to the 16AWG being 0.0268 ohm/m
and the 18 AWG being 0.0428 ohm/m

This means the impedance of the 18AWG is 0.016 ohm/m more.

So, we can calculate the length of 18AWG cord that would present the same impedance as the factory supplied 16AWG cord.

That length would be the difference in impedance divided by the OEM cord impedance. For this case that works out to 0.016 ohm/m divided by 0.0268 ohm/m, or 59.7%.

So, as long as you replace the 16AWG cord, with a 18AWG cord that is less than 59.7% of the length of the OEM cord, you should be fine. That works out to 2.95', or for practical purposes 3'.

Now, in reality, the manufacturer didn't need every single bit of performance in that 18AWG cord. They likely spec'd it because it handled the required current, and was approved by the regulatory agencies. Many times issues such as, stocking the highest current cord increases our volumes, driving the price down, due to buying more of a given item, and only having to track one item in stock. Even if the cord impedance were the same, the voltage loss would be minimal, and certainly within the range of the tolerances from the power company.

So, this EE says, don't sweat it! You're not going to have any problems.

If you're really worried, go get one of the audiophile power cords with the ladder linked dielectric, and quantum spin matched electron guides. They'll only cost you a couple hundred dollars, and your sound stage will suddenly sound more open! LOL

This is what I do, all the time. No, Im not a certified electrician, but I know what Im doing, and my area doesnt require that electricians be certified/liscenced. Now if I go one county over, then I have to call sparky:)

call david at cables to go. he is great and has pretty much any type of power cable you could ever need

Your county doesn't even require electricians to be certified? Is this for any kind of electrical work?

We don't have any certifications for Low-volt, but I thought all electricians had to be certified.

Note that all states do not have requirements for licensing of Electrical Contractors.

[Link: electric-find.com]

Note there are 6 states that do not have requirements for licensing that are handled at the state level. I believe most of these states have requirements at the city or county level.

Note that in some states this results in very different requirements in different areas. Illinois is a classic example, with some areas requiring Conduit in residential electrical installations!

Plumbers, yes.

Electricians, no.

It gets jokes around here of "You cant flood the place, but you can burn it down" or something like that.

Regardless of the electrical contractor issues, you undo the UL or CSA rating. Would you buy screw-on ends and wire on a spool, and make your own cables? If not, why not? Maybe because home-made cables don't feel right?

Mr. Stanley hasn't been there, has he?


Exactly. I'm glad not to be the only one doing the math to investigate things like this.

Whhops! Amateur mistake here, sorry to say. Resistance is a DC measurement that ignores the effects of capacitance and inductance. Impedance is an AC measurement that includes resistance plus the magnitudes of the capacitive and inductive reactances, and it is frequency dependent because the effects of those reactances act opposite to one another and can actually cancel out. So you mean resistance, like you said before.

Well, resistance, but, yeah. I won't say it again, I promis.

To be clear, since this quote doesn't show the other quote, the first cord was five feet long.

Exactly.

Except for the definitions of resistance and impedance. This usually doesn't matter until one trots out the math or tries to tell someone that an eight ohm speaker will measure about 5 or 6 ohms on a meter.