Hi,
What I am saying is that AC does not travel "through" the conductor (as in - we stick one fictional electron in at one end of the wire and the same equally fictional electron comes out at the other end).
What really happens is an self sustaining EM wave travelling mostly outside the conductor. A good visualisation of what actually happens would be Newtons Cradle... While the fictional electrons travel at a quite leisurely pace, the EM wave travels at near lightspeed... Same for the balls in the cradle.
So if any electrons move (that is past the movement they have anyway), it is by extremely tiny distances, close enough to call "zero" for government work. Of course, if they did not "move" at all, the EM wave would collapse...
Well, then you should only use balanced, transformer isolated gear powered by batteries only.
Again, may I refer you to peruse the diagrams posted earlier to understand what is going on? The junk on the mains is another story, Dejan will be happy to sell you a filter for that. It will not address why mains cables make a difference.
My example above, which arguably is based on regulatory limits and cheap generic cables (kettle leads, the RCA cables that came in the box) would give around -60dB noise. If this is straining at gnats, well this place lacks a smiley for "shrug".
I do not per se disagree, however that is not how the market works right.
If you wish to pillory BS merchants make sure your targets are worth the efforts.
You can start with Hedge Funds and Investment bankers.
Then proceed with the whole Soft-Drinks, Washing Powder, Tooth-Paste and Toilet Paper industry.
All these early ones are much more worthwhile targets than cable makers, moreover there is a lot more money in it.
I personally prefer to use the "live & let live" approach.
This world has many things that could use improvement, but talking in on line fora will not change them, changing your habits and not buying stuff to which you object to on moral or scientific grounds will.
For example I respond to the problem of plastic additives by not using plastic where it touches my food as much as I can (which is > 99%) even if it is marketed as having "additives removed". I also avoid as much as I can (which has limits) overly processed food.
Not buying anything marketed with obvious BS anywhere may result in a more honest world, something I'd rather applaud and would consider "a good thing". But a lot of people have to stop buying BS on principle before that happens and High End audio has often much less blatant intentional deception than most fields (it also has some especially egregious examples of such deception).
BTW, as I repeatedly have intimated there are indeed a number of ways that can reduce the issues appreciably AND retain electrical code compliance, but they are neither straightforward nor easy, nor particularly widely known, though most will become extremely obvious if one actually removes the mental blinders and the "rule of the dumb" and actually considers reality and thinks it through.
Again the attitudes shown by many that SHOULD know better do not aid the wider understanding and publication of them and as abraxalito has pointed out before, this situation does benefit my business, so I lack any excessive motivation to change it.
Ciao T
What I am saying is that AC does not travel "through" the conductor (as in - we stick one fictional electron in at one end of the wire and the same equally fictional electron comes out at the other end).
What really happens is an self sustaining EM wave travelling mostly outside the conductor. A good visualisation of what actually happens would be Newtons Cradle... While the fictional electrons travel at a quite leisurely pace, the EM wave travels at near lightspeed... Same for the balls in the cradle.
So if any electrons move (that is past the movement they have anyway), it is by extremely tiny distances, close enough to call "zero" for government work. Of course, if they did not "move" at all, the EM wave would collapse...
Well, then you should only use balanced, transformer isolated gear powered by batteries only.
Again, may I refer you to peruse the diagrams posted earlier to understand what is going on? The junk on the mains is another story, Dejan will be happy to sell you a filter for that. It will not address why mains cables make a difference.
My example above, which arguably is based on regulatory limits and cheap generic cables (kettle leads, the RCA cables that came in the box) would give around -60dB noise. If this is straining at gnats, well this place lacks a smiley for "shrug".
I do not per se disagree, however that is not how the market works right.
If you wish to pillory BS merchants make sure your targets are worth the efforts.
You can start with Hedge Funds and Investment bankers.
Then proceed with the whole Soft-Drinks, Washing Powder, Tooth-Paste and Toilet Paper industry.
All these early ones are much more worthwhile targets than cable makers, moreover there is a lot more money in it.
