Since cables have resurfaced as an issue here:
I encountered something this evening that I need to get someone else to reproduce. The general attitude here as been that wires do not cause distortion. Until now I had not really encountered distortion in cables either. Except this evening while testing the distortion floor of an ADC I saw more distortion that I was expecting. Not trusting the ADC to be sufficiently low I connected my Shibasoku 725 to the source in parallel with the cable and load. The cable in question is a Hosa 2 conductor w/ shield terminated in TRS 1/4" connectors. The source is a Shibasoku 590AR low distortion oscillator at 500 Hz. Source impedance of 600 Ohms. Normally the harmonics are all below 120dB on the 725. Connecting the Hosa to the generator with no connection on the far end boosted the harmonics to around -100 dB.
The cable measures 960 pF and a dissipation of .05 at 1 KHz. The C drops to 890 pF at 100 KHz. Replacing the cable with a 100 pF mica cap and the distortion is again back to residuals. Same with another long RG6 cable.
The Hosa cable is about 15 feet long. I have two and they both do the same thing. Other long cables I have on had do not.
So, first, here is an example of a cable that generates measurable distortion. I'll plot the harmonics later. Second my guess is that the dielectric is pretty generic and may even be pvc, (the cables are very flexible) making this not a recommendation for that dielectric. Whether harmonics at the -100 dB level are significant is a separate issue. Whether another cable offered for audio does the same remains to be seen. I need to find some better quality TRS cables for my work in any case. The Hosa's are the cheapest alternative and perhaps there is a connection.
I don't know if anyone else is able to duplicate these efforts. You would need a really low distortion source and analyzer (AP2722 etc.) to see the same I think. I can probably get more of these cables if anyone wants to try?
I encountered something this evening that I need to get someone else to reproduce. The general attitude here as been that wires do not cause distortion. Until now I had not really encountered distortion in cables either. Except this evening while testing the distortion floor of an ADC I saw more distortion that I was expecting. Not trusting the ADC to be sufficiently low I connected my Shibasoku 725 to the source in parallel with the cable and load. The cable in question is a Hosa 2 conductor w/ shield terminated in TRS 1/4" connectors. The source is a Shibasoku 590AR low distortion oscillator at 500 Hz. Source impedance of 600 Ohms. Normally the harmonics are all below 120dB on the 725. Connecting the Hosa to the generator with no connection on the far end boosted the harmonics to around -100 dB.
The cable measures 960 pF and a dissipation of .05 at 1 KHz. The C drops to 890 pF at 100 KHz. Replacing the cable with a 100 pF mica cap and the distortion is again back to residuals. Same with another long RG6 cable.
The Hosa cable is about 15 feet long. I have two and they both do the same thing. Other long cables I have on had do not.
So, first, here is an example of a cable that generates measurable distortion. I'll plot the harmonics later. Second my guess is that the dielectric is pretty generic and may even be pvc, (the cables are very flexible) making this not a recommendation for that dielectric. Whether harmonics at the -100 dB level are significant is a separate issue. Whether another cable offered for audio does the same remains to be seen. I need to find some better quality TRS cables for my work in any case. The Hosa's are the cheapest alternative and perhaps there is a connection.
I don't know if anyone else is able to duplicate these efforts. You would need a really low distortion source and analyzer (AP2722 etc.) to see the same I think. I can probably get more of these cables if anyone wants to try?
Does the end of the cable opposite the generator have a 600 ohm termination?
You can read for yourself: http://www.linearaudio.nl/linearaudio.nl/images/pdf/Didden_vdHul_M3410_MMM(1).pdf .
At the end of the interview he did demonstrate his newest paramedical contraption (not his design) on my partner. I later looked it up on the 'net and thought it was not very well backed up or substantiated.
BTW He is also in extracting carbon fibers from basalt rocks, and he has been invited to China to attend the launch of a satellite that had his carbon stuff in it. So he appears to be an interesting mix in tech savvy and, shall we say, speculative subjects.
BTW That partner is no longer my partner, maybe I should sue him?
Jan
Look for ferrous metals in the path, first. Plating and center conductor and sheield.
.... just send it to me. Or better yet, since I plan to be in SF area next week, I can pick it up from you and measure it at my place.
THx-RNMarsh
.... just send it to me. Or better yet, since I plan to be in SF area next week, I can pick it up from you and measure it at my place.
