Power Cables and Wall Sockets

It was fortunate to not have healed the scars before Thomas saw them.
That could have been a bit of a problem.

What is known is NO power cord will solve his dimming light VD problem...

Amen to ^that^.

I would be tempted to shove in 12ga and call it a day.

There are manny posts, with some advocating circuit breakers, runs to outlets, new outlets, and power cords and power conditioners.

And also many that discount it totally as works of fiction, or imagination.

which are you?

One thing that I am curious about is if upgraded power cables will eliminate the issue of my lights dimming when listening at reasonable high volume.

If the lights are on the same circuit as the amp, then probably yes.
If not, then you likely have something like a 40A service coming into an old house.

They have volt meters that plug into a socket, just plug it in somewhere else see what the voltage goes to when the amps kick.

If you amp is causing lights to dim you have an extreme power problem. If the lights are dimming significantly, the circuit is overloaded, the breaker should be tripping. The circuit is overloaded. There is an increased fire risk. Jerry

We do not know that for sure…
I used to turn on a table saw and the light in the garage would go out when it started up.
(Yeah the birds jumped off of the wire with hot feet.)

But if there is 30A on a 40A feed from the pole, and only 12A on a 15A breaker, it does not mean a fire is imminent. That is what people use breakers and fuses for.

It just means that the voltage sags.

There are actually very many systems and listeners that can identify the difference power cords make. …

…

The case of the dimming lights that prompted this particular thread exemplifies this perfectly.

The later is provable with a light meter, or other methods to show the lightning flickering. A lighting company could produce a graph of lumins versus time and produce a “strobe metric”.

The former case is a more of testamony like the Thomas (or what it another fellow on the road?.) The cable makers could show something happening with out just resorting to talk about the quantum world.

So it is not exemplified perfectly.

• There is no proof in here that a cord would help the lights
• And, in fact, the fellow/lady does not mention the sound changing, only the lights flickering. So he/she/they are either suffering visual hallucinations, or the sound is not very affected by the voltage.
  • I suspect the later is the case.

I can’t access my internal wiring so I started improvements from the wall socket with Audioquest NRG 15 wall warts and all upper end Audioquest power cables, plus power conditioners.

^this^ and all the majority of the rest of the posts are spearing off with testimonials on power cords and power cables.
So the cart is getting ahead of the horse a bit here.

The OP (later in his thread_ revealed that it’s more about the wiring the wall, as that is next up on his list with the house work.

@jea48 agree.

I would certainly not like the lights doing a discotheque, but it does not always guarantee a fire hazard.

So it is good to know whether it is normal, but rarer, voltage sag... or a situation such as you’ve pointed out.

@erik_squires

 

What you can control:

1. Reduce other loads on the circuit such as the lights by switching to LED types
2. Ensure all the connections between the breaker panel and lights are tight
3. Run the audio on a dedicated circuit
4. Run a thicker gauge wire to the circuit
5. Ensure you don’t have excess voltage on the neutral. Shouldn’t ever measure more than a couple of volts.

My earlier post referred to the house having, say, a 40A feed from the pole.
In that case the audio circuit, the light circuit, and the washing machine, stove and refrigerator circuit could be pulling near the 40A and the voltage would be sagged at the feed-bar in the service box.

So I would be checking the voltage on the audio circuit, and on a non audio circuit.

So your list is good IME, just IMO, it is missing the stuff outside of the audio only circuit.

Points #1 and #3 sort of imply the parallel circuits that I mentioned… especially #3. But I am not 100% sure?