I personally prefer to use the "live & let live" approach.
This world has many things that could use improvement, but talking in on line fora will not change them, changing your habits and not buying stuff to which you object to on moral or scientific grounds will.
For example I respond to the problem of plastic additives by not using plastic where it touches my food as much as I can (which is > 99%) even if it is marketed as having "additives removed". I also avoid as much as I can (which has limits) overly processed food.
Not buying anything marketed with obvious BS anywhere may result in a more honest world, something I'd rather applaud and would consider "a good thing". But a lot of people have to stop buying BS on principle before that happens and High End audio has often much less blatant intentional deception than most fields (it also has some especially egregious examples of such deception).
BTW, as I repeatedly have intimated there are indeed a number of ways that can reduce the issues appreciably AND retain electrical code compliance, but they are neither straightforward nor easy, nor particularly widely known, though most will become extremely obvious if one actually removes the mental blinders and the "rule of the dumb" and actually considers reality and thinks it through.
Again the attitudes shown by many that SHOULD know better do not aid the wider understanding and publication of them and as abraxalito has pointed out before, this situation does benefit my business, so I lack any excessive motivation to change it.
Ciao T
remember the basics
Apropos of the underpinnings of a lot of this stuff: an excellent qualitative review of EM, in the context of Tesla's confusions about "non-Hertzian" waves, thanks to friend Erik Margan:
The REAL Science of non-Hertzian waves, by Paul Nicholson
Note in particular the author's remarks about typical EE versus physicist views of electromagnetics, the circuit theory approximations; an excerpt I like a lot: "The physicist's view of an electronic circuit as an intricate pattern of ripples and tensions in the EM field, anchored in place by a beautifully crafted assemblage of materials, is a wonder to behold and helps us to remember that no change in the physics occurs when we move from 'energy in the circuit' to 'energy in the air', and that such a move is merely a convenient change of descriptive language."
I suspect Nicholson would make a great teacher. When I read this (which more-or-less put an end to a long-running discussion among some heavy hitters that Erik kindly allowed me to join), I said I would have to send the author an e-mail of appreciation. I think Dennis Feucht beat me to it.
Brad
Apropos of the underpinnings of a lot of this stuff: an excellent qualitative review of EM, in the context of Tesla's confusions about "non-Hertzian" waves, thanks to friend Erik Margan:
The REAL Science of non-Hertzian waves, by Paul Nicholson
Note in particular the author's remarks about typical EE versus physicist views of electromagnetics, the circuit theory approximations; an excerpt I like a lot: "The physicist's view of an electronic circuit as an intricate pattern of ripples and tensions in the EM field, anchored in place by a beautifully crafted assemblage of materials, is a wonder to behold and helps us to remember that no change in the physics occurs when we move from 'energy in the circuit' to 'energy in the air', and that such a move is merely a convenient change of descriptive language."
I suspect Nicholson would make a great teacher. When I read this (which more-or-less put an end to a long-running discussion among some heavy hitters that Erik kindly allowed me to join), I said I would have to send the author an e-mail of appreciation. I think Dennis Feucht beat me to it.
Brad
However: "... So far as the cables themselves are concerned, the data only seems to imply that low series inductance and resistance will tend to minimise cable phase or time delays. ..."
You think these leftover phase or time delays are negligible in all cases? With all cables?
I wish I was an optimist like you seem to be. However, I am a pessimist, which is an optimist with experience.
We condam the Great Cable Camp for quoting "reasons" why their cables sound different, and rightly so - I believe a cable factory is just fine, I do not need Inca virgins, only on the west side of the Andes, and only 5-6 AM on Saturday mornings, to braid them to get the right "sound". We call it BS, or at best nonsense, and rightly so.
However, stating that ALL cables sound the same is just as extreme and unreasonable, just in the opposite direction. Its thickness, its construction and the materials used surely do make a difference - please don't anyone tell me all metals conduct the same. There is VERY PROBABLY a reason why the RF community insists on silver cabling.
