Power Cable options for Levinson 300 series

The standard power connector in the aftermarket cable industry is the 15amp IEC connector. The 336, 33H, and the 33 cannot use a 15amp connector, because even the baby of the bunch, the 336, needs 17.71amps at 120v to reach full rated power with 8ohm loads. The 33H and 33 regenerate AC, which is an inefficient process, so they really need more current than a 15amp circuit is capable of.

There is a 20amp IEC connector available, but even that one isn't all that interesting for a 336, as 4ohm rated power requires 30.59amps at 120v. ML probably just threw in the towel and made a 10/3(?) power cord captive. For folks that use a true 20amp or 30amp circuit and outlet (which has a different power plug configuration) ML says in the owners manual to just change the plug on the captive power cord.

Frankly, I'm surprised even the 335 comes with a 15amp IEC port, because the 335 requires 20.93amps to reach rated power into 4ohm loads. I suppose ML felt they needed to support replaceable power cords for marketing reasons where it was possible.

The "right way" to power amps of this class is to run a dedicated 220v/30amp line to each amplifier, and have a dealer reconfigure the amps for that voltage.

To be perfectly honest, I've never understood amps with this much rated power. The 336 is delivering wattage equal to one horsepower per channel into 4ohm loads. Unless you have one heck of a set of speakers, with a large array of drivers with massive voice coils, this sort of power is just going to heat up speaker motors and cause poor performance. Given the potential power output, I'd recommend using at least 10ga speaker cables (8ga for longer runs) with high quality spade terminations on the amp side, and spades or locking banana plugs on the speaker side.

Jylee, you are absolutely, positively incorrect. My power figures, every single one of them, came from the Mark Levinson owners manual for the 336. If you don't believe me, you can go to their web site and download the PDF for yourself.

In fact, even your 1 amp estimate for the 336 in normal listening is not correct. Levinson says at 120v the 336 will dissipate 3.35amps IDLING.

To the OP, I'm sorry to have taken this thread down the 336 path when you were asking about the 33H. ML says the 33H dissipates 360W at idle, so the pair will sink a rather spectacular 720W at 120v just sitting there and waiting for a signal. You didn't mention your speakers, but if they are relatively inefficient ones, with impedance that falls below 4 ohms a lot, you're going to be drawing well over 1000w at the outlet regularly. The advice in this thread for dedicated 20amp circuits for each 33H is not only recommended, but nearly required.

As for swapping the power cord, I know there are lots of people that claim that power cords, or even outlets, make a difference in how your system will sound. I won't argue that here, but the 33H actually self-generates it's own AC current for the voltage gain stages. This capability is massive overkill, and goes beyond anything provided by an aftermarket power cord, and beyond what's provided by all but a few super-expensive power conditioners. You have what's, arguably, the best solution for power conditioning reasonably available.