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It's the small things that drive you nuts...

Out of curiosity and if you had your choice, would you prefer the power cord or power jack to be on the right, left or center of the chassis of a component ? For sake of clarity, we will assume that you are looking at the back panel when choosing right, left or center. I will assume that we would all prefer to have them situated near the bottom of the chassis and not up towards the top of the back panel, etc...

While i know that this sounds petty, the reason that i ask is that it gets kind of frustrating trying to route power cords around interconnects when some of the power cords come out on opposite sides of the chassis, in the middle, etc... It's almost like manufacturers set it up so that you HAVE TO have a cable mess on purpose. If all products were made using some type of industry standard, it would make things MUCH nicer and neater in terms of being able to route cables, etc... This might not seem like a big deal, but i have 15 power cords to deal with in one system, two different systems with 10 power cords each, 9 in another system, etc... I think you get the idea. Can you feel my pain ??? : ) Sean
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sean
lak's avatar
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lak
4,529 posts
 
Center! Interconnects could then go right and left of center.
gregm
3,395 posts
 
Oh YES! Drive... to tears. My (Greg's) General Law of Audio Connectivity:
"Whatever the efforts you make arranging the power sockets for practical reasons, and whichever new COMPONENT or whatever PLACEMENT you choose for sonic reasons, the signal/power connectors on ANY component will invariably be placed in the least practicable position."
The corollary:
"WHATEVER you do with one component to connect or place it better, will invariably result in bigger complications re-connecting all the other components."

My cdp has umbilical on the far left side & signal out on the far right side; logical, as the trans is in the middle the audio parts on the right & the secondary PS on the left (it has separate PS for trans & dac).
*The dedicated power lines are on the right of the room.
*The cd input on the pre is, of course, on the far LEFT side.
If I approach the cdp to the power, I need a longer IC. If I go for a normal IC, I need a longer umbilical AND power chord because in that position, the umbilical has to vault WELL OVER the one amp (which is huge & I'm bi-amping, can't move it) to reach the cdp.

If I...?
onhwy61's avatar
onhwy61
5,137 posts
 
When facing the equipment from the front the power cord should be on the left side panel of the chasis. This will leave the back and right side panels free for the interconnect/speaker cables. I believe the Nagra preamps are built along these lines.
mdomnick
332 posts
 
I would certainly like to see a standard, and maybe I'm stating the obvious, but every company has a different design theory which leads them to place inputs/outputs in different places...form follows function. I have come to the conclusion I would like a rack that does not have a support bar running down the middle of the back. I want a rack with a completely open back end, and the wire mess can work itself out.
lugnut
1,190 posts
 
Sean, I'm with you on this cable dressing issue. I think the standard should be two power cord inputs, one right and one left allowing the installer to decide which to use. I also agree with Mdomnick that the back of a system rack should be open. The three leg mentality makes leveling much easier but creates cable dressing issues.
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