Suggest me a power cable for my Schiit Aegir power amp.

[Nikhil]

Guys lets get this discussion back on track.

The OP has requested for power cord suggestions with some perfectly reasonable constraints.
Let's not derail the discussion. And let's avoid the personal jabs - no need for that on here.

Thanks!


.

 

[keith_correa]

Buy Cable, IEC Plug & Mains Plug

Pay your local electrician to connect these together. Leave shield unconnected at both ends.

 

[ajuvignesh]

Guys lets get this discussion back on track.

The OP has requested for power cord suggestions with some perfectly reasonable constraints.
Let's not derail the discussion. And let's avoid the personal jabs - no need for that on here.

Thanks!


.

Thank you

Buy Cable, IEC Plug & Mains Plug

Pay your local electrician to connect these together. Leave shield unconnected at both ends.

Thank you for your research, sir. will look into it. Is 16 AMP plug needed or can I terminate with normal plugs? Will there be any difference?

 

[ajuvignesh]

Technically 18 awg should be fine. But if you wish to try a thicker you can. Also unshielded might be better in case of Aegir. Their power supplies are decently designed.

In my 3 decades of experience, I have never preferred a shielded to an unshielded power cable. And I have owned cables from USD 5 to USD 5000

Why do you think unshielded is better? Please explain There are a lot of cables running around and sometimes, the cables overlap each other. Do you still think unshielded is better?
Thanks in advance.

 

[Spinekar]

Buy Cable, IEC Plug & Mains Plug

Pay your local electrician to connect these together. Leave shield unconnected at both ends.

what is the reason for the shield to be unconnected?

 

[prem]

I am not a technical guy. So I can only share my listening experience. Shielding quietens the background a bit but darkens the sound and robs some life. That’s been my experience. All good amps have well designed power supplies which takes care of electrical noise. If I have to still quieten the noise, I would experiment with an external isolation transformer rather then shielded power cables.

Cables criss crossing is not as big a deal as people make it out to be. You should visit a recording studio or a concert room. You’ll be shocked to see the number of wires there, all criss crossing.

In our homes we just have a couple of wires. If you can avoid crossing, nothing like it. But that’s usually unavoidable. So cross them at ninety degrees.

 

[prem]

Check out the Pureline V3 from sound foundations. I think it’s unshielded. They also have a braided power cable which is unshielded. If possible request a demo of Pureline V5 which is shielded. And decide for yourself what works best for you.

 

[ajuvignesh]

Check out the Pureline V3 from sound foundations. I think it’s unshielded. They also have a braided power cable which is unshielded. If possible request a demo of Pureline V5 which is shielded. And decide for yourself what works best for you.

Thank you, Prem. Never know shielding robs life of sound. Have to read about it
Studio cables are mostly TRS or XLR cables. They are balanced cables, and they are nearly resistant to noise and interference.
I am from kanyakumari. So, demoing Sound foundation cables is impossible, unfortunately.

 

[prem]

Why don’t you write to Schitt and check with them? I strongly believe in following what the designer says. The designer usually knows best what works with his stuff. I never second guess the designer

 

[ajuvignesh]

Why don’t you write to Schitt and check with them? I strongly believe in following what the designer says. The designer usually knows best what works with his stuff. I never second guess the designer

Thats a great idea. Thank you
Will send them a mail.

 

[Subbu68]

The last few meters of uber expensive power cable is not a filter like aquaguard. It will pass all the junk that is present in kilometers of cable leading to your house - Unless you have a thermal/nuclear power plant next to your music room with the thickest power cable on planet, with a super accurate governor to control the speed of the steam turbine to give you exact 50 Hz and with each cable leading right upto the amplifier and with thickness of few meters of diameter. Having said that, whatever rocks your boat. Placebo is real. You can have RO filter after the aquaguard followed by another aquaguard and then Hema Malini talking about the plus of RO Kent, if that makes one feel comfortable. But then putting a real filter to remove the bacteria (EMI noise) will increase the impedance the same way it slows down the water flow. And anything that impedes the current (water) flow impacts the dynamics. Also this electric network leading upto your amp, is in series (not parallel). The portion of conductor with the worst property will dictate the quality

It is ohm's law and when you deal with non-dc, it is just not dc resistance. Do anything that reduces the inductance and capacitance (easier said than done) but you will do good.

