Those US socket things again

Right, he are some photo's of the offending articles, I managed to sort out, sorry they big, but you can see it all. WM

 

looks more like speaker multicore connectors to me

 

.... and here's my interim compromise solution using a US to UK travel adaptor plug (the resulting sound with the new cable even with the adaptor is still streets ahead of what was used previously ):



Got the travel adaptor from here:

http://www.activetraveller.co.uk/in...line_Product_Index_Travel_Electricals_59.html

Scroll down to the item called "UK Visitor Adaptor". It's not bad, and certainly provides a decent tight fit with the pins from the US plug. The travel adaptor is CE approved which is something I suppose, even if the cable that's plugged into ain't!

Now here's something, I was cleaning the metal contact surfaces on the travel adaptor with deoxit, put it all back together, plugged in, sat back, listened and thought oh dear this sounds worse - turned out I'd replaced the fuse that I'd cleaned back into the travel adaptor's fuse holder the opposite way around to which it had been installed in (I'd already been using it for 24 hours prior to cleaning so the wire in the fuse had been directionalised). So something to be aware of when you're next cleaning your fuses.



Just to proove that it ain't a Speakon connector, there's one in the above picture laid next to the US plug for comparison. How do you pro sound'n'light guys tell the difference between a connection for a lighting/electrical rig and one for speaker multi-cores, or do you just plug in and find out - if speakers go pop then that lead was supposed to be plugged into the lighting rig after all!?!

 

youve obviously been working with me ,actually the ligting and sound connectors are diffrent enough to avoid accidents.o and i wasnt thinking speakon more like the EP range of conectors

 

Les, although they look like weedy 3 pin efforts, they do have more contact area, better locking action too plus no fuses (still in the main wall ones and units themselves). they do work rather well though WM

 

Ah right I see, well how did that little story you regailed us with recently come about, where the lighting guys go away for a tea break, leaving a power connector lying around which the sound guys mistook for a speaker multi core?



Hmm on the subject of fuses, I got 2 spare MK Tough plugs lying around doing nothing at the mo, so going to take the fuse holder and Live pin out of the existing plugs from the 2 mains conditioners and replace it with the Neutral terminal from the spare plugs, thus making it fuseless. The mains conditioners are in turn plugged into an 8 ways power block which is attatched to the wall socket with a fused 13 amp plug so shouldn't be a problem.

 

locking,unfused,large contact area,can be waterproof AND complies with the relavent BS standards,yep no need to go to the states you need some of these

and a dam site cheaper
As for the tale of the lampies pluging in a few speakers,that was down to there being an old unused lighting multicore runing to almost the correct location for the delay/fill cabinets,unfortunatley someone forgot to take the 15A plugs of the other end,needless to say ,the lampies seeing a bunch of 15A plug decided to flash it throught and see if anything was on the other end

 

Look a bit like XLR plugs to me, but they're probably a bit bigger in diameter I'd guess, just so that you can't accidentally plug them into one of the sound desk's audio channels eh?