12 ga wire can carry 20 amps, so as far as "size" goes, anything larger is simply a waste of money. There is no benefit in hooking up a cable that can provide more power than your equipment is abel to use? As for design, shielding, covering, flexability, the devil is in the details. Have a look at the cables made by Puritan out of the U.K. Intersting design and as floppy as a wet noodle. Just one suggestion.
What size power cable?
How “big” does a power cable need to be for upstream components? I get that amps can benefit from a large cable to carry plenty of current, e.g. 8-11 awg. Although my preamp and phono preamp have robust power supplies, they can’t possibly benefit from such capacity, can they? Extreme overkill is the norm in hi end, but is there any benefit to more than 12 or 14 awg on a preamp or phono preamp? Much less digital components.
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@lloydc - It’s not really the gauge that dictates how well a power cables performs on any specific components, but the type of copper, the gauge and type of the wire, the insulation and the cable geometry. As an example, my DIY Source Power cable uses a 2 x 18 gauge Solid UP-OCC wire for the live conductor - that’s equivelent to 15 gauge, but the fact that it uses solid wire boosts its current carrying capacity to a much highrer level, than what a 15 gauge stranded wire could support. My cables for power components use 2 x 14 gauge Solid UP-OCC wire - that’s equivelent to 11 gauge. The other thing about using a lighter gauge wire
Many cable providers simply build a single duty cable and do not bother to provide cables rated for source components, probably due to the additional invetory they would have to keep on hand. I use a smaller gauge to save money, because I buy wire by the foot and as a DIYer I want to save as much as possible and the light gague wire can reduce the cost of a cable by a signficant amount But there are some companies out there that provide source power cables, so shop around. Hope that helps - Steve |
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