Or are they also in total darkenss?
Dejan,
While I do not necessarily insist that only primary (R/L/C/G) effects matter in cables (I wire all my own personal stuff with silver after all), much can be explained using only these, thoroughly and rigorously applied, including parasitics, parasitic currents and so on.
We eventually have to leave the comfort and safety of EE101 and join the physicist (who seem to be more mystics than catholic nuns during a vision these days) to get closer to the truth, but for now simple electrical proofs will suffice.
This is extreme. I have not come across such claims. And I routinely rub shoulders with quite a range of "cable people".
But there is a lot of loose talk. Products sell better with a story. Would you pay the price of a Rolex for the same watch without name and story?
I could not agree more.
It is Hegel all over, but the Synthesis is wanting.
Meanwhile followers of the Angel Thesis and The Daemon Antithesis (which is which seems to depends on what particular religion you have subscribed to) shout abuse at each other over the vast expanse of the No-Man's land, from within deeply dug trenches, the edges of which they rarely if ever care to look over.
Probably in Darkness. Silver is particulary unsuited as Filament in lightbulbs.
I guess one could wire these newly fangled LED lights with silver...
Ciao T
While I do not necessarily insist that only primary (R/L/C/G) effects matter in cables (I wire all my own personal stuff with silver after all), much can be explained using only these, thoroughly and rigorously applied, including parasitics, parasitic currents and so on.
We eventually have to leave the comfort and safety of EE101 and join the physicist (who seem to be more mystics than catholic nuns during a vision these days) to get closer to the truth, but for now simple electrical proofs will suffice.
This is extreme. I have not come across such claims. And I routinely rub shoulders with quite a range of "cable people".
But there is a lot of loose talk. Products sell better with a story. Would you pay the price of a Rolex for the same watch without name and story?
I could not agree more.
It is Hegel all over, but the Synthesis is wanting.
Meanwhile followers of the Angel Thesis and The Daemon Antithesis (which is which seems to depends on what particular religion you have subscribed to) shout abuse at each other over the vast expanse of the No-Man's land, from within deeply dug trenches, the edges of which they rarely if ever care to look over.
Probably in Darkness. Silver is particulary unsuited as Filament in lightbulbs.
I guess one could wire these newly fangled LED lights with silver...
Ciao T
Skin effect. However, most of the RF community are perfectly happy with copper cables. They tend to use silver plating when a high Q resonator is needed but even then the difference is quite small. At least their use of silver is based on sound physics, not fashion.dvv said:
I'm not sure what you mean by "don't anyone tell me all metals conduct the same". They conduct in the same way, but with small differences in conductivity due to things like lattice defects and phonon spectrum - too small in almost all cases to have any effect on short lengths.
Far too much of the argument here seems to be along the lines of "You can't prove to me that there are no goblins at the bottom of my garden, therefore it is perfectly reasonable for me to believe that they are there. You are being narrow-minded; what evidence do you have that there are no goblins? My friend says he has seen them."
Hi,
I gave a numerical example that works out to degrading the SNR of a 2V signal to 60dB and is within regulatory compliance.
I would sincerely hope we do not encounter Goblins quite as large as that outside worst case considerations (that said, I have measured gear that well outside regulatory compliance and still marked and sold), but rest assured, THERE ARE GOBLINS AT THE BOTTOM OF YOUR GARDEN (in the sense of being applied to the whole cable debate).
You can ignore them and make efforts to not notice them, but they nevertheless refuse to go away.
I suspect I could present with real measurements that confirm the worst case I suggested and the clearly measurable differences the cables make to this and you would still deny it. So I think any debate is futile, the true believer never changes his belief, no matter what evidence is presented that his believes are somewhat in conflict with reality...
Ciao T
I gave a numerical example that works out to degrading the SNR of a 2V signal to 60dB and is within regulatory compliance.
