I don’t think it was due to the caps needing to power up. I had run the amp the previous day for about an hour, but at lower volume as background music while we cleaned and decorated the room for a party my wife was having. The caps should have been charged sufficiently. Also, if they were not charged, for them to suddenly become charged at the exact moment I substituted the power cord, would be an unbelievable coincidence.
In thinking about my experience with this cord, I may have discovered another instance of something odd occurring. I purchased a Line Magnetic LM150 integrated tube amp. It was borderline powerful enough to drive my speakers based on the specs. When I put it in the system, it performed very well. I kept a close eye on the meters to be sure the amp was not getting too stressed. The peaks never went higher than 50%-75% on the meters. I ran the amp for about three weeks and added some new ribbon speaker cables. Much to my dismay, at similar or lower volume levels I noticed the meters were pegging out. I attributed it to the unusual impedance of the speaker cables. I pulled the amp temporarily and ran a beefier solid state amp for a bit. Fast forward a month later and I tried the LM 150 again. This time the meters behaved as they did at first. I was both relieved and puzzled. I have had the amp in and out of the system numerous times over the past couple months and sometimes the meters are fine and other times they max out. I honestly do not remember what power cords I was using each time, but I’m going to guess there is a correlation between the meters maxing out and the “bad” power cord. This will be an easy thing to check.
Power cable dilemma
I have to ask the community for an explanation to account for an issue I encountered this past week.
I received a Mark Levinson ML-23.5 amp this past week. I plugged it in with a high end power cord I purchased years ago (because it looked better than the cheap cord that came with the unit. Lol). I switched from an ML-9 so I had certain expectation of the sound. After listening for about 30 minutes, I noticed that the amp did not sound very dynamic. I got up to go feel how hot it was and the heat sinks were barely warm. I turned up the volume and listened for another 15-20 minutes. I got up to check the temperature and the heat sinks were still barely warm. Also, I was playing the amp at volume level 28 on my Cambridge 851N. That is pretty high. The sound was still lifeless. I shut everything down and just sat there, dejected. Was the amp defective? Was it just a bad match? Were my expectations too high? I don’t know what made me try it, but I swapped out the power cord with a plain black cord and powered up the system. Unreal. I was now listening at volume level 22 to the same song, with staggering dynamic impact, at what seemed to be a similar volume. Furthermore, after about 20 minutes, I went up to feel the amp and the heat sinks were very toasty! So the question is: what could have possibly been wrong with the original cord that would result in lower volumes and no heat buildup? It is like it was throttling the current. To me, a cord either connects or it doesn’t. It works or it doesn’t. There should not be an in between. Does anyone have an explanation for this?
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- 91 posts total
- 91 posts total