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[Gary Christenot]

I'm no where close to being anywhere in the vicinity of being very knowledgeable about electricity.  Matter of fact, I really dislike working with it and being around it at all.  Over the years I've done basic things around my house like replace a light switch, install a ceiling fan/light fixture, etc.  But even with my limited knowledge and experience I know that in a correctly wired circuit, black is hot, white is neutral, green or bare is ground.

But yesterday we began wiring up the Powercon adapters to power my son's audio cart project and I had the Powercon power in adapter installed on one end of the cable.  The I used a multimeter to probe the connector at that end of the cable and the stripped bare wires at the other  end to verify them.  Then an add-on female plug went on to the stripped end.  The connectors on the back of the female plug were color coded white, black and green so I thought "no problem. This will be easy". So I slap on the female plug and am about to power up the whole assembly with this thing and the tought "test it again" comes in to my mind.  So I stick one probe of the multimeter in to the hot slot on the female plug and probe what I know is the hot contact on the Powercon...nothing.  So I switch the probe in the female plug to the neutral slot and "BEEP!".  And for the next few minutes I sit there thinking, "why is the polarity of the slots on this plug reversed?"

Well, to cut straight to the chase, when I took it all apart and looked again, I had absent mindedly wired the white wire to the hot terminal and the black wire to the neutral terminal in the Powercon adapter.  And then to top it all off, when I was doing my initial validation, I was absentmindedly probing the hot connector in the Powercon and bare white wire at the other end of the cable thinking, "OK, this is the hot side."

Now you know why I don't like to work around electricity.  So for the remainder of the afternoon, every time I got ready to touch a piece of wire I would start and keep chanting in my head, "Black is hot.  Black is hot".  Then, test, test, and keep testing at every step of the assembly.

[Keith Broughton]

  Then, test, test, and keep testing at every step of the assembly.

For even the most experienced technician, testing is always a good idea 

[Lyle Williams]

And be sure that you are testing for correct construction, not testing that you have built it the way you think it goes together.  :-)

[Jonathan Johnson]

Well, to cut straight to the chase, when I took it all apart and looked again, I had absent mindedly wired the white wire to the hot terminal and the black wire to the neutral terminal in the Powercon adapter.  And then to top it all off, when I was doing my initial validation, I was absentmindedly probing the hot connector in the Powercon and bare white wire at the other end of the cable thinking, "OK, this is the hot side."

When making your own electrical cords, it helps to have the cord going the right direction. Not that there is a preferred direction for current to travel (there isn't, despite what some in the "audiophile" or "audiophool" camp believe), but the orientation of the black, white, and green conductors is such that they will "lay out" in the connector better on one end of the cable rather than the other. Get it backwards, and you'll end up having to twist a couple of the conductors.

I am in the habit, when making up connections, to always do the ground first, neutral second, and the phase/live/leg/hot conductor last. Doesn't really make any difference as far as anyone else is concerned, or any kind of technical difference, but it helps me to maintain a consistent process.

For anyone who is a novice around electrical wiring but wants to know more, I recommend the book Wiring Simplified or its big brother, Practical Electrical Wiring (H.P. Richter, et al; Park Publishing). Both books are updated with each revision to the National Electrical Code (NFPA 70) and are applicable to the United States and more-or-less to Canada. (People in other countries should look for resources applicable to their local systems and codes.) Wiring Simplified can be found in many hardware and home improvement stores.

[Scott Helmke]

Several years ago Neutrik themselves goofed up on a run of SpeakOn NL4 plugs - a few people ended up with burned out tweeters because of that. Would have been noticed by a tester.

[ProSoundWeb Community]