I would sincerely hope we do not encounter Goblins quite as large as that outside worst case considerations (that said, I have measured gear that well outside regulatory compliance and still marked and sold), but rest assured, THERE ARE GOBLINS AT THE BOTTOM OF YOUR GARDEN (in the sense of being applied to the whole cable debate).
You can ignore them and make efforts to not notice them, but they nevertheless refuse to go away.
I suspect I could present with real measurements that confirm the worst case I suggested and the clearly measurable differences the cables make to this and you would still deny it. So I think any debate is futile, the true believer never changes his belief, no matter what evidence is presented that his believes are somewhat in conflict with reality...
Ciao T
I cannot but agree, Thorsten, because I too wire all my signal lines with pure silver cables, and nobody is going to tell me they sound the same as say copper ones. They may personally prefer copper, and that's all right, but there IS a difference.
In the vast majority, yes. I suppose that if I searched hard enough, I could find some product combination which is pathological, but that would indeed take some searching.
It would be easier to find combinations of high-end amp and high-end wire that cause the amp to be unstable.
You said it yourself: they all conduct, but because of differing conductivity, they do not all conduct the same. Some are better at it than others. Why is a different matter.
Your last paragraph is completely off. I have purposely made two completely identical headphone/line amps, using exactly the same materials, all from the same batch, including the transistors. I hogged it, so I used 0.5% metal film resistors in critical places and 1% metal film elsewhere, and even they all were checked and measured, etc, etc, etc, you get the point. The one and ONLY difference between the two was that one was wired with high quality OFC all copper cable, and the other was wired with pure silver cable. An especially for testing, one-off, switching box was used to switch between the outputs of the two, we (my associates and I) built it for that purpose.
I got the copper vs. silver right 10/10 times, sitting with my back turned towards the switch box, operated by my associate, and completely hidden from my view. We use a pair of Sennheiser HD598 headphones, and repeated the test - with the same result - with a pair of Koss Pro 4AATi headphones subsequently.
Then we wnet hrough it all once more, but with my associate having the headphones on his head. He also scored 10/10 with the Senns, but 9/10 with the Koss cans.
I would call that pretty conclusive and convincing, wouldn't you? We do not sell either, or for that matter any kind of cable, we were researching what to put inside our own products.
Frankly, I would have preferred the exact reverse result because that silver cable costs exactly twice the price of the already seriously costly copper cable. My product could have been cheaper.
I chuckle at my friend Marshall's company name, Psychotechnology, as it can be easily interpreted as technology for psychos.
On the runs of speaker cable, I recall a piece in the long-defunct Audio magazine by Richard Greiner, definitely in the cable-skepticism camp, who attempted to measure with undisclosed but (we were assured) very special instrumentation that there were no differences among cables. However, even though his presumably foregone conclusion was amply demonstrated to his satisfaction, even he suggested that one would do better locating amplifiers adjacent to speakers and running line-level signals to them, rather than having the speaker signals travel over long cable runs.
However with some of the stranger unshielded, poorly shielded, or odd-grounding-convention interconnects that Fremer describes using with the big MBL amp mentioned a ways back, I fear all bets are off.
On the runs of speaker cable, I recall a piece in the long-defunct Audio magazine by Richard Greiner, definitely in the cable-skepticism camp, who attempted to measure with undisclosed but (we were assured) very special instrumentation that there were no differences among cables. However, even though his presumably foregone conclusion was amply demonstrated to his satisfaction, even he suggested that one would do better locating amplifiers adjacent to speakers and running line-level signals to them, rather than having the speaker signals travel over long cable runs.
However with some of the stranger unshielded, poorly shielded, or odd-grounding-convention interconnects that Fremer describes using with the big MBL amp mentioned a ways back, I fear all bets are off.
I get stuff sometimes from Erik too, the LHC electronics are amazing. I never saw this critique of Tesla, very good but this is becoming another cable thread as well as how many -140dB things add up to the audibility threshold of one standard US housewife (perferably doing the dishes in another room).
