MikeBettinger said:
The vase doesn't ring like a bell when tapped, that's for sure, but with 5mm thickness it's plenty strong for mounting connectors. Maybe plate some nickel on the copper for a nice finish? There are kits with the nickel, electrolyte, and wall wart around online, never tried one though.
Having plated copper from a copper sulfate solution myself, I don't think I'd give it high marks for strength (which ties in with your statement that it 'doesn't ring like a bell'). It's also going to have impurities, in that the sulfate doesn't always get out of the way when the next copper atom comes crashing in. Ordinary store-bought copper sulfate isn't exactly reagent quality and often has lead, etc. in it. And so forth...
If you want copper, buy copper in the thickness you want and cut it to size. The plating thing is going to bring you more grief than it's worth--at least for audio purposes. Note that plating in audio is always for appearance or chemical protection, not for strength.
Grey
If you want copper, buy copper in the thickness you want and cut it to size. The plating thing is going to bring you more grief than it's worth--at least for audio purposes. Note that plating in audio is always for appearance or chemical protection, not for strength.
Grey
Copper plating -
The aerospace company I worked for summers during my school years used a plating process they called electroforming to make complex copper microwave horns, etc by plating up on a polished stainless steel mandrel. The plating would deposit on the mandrel, but wouldn't cling too tightly. The finished part could be knocked loose from the mandrel and finished as desired. The finished pparts looked pretty good to me. Seeing as copper is purifed to finished product by electrolytic refining, I don't see why the quality of the finished part would not be good as long as the starting materials were of adequate quality. One might also want to use a different plating solution other than plain copper sulfate. No doubt the right voltage and current are crucial, as well as secret spices to help the plating process. One of my colleagues there told me about working in a plating house - the old boss plater used to take a wazz in the plating bath once in a while, claiming it improved the finish.
The aerospace company I worked for summers during my school years used a plating process they called electroforming to make complex copper microwave horns, etc by plating up on a polished stainless steel mandrel. The plating would deposit on the mandrel, but wouldn't cling too tightly. The finished part could be knocked loose from the mandrel and finished as desired. The finished pparts looked pretty good to me. Seeing as copper is purifed to finished product by electrolytic refining, I don't see why the quality of the finished part would not be good as long as the starting materials were of adequate quality. One might also want to use a different plating solution other than plain copper sulfate. No doubt the right voltage and current are crucial, as well as secret spices to help the plating process. One of my colleagues there told me about working in a plating house - the old boss plater used to take a wazz in the plating bath once in a while, claiming it improved the finish.
scott wurcer said:
I received this message from a well-known manufacturer of audio equipment who should mercifully remain anonimous:
"Warning:
When you first receive your unit and connect it up...don't listen to it!
Although we burn in the new hardware to check for infant component failures, we don't run signal though the unit except for test and measurement of all I/O channels. We have noticed that the new hardware sounds pretty hard when music is first run through it and it takes a few hours for it to be listenable, and probably a few days to smooth out properly. Note that this also applies to the analogue inputs."
Translated from Marketese into Engineerese:
"Warning: This equipment sounds pretty harsh and unpleasant, so take some time to get used to it. This will take a few hours. After a few days you will have gotten used to it and will have convinced yourself that it actually sounds smooth and pleasant"
Jan Didden
janneman said:
Jan, that is a pretty poor translation. I would never do any serious listening on a brand new electronics. It takes days, sometimes weeks with the power on before it would be sensible and not just a waste of time. At the very least - 24-48 hours. If I design something and make some changes to the circuit than listen to the sound I would always take this side into account. Electrolytics are the worst - they could take up to several hundred hours to form properly.
When I was designing for production I sometimes had to check a production unit against a reference - both electrically and sonically. And if I would try to test a brand new unit from production line without at least 24 hours run-in than the listening test would fail - exactly because a brand new unit would sound harsh and unpleasant. It had - for obvious reasons - nothing to do with "getting used to the sound" .
