John Curl's Blowtorch preamplifier part III

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First of all by the time PE leaves your appliance enclosure most of the damage is already done. In my experience experimenting with different orders of plugging things into a power strip is not much compared to the gains you get from using a signal isolator or a double insulated source. If you have an appliance that specifically causes a lot of noise then you have to treat that appliance in your specific situation, you can't just throw a one-hit-wonder PE scheme at any system and expect to have good results every time. Usually you will get bad results no matter what until you either fix the offending device or use a signal isolator (or maybe a fancy isolation transformer).

There is the case of Y caps or trafo insulation injecting noise into PE, in which case I would hazard a guess that putting the offending device on the end of the power strip closest to the cord would be the best strategy if the power strip is your only means of making any difference.


If you think about it double insulated appliances do essentially apply the chained ground principle through the IC shields, so I guess you could say that using double insulated appliances is a safe way to apply chained grounding (in so far as UL/CE approval correlates with safety).
 
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In the US you have 1 year after public disclosure to file your patent. However for the rest of the world it's gone. And if you show it privately and someone else files they have it.

If its a part of a specific system then use it differently.

One embodiment in the patent won't go anywhere- the inductive layer over the ground conductor. There has been available an extrudable ferrite loaded jacket for power cords for 10 years at least. It's used when you have really troublesome conducted noise. Here is a link to the annoucement from 2010: Ferrite Barrier Power Cables Suit All In One Installs | Electronic Design

Most of the Audioquest patent is about an RF inductor + an isolation transformer.

If I understand the underlying thesis here it's about isolating the ground/shield around the electronics from a "ground" return to earth.

I have a demo transformer isolation device in storage from many years ago that does the same with series inductance on the ground return.

I don't think Audioquest will start a patent fight since they are really expensive. And some solid prior art will render the effort as null. Looking at the claims I bet there is stuff in the "Wrapper" that really narrows what they can actually protect. The reference to a narrow range of inductors is a major flag. You don't do that unless there is blocking art. (Speaking from experience.)
 
I don't think Audioquest will start a patent fight since they are really expensive. And some solid prior art will render the effort as null. Looking at the claims I bet there is stuff in the "Wrapper" that really narrows what they can actually protect. The reference to a narrow range of inductors is a major flag. You don't do that unless there is blocking art. (Speaking from experience.)

Whether they start a fight or not may depend on how deep your pockets are. They have carved out a nice niche selling some of the finest snake oil in the industry. I am sure they would not hesitate to threaten small outfits.
 
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Usually you will get bad results no matter what until you either fix the offending device or use a signal isolator (or maybe a fancy isolation transformer).

There is the case of Y caps or trafo insulation injecting noise into PE, in which case I would hazard a guess that putting the offending device on the end of the power strip closest to the cord would be the best strategy if the power strip is your only means of making any difference.

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That is generally true..... In most cases it is totally impractical - though do-able in theory -- to eliminate EMI/RFI --- at or inside each product in the home with consumer-grade products. Our main concern is keeping it out of the A-V system.... on the input and output and the ac power. The ac power if from a simple strip is just another noise distribution buss point. Local individual filtering and isolation for each connected A-V component works well in practice.

There is one point where you might run into trouble however, which no one here has addressed because they haven't tried to make something like a comprehensive approach as the -7000 is.

That is the surge protection; All MOV have significant C and if they are protecting from L or N to Ground, they will pass RFI thru them when just being passive high Z device. More so when several MOV are paralleled to increase energy absorption.



THx-RNMarsh
 
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A ferrite bead on the ground wire would be an obvious prior art,

That would be allowed. it is not allowed (NEC) to insert a part like coil of wire inductor soldered/spliced in series with the safety ground wire. That wire (green in USA) must have direct connection - ground to ground/chassis - end to end.


THx-RNMarsh
 
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some of us can hear that high.
Yes, and if we can't exactly hear up that high we can sense it.

Research in the 1950s-1960s from Stewart Hegeman and others observed that listeners preferred greater bandwidth. Some even if they weren't sure why.

So he designed the Citation II amplifier, 18Hz to 60KHz, output Iron good to 270KHz.

Why? Because it sounds better, people liked it better and his research showed that.

Cheers,
 
BTW Richard, I got the vacuum grease. There is too much of it to use it all on speaker surrounds... I suspect it will come in handy.

I was worried it might not be compatible with speaker surround materials. IIRC it says it may be incompatible with silicone elastomers, it's conceivable to me there would be silicone in speaker surrounds.
 
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Wow, it reminds me of Richard's HTPS 7000 MKII; Hey Richard, how does this compare to the your design? Looks like they are doing the same sort of thing you did. But they don't show much, imagine that.

Did they take your basic design and redo it?

Curious,

Cheers,

Yes. They are using the concepts. Several other competitors have taken the concepts and paired it down a bit since we are no longer producing for USA markets. filling a void. Demand and need is still there. I used to measure all competitors but stopped doing it. None were as comprehensive... just variations to try to differentiate themselves.

I doubt any will attenuate as well as the back-to-back xfmr and filter I showed here. More than -100 dBv over wide BW.

More of you guys ought to try it and not let others intimidate you into not trying it.

THx-RNMarsh
 
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Hi Bimo,
I'll buy that you can hear the changes around 20 KHz since it is only one octave down from 40 KHz, but I don't believe you are directly hearing what is going on at 40 KHz. There are plenty of things that output ultrasonic frequencies from around 44 KHz to past 50 KHz. If you could actually directly hear that, you go bananas. Again, you might be able to hear other noises these devices make, but you wouldn't hear the actual output. Your ears simply are not designed to respond up there no matter how weirdly nature built you.

-Chris
 
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BTW Richard, I got the vacuum grease. There is too much of it to use it all on speaker surrounds... I suspect it will come in handy.

I was worried it might not be compatible with speaker surround materials. IIRC it says it may be incompatible with silicone elastomers, it's conceivable to me there would be silicone in speaker surrounds.

Just a thin coat on synth/rubber surrounds. I tried it on whole surround area first and it was very noticeable change.... smooth quality. But it had a tendency to be thrown off when playing music. So, I only applied it, later, to 1/2 of surround... frame to 1/2 side.

many speaker surrounds are designed for low freq response and < distortion with higher throw -- esp woofers. But they also need to act as absorber to terminate the cone and reduce reflections back.

It is just a proof of concept.... damping of surround edge reflections lending smoother freq response.

let me know.... it worked very well but I never tried other formulas.... just had a premonition and was just curious to know.


-RM
 
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