AC Power Cord Wire Gauge

Some very smart individuals with electrical engineering backgrounds will make compelling arguments in favor of using the same gauge wire in power cords as that which is in your walls because from an engineering standpoint it makes sense to do so. It will be very difficult if not impossible to fault their position.

Tvad -- I have an electrical engineering background, and some people consider me to be very smart :), but I for one do not make that argument, and do not see why "from an engineering standpoint it makes sense to do so."

Best,
-- Al

Tvad, I would like to add that I'm finding - being a newcomer - that there are many very smart individuals on this site, whether they have electrical engineering backgrounds or not. Thank you both for answering my questions. I think I now know much more about electricity - at least this area - than before. All the best for the holidays, Ken.

Al, you stated a very smart answer to question number 2. Well done. This was
entirely along the lines I was suggesting, although I am not an engineer or a
scientific person (although I studied calculus and physics in my early
architecture studies in college, and I am reasoned person). What I probably
should have stated was that some will argue that using a
larger gauge power cord than the gauge that is in one's walls is not
necessary. At least, I think that's what I should have written.

You can see by the statement you quoted that I am not scientific enough to
posit an intelligent response to this topic other than to offer an opinion of
what I hear to be the benefits of larger gauge power cords from a purely
subjective standpoint.

I even admitted my preferences might be entirely due to the placebo effect.

Me likey sugar pills.

You can see by the statement you quoted that I am not scientific enough to posit an intelligent response ...

On the contrary, I sincerely felt that your entire response was quite intelligent. In that particular part of it, you were simply citing what you believe some others believe, and I have no doubt that is true (that some others have that belief). I was just saying that that belief that others may have is, in my opinion, not correct!

All the best,
-- Al

The national electrical code requires minimum AWG 12 for 15A circuits.

If you're going to put in new ded. cts, for your audio, and the receptacles will be more than 20 feet from the panel, i recommend going up to AWG 10 to make up for slight voltage drop as the runs get longer.

Tvad, you're not imagining things. The age-old question, "Why make PC's any bigger gauge than what's in the wall?" has a very simple answer: 'energy transfer' I'll explain:
When you plug your whatever into a wall receptacle, you are basically hooking it up (in parallel with other devices plugged into that same 'branch' circuit) across two buss wires (hot and neutral) coming from the panel. Think of this buss (usually a long length of Rom-ex in the wall) as a reservoir of water that under most conditions can never be emptied. Think of the power cord as a pair of tubes (hot conductor and neutral conductor) that you stick into this reservoir. Now water can flow (current) into one conductor, through the whatever, and back out the other conductor (and this process reverses 60 times a second because the current alternates.)

If the water is flowing through an amplifier, it's doing quite a bit of work, but in just a sixtieth of a second, it has to get back to the reservoir and then reverse direction! Sounds like an electron traffic jam waiting to turn into gridlock! To insure this doesn't occur, you provide many many lanes (or in this case, large conductors) and you lay them out so drivers aren't blinded by oncoming headlights (inductance and capacitance) slowing things down unnecessarily ;-) Simply put, the energy transfer requirements, back and forth between the device and the reservoir, are quite different in nature than what it takes to keep the reservoir full.

Devices requiring less power (preamps, tuners) can transfer current back and forth through smaller conductors without "impediments" arising -- with one bizarre exception: DACs! (or any device with a D/A or A/D chip in it.) Don't ask me why, I don't know, but they benefit from big AC conductors also (but probably for different reasons than amps.)

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