Alex
I stand by my 'translation'. I do not believe that electronics change from hars and hard to smooth and pleasant in a few days, even with all the electrolytics being formed etc.
Human perception is incredible malleable. Time and again we see that opinions and perceptions change to accomodate the situation and to resolve internal conflicts.
But we can agree to disagree, of course.
Jan Didden
Human perception is incredible malleable. Time and again we see that opinions and perceptions change to accomodate the situation and to resolve internal conflicts.
But we can agree to disagree, of course.
Jan Didden
janneman said:
For me it is not a question of "belief" - just my own experience. I was comparing same production amplifiers side-by-side and in this case the whole "perception" and "accomodation" excuses are not applicable. You learn these things hard way when you have to make design decisions in manufacturing that would involve some serious money
.janneman said:
Of course.
Alex
Grey,
I was thinking over my morning coffee about something you said concerning genetics, and then I made the connection to some autistic savant demonstrations that I have seen. There are people that can multiply three ten digit numbers in their heads or read a novel in 10 min and recall every detail. I have witnessed this myself. Can there be aural savants? To be reasonable I have to allow the possibility.
I was thinking over my morning coffee about something you said concerning genetics, and then I made the connection to some autistic savant demonstrations that I have seen. There are people that can multiply three ten digit numbers in their heads or read a novel in 10 min and recall every detail. I have witnessed this myself. Can there be aural savants? To be reasonable I have to allow the possibility.
Sorry for he late reply, contrary to popular belief there is life outside this thread.AndrewT said:
I meant a steel alloy, there are also copper covered steel wires and there are also cases where an additional steel cable is included.
I do not know if anyone has either proved or disproved this as being an audible issue, I merely tossed it in the ring since there was discourse on material technologies and sound quality.
What seems truly amazing to me is that I seem to get used to equipment as it is broken in even when I can't hear it. For example to break in cables or a pre-amp I will allow a CD to play on repeat with the power amp turned off. By some unexplained magic, my ears get used to the harshness that I can't hear by a form of bull excrement osmosis.janneman said:
Scott,
Setting aside the possibility of auditory savants (autism being assumed to be in the mind--at least at this time), there are at least two different known mechanisms by which people can become "super tasters." One is that some have more taste buds. The other is that some people produce more saliva, which in turn increases mobility of ions from food and drink to the taste buds. Either work alone. I imagine the combination of the two might be formidable.
My dental hygienist swears I produce more saliva than the average person. I have no reason to believe that I have anything other than the usual number of taste buds.
It seems quite like likely to me that there are people with, for instance, more cilia in their inner ear or slight anatomical differences in the hammer, anvil, or stirrup. In conversation with a doctor once, he remarked that there are differences in the construction of the joints in peoples' fingers. I see no reason that there might not be equivalent variations in the joints between the bones in the middle ear. Some might aide mobility, even without going so far as to postulate something extreme like a 'double-jointed' ear. (Wouldn't that be interesting!) Another possibility is that some peoples' bones might be lighter, hence respond more quickly. Note that some people have longer, more slender fingers than others--that's not all flesh, the bones are longer than average, too. Suppose you had similar variations in the anvil, hammer, or stirrup that led to changes in the leverage applied to the oval window of the inner ear.
Any or all of these things would be bound to lead to differences in hearing from one individual to another; it'd be nearly impossible for it not to do so.
We could spread a diagram of the ear on a table, pour glasses of something worthwhile, and go through the parts of the ear one by one, reasoning out the effects of variations. Why hasn't it been done before? Because nobody gives a damn about us. There's no money in it, so audio remains a research backwater. In the meantime, many people assume that there are no differences in hearing and that those who claim otherwise are stupid or deluded. If, in fact, the ear does not change from one individual to the next, it would be the only organ in the human body not to do so.
Grey
P.S.: Let us hope that the US military does not suddenly take an interest in increased hearing acuity on the way to creating a super solider. I'd rather that the research be of a more benign nature.
