PowerPlant and EU/Schuko cables

Power Components
1

  1. Which pin of the P15 input socket is supposed to be live (hot) one? I am confused because the EU/Schuko power cord supplied alongwith the P15, when plugged into the EU wall socket has live (hot) contact at the end connector on the left pin while all other power cords I have at disposal have live contact on the right pin. Is it of any importance or should I follow the supplied cord polarity?

  2. I was told that all EU/Schuko plugs must be inserted into the P15 outlets following the same polarity of power cords. Is this mandatory? If so, I don´t understand why the differences between EU/Schuko power cords? Also, some manufacturers of hifi equipment indicate hot pin on the left side of the input sockets of their CD players, DACs, etc., while others mark the right pin as hot.

2

Welcome @tuja !

I do not know the answers to your questions, but hope someone who does is along soon.

3

This is the nice thing about Schuko plugs. It doesn’t matter which way you plug it in. The P15 doesn’t care nor does the gear you plug into the P15.

2 Likes
4

image
image713Ă—310 43.6 KB

Once, I had a German made amplifier and polarity mattered. The only way to check with a Schuko is to use a tester screw driver.

5

Actually the opposite. It is very important for us EU citizens with schuko connectors to check polarity of every powercable connected to gear. It makes big difference in SQ and can easily be heard :slight_smile:

2 Likes
6

Looks like the schuko connectors are unpolarize, so you can plug it either way, but maybe I should reverse it and see if I can hear any difference in sound.

7

I haven’t looked this up but I assume this plug is 2-pole (same voltage but opposite phase on each hot) plus a ground. Receptacle polarity only applies to a 1-pole circuit.

8

It is single pole with 240v hot to neutral or ground. Neutral to ground has no voltage. Only the hot pin has voltage. I don’t think I heard any difference when I reverse the polarity on the plug, but I may have to listen more carefully to be sure.

2 Likes
9

Interesting. Given that, sound quality would not concern me one bit but lack of polarity is a real safety issue.

1 Like
10

You are right, it should be treated like single pole 120v only more so since it is a higher voltage, whereas the neutral blade on the plug is wider than the hot.

1 Like
11

Thanks! This is what I wanted to hear. :+1:

I also want to thank the other contributors for their input.

12

I can second that, when I was trying a expensive high end cable I heard a improvement. My wife who is very critical (she manages the finances) said it would be worthwhile. We put the regular power cable back in to be sure we hear the difference, and to our surprise it sounded equally good, we rotated the plug 180 deg to swap phase and neutral and the lesser sound quality became apparent again.

Same with the high end power cable, listening to the differences between the cables at the same polarity the improvement in sound quality was not audible.

Polarity does matter, try it, you might save your self a lot of money.

I am not saying I won’t buy better shielded power cables, but only because it makes theoretically sense, not because I experienced a super sound improvement. But all that money is better invested in new speakers first.

1 Like