THx-RNMarsh
Those 38 ohms were the introduction of a new kind of very loud humming due high resistive ground loops in audio chains.
IMHO, it was 9P BS. So thats why i throw it into the garbage and lost 200 $.
BTW: The most important source of VdHs secrets is his homepage.
Rarely you can read so much snake oil in such a short time.
But makes as much fun for reading as a Mickey Mouse Comic.
Sorry JC
This was not against you and your opinion, it was agains vdHs statements which are wrong.
I am not a No-Sayer to audible things which i can not explain, but i do not believe any strange theories which are obviously wrong nor do i create a theory, since i am no expert , just a listener and also dealer and servicetechnician for audio products.
For examplee i found silvercable to be sounding better than other ones, but i have no clue why this is. Also with burn-in i do not understand why i can hear a difference, where should be none. The same with cryo treatment.
This was not against you and your opinion, it was agains vdHs statements which are wrong.
I am not a No-Sayer to audible things which i can not explain, but i do not believe any strange theories which are obviously wrong nor do i create a theory, since i am no expert , just a listener and also dealer and servicetechnician for audio products.
For examplee i found silvercable to be sounding better than other ones, but i have no clue why this is. Also with burn-in i do not understand why i can hear a difference, where should be none. The same with cryo treatment.
I think I must be missing something here. Ordinary copper is not good enough for an audio interconnect because of crystal grain boundaries adding (alleged) non-linearity. The solution is to either use extra-ordinary copper (of some suitable recipe - with presumably higher conductivity), or carbon particles which are merely touching each other and not part of the same crystal (so much lower conductivity) - and a sort of distributed carbon microphone? Ordinary copper just happens to have just the right conductivity for poor performance but going up a bit or down a lot improves things?
Why is it that we keep finding 'audiophile improvements' which appear to have serious technical weaknesses, leading to injection of noise, interference, microphony etc.? It might be cheaper to just create a simple add-on box which can inject all these 'improvements' into the signal path. Then high-end cables would be unnecessary.
Why is it that we keep finding 'audiophile improvements' which appear to have serious technical weaknesses, leading to injection of noise, interference, microphony etc.? It might be cheaper to just create a simple add-on box which can inject all these 'improvements' into the signal path. Then high-end cables would be unnecessary.
If that means, "My incredible claims offered without evidence are not automatically accepted credulously," then yes, you're up against a brick wall. This isn't Stereophile- the audience here are people with actual expertise in EM theory and materials science. Tougher to get snake oil past them.
A longish high capacitance cable fed from a highish impedance could generate low-level distortion if the dielectric is non-linear or soft. That is just engineering.1audio said:
It is even possible to do a ball-park estimate of how bad it could be. 960pF at 500Hz is 332k. Fed from 600 ohms, if the cable was about as bad as it could possibly be then the likely level of distortion would 600/332k which is -55dB. No cable is that bad, so let us assume a 1% variation in something (could be permittivity or geometry). Still bad. This drops distortion by 40dB to -95dB. You may wonder how I can pluck a few vaguely plausible figures out of the air and do an estimate which turns out to be not far from that you see; that is what physicists do. Note that factors of 2 or 10 may appear or disappear anywhere in this calculation - it is just ball-park.
The Wine Importer comments
“Spoofulation is a form of manipulation which takes wine away from nature and into the technological world of fake extraction, fake aromatics, fake flavors, fake density, fake acidity, fake tannin levels, fake color and fake sugar levels.
Basically, fake wines."
George
“Spoofulation is a form of manipulation which takes wine away from nature and into the technological world of fake extraction, fake aromatics, fake flavors, fake density, fake acidity, fake tannin levels, fake color and fake sugar levels.
Basically, fake wines."
George
An intelligent reader may wonder how much more junk you bought & binned.
(as a consolation, talks with PhD assistant professors in the EE faculty library of the same university in the late '80s about vdH, made them foam from the mouth each time)
I no longer discuss the oddball unsupported claims with physicists, especially at lunch. One gentleman spewed his drink out his nose during hysterical laughter.
jn
Is the TRS connector magnetic?
What does the cap vs frequency plot look like? Such a drop vs frequency I would focus on.
What does the inductance vs freq look like?
What does Q vs freq look like.
When you said 100 pf, did you mean 1000 pf?
Is it possible the connector plating is bad, causing a bad contact?
jn
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