Setting aside the possibility of auditory savants (autism being assumed to be in the mind--at least at this time), there are at least two different known mechanisms by which people can become "super tasters." One is that some have more taste buds. The other is that some people produce more saliva, which in turn increases mobility of ions from food and drink to the taste buds. Either work alone. I imagine the combination of the two might be formidable.
My dental hygienist swears I produce more saliva than the average person. I have no reason to believe that I have anything other than the usual number of taste buds.
It seems quite like likely to me that there are people with, for instance, more cilia in their inner ear or slight anatomical differences in the hammer, anvil, or stirrup. In conversation with a doctor once, he remarked that there are differences in the construction of the joints in peoples' fingers. I see no reason that there might not be equivalent variations in the joints between the bones in the middle ear. Some might aide mobility, even without going so far as to postulate something extreme like a 'double-jointed' ear. (Wouldn't that be interesting!) Another possibility is that some peoples' bones might be lighter, hence respond more quickly. Note that some people have longer, more slender fingers than others--that's not all flesh, the bones are longer than average, too. Suppose you had similar variations in the anvil, hammer, or stirrup that led to changes in the leverage applied to the oval window of the inner ear.
Any or all of these things would be bound to lead to differences in hearing from one individual to another; it'd be nearly impossible for it not to do so.
We could spread a diagram of the ear on a table, pour glasses of something worthwhile, and go through the parts of the ear one by one, reasoning out the effects of variations. Why hasn't it been done before? Because nobody gives a damn about us. There's no money in it, so audio remains a research backwater. In the meantime, many people assume that there are no differences in hearing and that those who claim otherwise are stupid or deluded. If, in fact, the ear does not change from one individual to the next, it would be the only organ in the human body not to do so.
Grey
P.S.: Let us hope that the US military does not suddenly take an interest in increased hearing acuity on the way to creating a super solider. I'd rather that the research be of a more benign nature.
hermanv said:
It requires no stretch of the imagination at all (at least for those with an IQ above room temperature). People who lose their eyesight find their other senses increasing in acuity to compensate. This is plain, hard fact, known to everyone except the naysayers. On reading this once, I came to the conclusion that if the capability lies inert in every human being, then I would try to develop it in myself.
I did so.
You can see for yourself the reception such effort brings.
Grey
OT
Just to add a link to an interesting comparison of several cryogenic treated steels against the untreated steel as `baseline`
http://www.airproducts.com/NR/rdonlyres/3433A3DC-1899-4093-A094-9964342C38C0/0/33005019GLB.pdf
Jakob2
Just to add a link to an interesting comparison of several cryogenic treated steels against the untreated steel as `baseline`
http://www.airproducts.com/NR/rdonlyres/3433A3DC-1899-4093-A094-9964342C38C0/0/33005019GLB.pdf
Jakob2
Super hearing? I saw a Discovery Channel program, about Marc Yu ( http://www.marc-yu.org )
He's a good piano player (8 years old).
In that program, what interest me, is a scene where Marc Yu is just laying lazy in a sofa, and he can answer correctly what piano tuts being pushed.
2 or 3 or 4 tuts pushed together, any combination, he can answer those correctly, like "3 tones, C-D-F!"
He's a good piano player (8 years old).
In that program, what interest me, is a scene where Marc Yu is just laying lazy in a sofa, and he can answer correctly what piano tuts being pushed.
2 or 3 or 4 tuts pushed together, any combination, he can answer those correctly, like "3 tones, C-D-F!"
Jan, you are completely incorrect about burn-in. I wish that it were not necessary sometimes, but even Parasound recommends it. In fact, my designs need it. Even the reviewers have noted it. However, is there ANY measurable reason for my BEST equipment to need it more than my cheaper designs? Would you like to point out SOME MEASUREMENT that predicts this? You can find full reviews of the Parasound JC-1 and Parasound JC-2 on the www.stereophile.com website
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