Greiner's recommendation about short cables was based on frequency response- he did a paper showing that higher resistance cables could cause audible spectral balance shifts, so recommended that cables be kept short and that low DCR is desirable. That's why I use Home Depot outdoor extension cords (meant for high current devices like lawnmowers and compressors) for my amp-to-speaker wiring.
Convincing about what? What difference did you hear? What steps did you take to ensure that the person doing the listening could not be influenced in any way by the one doing the switching? What function did the cables have in the unit? Insulation? Source impedance? Integrity of soldering? Precise positioning? Were the cables identical in every respect apart from the metal used? A bit of stray capacitance change at a high impedance node can easily change the frequency response by a little bit. Making an audible difference is easy; correctly ascribing it can be harder.dvv said:
I just wanted to provide something of a reality check for those who tend to think in terms of circuit theory as opposed to the bigger EM "picture". It has bearing on cables, but of course much else.
I got into the Tesla e-mail exchanges late in the game, by which time distribution included Barrie Gilbert, John Addis, Kendall Castor-Perry, Dennis Feucht, Dan Sheingold, and, based on all the unfamiliar names, probably a host of Erik's colleagues at university and CERN.
Brad Wood
"You may have to remove all the other compensation and still have a minimal miller compensation. See how it works out."
Down to 27p in the miller. It claims to be stable with 3. I don't think the model is useful past that as removing all three of the others have no effect. I suspect on the bench far more will be revealed. I need to lay in a supply of high quality small caps to check reality.
I am having lots of trouble getting Simetrics to run the P-Z tests. I am copying the demo but it keeps telling me the in or out is shorted. I am wondering if it can do more than one stage. It is an unsupported function.
Increasing the cap in the feedback line seems to limit the BW without causing distortion to the test pulse. What is the thinking on an f3 value to roll off? 25K? 50K? Target about half a dB at 20k?
Question on standards. At one time, it used to be assumed 2V RMS was the standard for full power. The 120 is 1.1, 220 is 1.4,1.5 common. Is there a reason to set the CLG to one number or another? Gain between amps seem to vary from less that 20 to over 30.
Dismissive of power cables? Yes. Totally. I know what they are plunged into. Several mechanical connections, lots of not high purity solid core wire, breakers, etc. There is a point where a laboratory theory that is valid and measurable but is less than one in the hundreds of millions just is not relevant.
Down to 27p in the miller. It claims to be stable with 3. I don't think the model is useful past that as removing all three of the others have no effect. I suspect on the bench far more will be revealed. I need to lay in a supply of high quality small caps to check reality.
I am having lots of trouble getting Simetrics to run the P-Z tests. I am copying the demo but it keeps telling me the in or out is shorted. I am wondering if it can do more than one stage. It is an unsupported function.
Increasing the cap in the feedback line seems to limit the BW without causing distortion to the test pulse. What is the thinking on an f3 value to roll off? 25K? 50K? Target about half a dB at 20k?
Question on standards. At one time, it used to be assumed 2V RMS was the standard for full power. The 120 is 1.1, 220 is 1.4,1.5 common. Is there a reason to set the CLG to one number or another? Gain between amps seem to vary from less that 20 to over 30.
Dismissive of power cables? Yes. Totally. I know what they are plunged into. Several mechanical connections, lots of not high purity solid core wire, breakers, etc. There is a point where a laboratory theory that is valid and measurable but is less than one in the hundreds of millions just is not relevant.
Big crimes are taking place, let the little ones go.
When you stop spouting stuff like this, TL, I'll take the time to check your arithmetic.
You obviously recognise that there is a considerable amount of BS being touted in audio. but instead of lending your talents to eradicating it, you do exactly the opposite, both for your personal profit and to gratify your ego. It's not an edifying sight, nor one calculated to make friends, only customers and acolytes.
Quel dommage.
So let's see your suggestions so we can judge for ourselves.
While we're at it, 'mental blinders' and "rule of the dumb" are well over the line as regards disrespect of members, IMO, so please, desist from these little asides.
Ciao cc
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