Why would that be a problem?? It's only a temperature gradient of 269oC. It only uses two tin/silver solder joints at the bottom of the ceramiseal feedthroughs, two lead/tin at the top of the ceramiseals, and typically 36 to 40 gauge phosphor bronze wires in the helium for heat leak limiting. And connectors, don't forget them..we like hypertronics, they use the hyperbola type gold plated wire connection to the pins, very reliable.
It's not like there's more than 4 dead scientist effects going on at the same time..
jn
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They seem to have removed that picture from their web site. They recommend unbent carefully de-enameled copper transformer wire for connections to their amp.
They still need an editor...
Search in a technical library for Holm’s book.
Unless there is micro-arcing, erratic contact behaviour (fluctuations of the contact load and/or friction of sliding contacts) or one/both contact surfaces is semiconducting, I can’t see where is the issue of noise and distortion.
All the rest is ohmic resistance. As you will see in the RU diagrams, this resistance turns to be non constant outside a range of operating parameters.
George
Most certainly distortion is added ... very audible, in subjective terms, 'dirtiness' intrudes into the signal. Objectively, the spectrum of the high frequency components must be being altered, though I have never measured anything. IME, a good method is to use a 'marginal' recording with strong upper frequency content - a older pop recording with plenty of cymbal striking in it is ideal - listen to, focus just on the quality of the shimmer following the strike, this can subjectively dramatically change through the sorting out of a single, the right, contact location.
Overall, this is a key factor that makes 'bad' recordings sound bad
, it exaggerates the flatness, lack of life and sparkle, makes them boring, irritating to listen to.The only solutions that I've found to really work with any long term effectiveness is to completely bypass with some version of hardwiring, or solid state solution; or, very careful use of liquids with silver particles.
Or those old LP's need a good bow wave of playing under water. In my experience this is the answer. Things like original Kinks albums shine, you can really see why they had to slice up their woofers to get the right sound.
OK. Sealed relay, normally closed; you leave it dormant for 6 months, purely noise current in the picture. Then, without doing anything else you carefully, slowly ramp up a voltage source, from noise level, through the contacts and a load. Will the current beautifully ramp up from 'zero' as well - or not ...?
Would that be because the water is damping resonances of the needle assembly in the cartridge, perhaps?
Are you referring to oxide build up over time? If you get oxide of the metal, then there is a voltage threshold to which you must attain to break thru the oxide layer. One reason for oxygen-free/high purity metals and gold plated parts.... if the gold is thick enough to prevent a porous condition which lets air attack the layor below the gold.... a common condition in cheap consumer gold 'plated' parts.
THx-RNMarsh
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Nominally, sealing should prevent oxidation, and perhaps other corrosion issues. However, I've seen 'weasel' words used for describing how effective it is, like "resistant". And I understand the fritting situation - but what I would like to know is whether there is a conventional sealed relay that requires no fritting action, after, say, 6 months of non-use.
I normally just turn my system on and let rip - I think 95% of the audiophile community do the same as well.
Pour yourself a nice glass of wine, put some music on, sit down and stop fretting about things that are of no consequence.
Why I do fuss about such things is because 30 years ago I started investigating how much impact degraded connections have on the sound - largely because I did the classic thing of reinserting some connectors, and saying, "Wait a minute! Why did the sound just get a little better then?!" - and the more I tried things, the more it was apparent that every connector mattered. This evolved into a whole strategy of avoiding connectors, in every area ...
So, why not jiggle every connector on a regular basis? For a start, some of the connectors are inside components, so that makes it tiresome - and secondly, the quality degraded too fast, far too fast! It was getting ridiculous trying to maintain optimum performance - the only intelligent solution was, is, to remove the issue completely from the table - eliminate all areas of weak contact performance.
Unfortunately, it is of consequence, at least for me - the sound of dodgy connections has a signature that sings loudly to me when I hear other systems ...
So, why not jiggle every connector on a regular basis? For a start, some of the connectors are inside components, so that makes it tiresome - and secondly, the quality degraded too fast, far too fast! It was getting ridiculous trying to maintain optimum performance - the only intelligent solution was, is, to remove the issue completely from the table - eliminate all areas of weak contact performance.
Unfortunately, it is of consequence, at least for me - the sound of dodgy connections has a signature that sings loudly to me when I hear other systems ...
I'm pretty sure Scott is actually being humorous... Obviously it would need to be mineral oil rather than water, to prevent conductor destruction due to electrolysis.
PS: They sell PCs now that are completely submerged in oil. We should do that for our amps now, eh? eh? You could run a pump in there to shoot cool oil at the hot components and you'd never hear a thing. I wonder what is the characteristic impedance of mineral oil as opposed to free air?
Just think of all those customers at the showrooms every day, sniffing the gear, to check how long the relays have not been used since their manufacture date.
As Laurence Olivier (may not have) said to Dustin Hoffman : Is it fresh ?
If used once, you have to use it always or you listen to added noise.
The added noise can not be removed, i dont know what is the mechanism doing that.
I just have an idea, but dont know how to check it out.
I never use liquids when playing records, it causes some audible damage.
Anyway, water cools the contact point, thus the vinyl/stylus resonance point is modified. ( towards lowering freq, normally apx 20 Khz, so its sounding brighter)
Makes different sound.
Hollow cantilevers soak up some water ( Capillareffect), maybe this is not so good for the cantilver assembly.
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