Please don't take my comment in any wrong way, but-
The maximum continuous load for 18 AWG copper is 5.6 amperes.
That's 240V AC X 5.6A = 1344Watts which is still thrice of its max Power Consumption
of 450W.
Now the practical reality-
A meter long wire of a uber expensive shielded /unshielded 10 or 18 AWG cable connected thru 5/15A switch sockets with multiple joints / looped inside your house with
tens of meters of your regular FR rated stranded 1 or 1.5 sq mm electric wire (Polycab/ Finolex), vs armored copper / aluminum cables used in building conduits fed by kilometers long High voltage armored aluminum cables from distribution transformers again supplied thru 100's of Kilo-meters long very high tension steel cables coming from power companies.
You would be horrified when you see the conditions of all the joints/ cables behind those electric boards and distribution networks.
Hope this helps to dispel some myths.

Don't waste your precious time preaching those who cannot understand a thing in electrical engineering. I stopped reacting to these.

 

[ajuvignesh]

Don't waste your precious time preaching those who cannot understand a thing in electrical engineering. I stopped reacting to these.

How did you assume that I can understand nothing in Electrical engineering if taught?

 

[Subbu68]

How did you assume that I can understand nothing in Electrical engineering if taught?

If you sat in a university for 4 years in Elec. Eng my apologies. Else it is a complex affair to teach.

Anyways, the network is dirty with harmonics, EMI, partial discharge etc., getting dirtier thanks to all the electronics (PCs, laptops, TVs, inverters, UPSs), cable joints, badly made transformers, bad construction methods, etc. etc.explained by others.

Spending on the exotic cables and oversized ones cannot filter them unless you have a proper filter.

Even if you drink from gold plated tap, your municipal water may need Aquagaurd before you consume unless your supplier can guarantee its purity.The same way.

 

[mbhangui]

If you sat in a university for 4 years in Elec. Eng my apologies. Else it is a complex affair to teach.

Anyways, the network is dirty with harmonics, EMI, partial discharge etc., getting dirtier thanks to all the electronics (PCs, laptops, TVs, inverters, UPSs), cable joints, badly made transformers, bad construction methods, etc. etc.explained by others.

Spending on the exotic cables and oversized ones cannot filter them unless you have a proper filter.

Even if you drink from gold plated tap, your municipal water may need Aquagaurd before you consume unless your supplier can guarantee its purity.The same way.

There are two kinds of exotic cable manufacturers. The normal ones and the supernatural ones. Most of them don't claim that their cables will clean the power supply, because that would be ridiculous and seen by anyone applying logic of KMs of dirty cables and the last 1 meter doing magic.

The normal ones are the PS audio kinds who claim their cables have excellent shield and the power cables do not emit EMI and hence do not cause degradation of audio signals in other equipments feeding audio to the main amplifier.

The legendary ones claim their cables are immune to triboelectricity. Tribolectric charges become relevant in the medical field where impendance of some equipment is extremely high (much larger than what is there in the audio industry). Even a small amount of charge from the cable polymers rubbing or moving will cause readings to change. IIRC, furutech is the supernatural legend here.

There is a video from ASR here and a rebuttal from Professor who has been rebutted in the ASR video here. You can also read this on Archimago's Musings on the above Professor hard to believe papers on cables and I would end this with Archimago's own words

I believe that typical 2-channel hi-fi audio is very much a "mature" science these days so on balance it's probably unlikely that understanding of core technologies should be too contentious. I know, some audiophiles and companies will protest this idea with the belief that human hearing somehow has much more potential and that we cannot measure all domains of auditory acuity as applied to our audio tech. As science-driven hobbyists, since we can perform blind tests and show that people have difficulty differentiating high bitrate MP3 from lossless, even relatively high distortions are difficult to hear, and hi-res audio is generally indistinguishable from 16/44.1 lossless (except for a few minor instances which can be statistically significant but practically not likely relevant for music listening), I think the onus of proof remains on those who make contentious or dramatic claims outside of the standard paradigm.

 

[ajuvignesh]

If you sat in a university for 4 years in Elec. Eng my apologies. Else it is a complex affair to teach.

Anyways, the network is dirty with harmonics, EMI, partial discharge etc., getting dirtier thanks to all the electronics (PCs, laptops, TVs, inverters, UPSs), cable joints, badly made transformers, bad construction methods, etc. etc.explained by others.

Spending on the exotic cables and oversized ones cannot filter them unless you have a proper filter.

Even if you drink from gold plated tap, your municipal water may need Aquagaurd before you consume unless your supplier can guarantee its purity.The same way.

Nope. I'm a mechanical and audio engineer. But, I can understand electrical engineering if taught.

There are two kinds of exotic cable manufacturers. The normal ones and the supernatural ones. Most of them don't claim that their cables will clean the power supply, because that would be ridiculous and seen by anyone applying logic of KMs of dirty cables and the last 1 meter doing magic.

The normal ones are the PS audio kinds who claim their cables have excellent shield and the power cables do not emit EMI and hence do not cause degradation of audio signals in other equipments feeding audio to the main amplifier.

The legendary ones claim their cables are immune to triboelectricity. Tribolectric charges become relevant in the medical field where impendance of some equipment is extremely high (much larger than what is there in the audio industry). Even a small amount of charge from the cable polymers rubbing or moving will cause readings to change. IIRC, furutech is the supernatural legend here.

There is a video from ASR here and a rebuttal from Professor who has been rebutted in the ASR video here. You can also read this on Archimago's Musings on the above Professor hard to believe papers on cables and I would end this with Archimago's own words

Thank you guys.

 

[Subbu68]

Nope. I'm a mechanical and audio engineer. But, I can understand electrical engineering if taught.

Thank you guys.

Here are some references for the basics

[PDF] Elements of Power System Analysis By William D Stevenson Jr Book Free Download – EasyEngineering

1.4kSHARESShareShareShareShareShare Get New Updates Alerts Through Whatsapp, FB & TG Join Our Official Pages Students JOIN OUR Whatsapp Group | Telegram Channel & Group Download Elements of Power System Analysis By William D Stevenson Jr – authored by William D. Stevenson, is a book that is...

easyengineering.net

Amazon.com

High Voltage Engineering - Prof D v Razevig - Free Download PDF

High Voltage Book...

kupdf.net

Then for applications in the field

Electric Cables Handbook 3rd ed - C. Moore (Blackwell, 1997) WW

ELECTRICAL CABLE HANDBOOK

www.academia.edu

https://www.sciencedirect.com/book/9780750681643/j-and-p-transformer-book

Some references from what we (I am in charge of these) published as reference levels for a typical power system

Publications

www.doe.gov.ae

The Electricity Transmission Code Version 3.0 EFFECTIVE DATE 01/01/2022 refer Clause 6 Connection Conditions

Publications

www.doe.gov.ae

With all these in my background I don't advocate the exotic cables

 

[ajuvignesh]

Here are some references for the basics

[PDF] Elements of Power System Analysis By William D Stevenson Jr Book Free Download – EasyEngineering

1.4kSHARESShareShareShareShareShare Get New Updates Alerts Through Whatsapp, FB & TG Join Our Official Pages Students JOIN OUR Whatsapp Group | Telegram Channel & Group Download Elements of Power System Analysis By William D Stevenson Jr – authored by William D. Stevenson, is a book that is...

easyengineering.net

Amazon.com

High Voltage Engineering - Prof D v Razevig - Free Download PDF

High Voltage Book...

kupdf.net

Then for applications in the field

Electric Cables Handbook 3rd ed - C. Moore (Blackwell, 1997) WW

ELECTRICAL CABLE HANDBOOK

www.academia.edu

https://www.sciencedirect.com/book/9780750681643/j-and-p-transformer-book

Some references from what we (I am in charge of these) published as reference levels for a typical power system

Publications

www.doe.gov.ae

The Electricity Transmission Code Version 3.0 EFFECTIVE DATE 01/01/2022 refer Clause 6 Connection Conditions

Publications

www.doe.gov.ae

With all these in my background I don't advocate the exotic cables

Thank you so much.

 

[availlyrics]

Nope. I'm a mechanical and audio engineer. But, I can understand electrical engineering if taught.

Thank you guys.

Then you must have Basic Electrical Engineering as a compulsory subject during F.Y Eng. , common to all branches. Back in the 90s I had to study Basic Electrical Engineering, Basic Electronics in III/ IV Sem. and finally Transmission line theory in my 5th sem. even though my branch was Computer Engineering, . With your Mech Eng. background, I'm sure you will find books suggested above to be a bit easier to understand than a lay person, all good reads. Above all , we all are here to help you if you face any difficulties in understanding the basic concepts mentioned in the books.

 

[availlyrics]

Thats a great idea. Thank you
Will send them a mail.

Also, please ask them if they had incorporated a "Line Filter" in their PSU design , the CMRR & PSRR (usually above 100dB in a well designed circuit) of this amp

 

[ajuvignesh]

Then you must have Basic Electrical Engineering as a compulsory subject during F.Y Eng. , common to all branches. Back in the 90s I had to study Basic Electrical Engineering, Basic Electronics in III/ IV Sem. and finally Transmission line theory in my 5th sem. even though my branch was Computer Engineering, . With your Mech Eng. background, I'm sure you will find books suggested above to be a bit easier to understand than a lay person, all good reads. Above all , we all are here to help you if you face any difficulties in understanding the basic concepts mentioned in the books.

Thank you so much.

Also, please ask them if they had incorporated a "Line Filter" in their PSU design , the CMRR & PSRR (usually above 100dB in a well designed circuit) of this amp

I’m yet to write to Schiit. Will include your question too.