Do you (or anyone else) have any actual evidence that this effect, as caused by cables, actually exists? It seems like this would be a trivial thing to be able to demonstrate in a controlled subjective test.
And, if the effect has been demonstrated to exist, is there any evidence that it is caused by "capacities in cables" or MOSFET output stages?
If you by evidence mean scientific bulletproof evidence, then the answer is no, because sonic impact on humans of different products, parameters or so, is very hard to establish. I did though experience it myself, by inserting one of these cables in my system, without removing anything.
Btw. my interest in this was awakened, because these cables were very popular 10-15 years ago, and reviewers regarded them highly. They were some what pricy, but I tried them out anyway, and they did ecxactly as told. I think though that the sonic impact is not that much because of the cable itself, but because of the Zobel network in the boxes attached to the cable.
Regarding MOSFETs, I´ve just experienced a certain sonic signature in any power amp featuring MOSFETs, it is always there more or less, and MOSFETs are as a uniqe thing for semiconducters much more capacitive than bipolars.
The sound of MOSFETs could be be described as a bit glossy.
Kurt,
In the US, out of the black is indeed a statement about dynamics. It is the absence of low level noise that allows the subtle and "hidden" softer notes to emerge out of the darkness (noise floor). Must be a language difference 🙂
Well now!
Try to sit beside a pianist playing nice calm music on the piano, you will guaranted never hear anything coming from blacknes. The sound comes from the piano, which is never really silent, and from yours and his breathing, heartbeat and moves.
And when recorded simply and nonprocessed and played back, the same should be the case. But electronics do have certain selfnoise, but that can easily be listened down through. The point about the blackness is actually, that most of the selfnoise goes away together with all signals below it, and that because of capacities present at the output of the amplifier, either as cable capacitance or as output device capacitance. This is a law of nature, since any capacitor has to be charged before any conductance is present.
You can experience this phenomenon taken to the extreme i.e. Linsley Hood´s class A amp or i.e. the british made Sudgen single ended class A amps.
They all feature a large capacitor in the output, because of their single ended design.
Btw. when dynamics is taken to the extreme, i.e. 100 dB or so, there will never be any quietnes present at all. Try to put on a track attenuated i.e. -80dB, you will hardly hear anything, unless you hold your breath or turn your volume up way beyound the normal 0dB FS clipping point.
The black background is simply a trick invented to make one believe the dynamics are extended, when they are not. It is induced by gear, and it also is a non fidelity characteristic, which just happen to have been modern at a time.
Used with tube gear they might prove useable, because output transformers always suffers from hysteresis, which takes away low level information anyway, and the selfnoise is somewhat higher than on SS gear, but I did never try this out.
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"....... either as cable capacitance or as output device capacitance. This is a law of nature, since any capacitor has to be charged before any conductance is present."
That bit about capacitance totally contradicts my understanding of what happens with ampifiers.
Of course any output capacitance will need to be driven by the amplifier, but the idea that this is a separate charging process, before which there is no audio is, well, bizarre!
BTW, the major capacitance issue with mosfets, if there is one, is driving Cgs, nothing to do with the ouputs.
That bit about capacitance totally contradicts my understanding of what happens with ampifiers.
Of course any output capacitance will need to be driven by the amplifier, but the idea that this is a separate charging process, before which there is no audio is, well, bizarre!
BTW, the major capacitance issue with mosfets, if there is one, is driving Cgs, nothing to do with the ouputs.
Kurt,
There certainly is an obvious difference in components and how their "perceived noise levels". I have been involved in high-end audio sales for over 20+ years and have heard a great many "world class components. The best ones have a incredibly quiet noise floor, that has nothing to do with the recordings. The term "emerging from a black background" was coined to express the lack of low level noise in a audio system. It is an analogy to photography. The blacker the backround, the more vibrant and obvious the lighter (softer and subtle) colors are exposed. Again this was not an artifact of a design, it merely reflects how quiet a component is or is not in its ability to resolve low level details. Again it must be a language issue as it has been a standard to define low level noise for ever since I have been around audio.
Regarding MOSFET´s you are quite right, but it does not matter where you encounter the capacitance. The sonic result is if not the same, then alike.
In a cable capacitance is parallel, and therefor you have to charge the capacitor before any signal comes through. If the "capacitor" is "small" - which it is, you will easily both charge and discharge it with audio signals. So you have a parasittic load on your amplifier, which normally will be more pronounced within line level cables than speaker cables. Those cables with boxes, which I´ve been mentioning, contains Zobel networks, where reactive components are used, and therefor are more reactive than cables usually are.
The sonic impact is easily audible, amongst others you´ll find a completely artificial "black background" which never existed in the recording environment.
But as stated earlier, the cable has boxes attatched to it, if the sonic impact stems from the boxes or the cable, no one can say, unless the boxes were dismantled, which they weren´t, as the cables were several K$ ones.
BTW try to record a black background - won´t work
We obviously do not listen to audio or music in the same manner
Obviously not!
But mutual understanding is a very good thing.
In my home we both have got a grand piano, guitars, drums and other noisy stuff.
But it seems completely impossible to me to find any black backgrounds.
On my best single point recordings, you can hear people move in the concert hall, even if it is a non live recording, the few people who were at the venue can be heard. But no black background, unless I use cable with boxes.
I´ve even heard recordings from churches where you can hear outside noise as birds singing or so, but no black background.
The black background, which I uppose is, to my belief, system induced dynamic limmiting and nothing else, although some wants us to belive something else.
Even in the quietest of venues you still will have the noise floor of your body - your circulatory and respiratory system.
It is an analogy, not a color. There is no "black background". It is simply the seeming absence of lower level noise that makes the subtle details more apparent vs. other equipment. It must be the language barrier 😀
If a language problem exists I do not know, since I did not listen to your specific "black background"
But from your discription, I find what I earlier wrote was quite acurate.
To my knowledge "black background" exists in anechoric chambers and nowhere else, and is very uncomfortable.
But if there is some barrier of understanding, I suggest you try out some cables from MIT.
They provide ecxactly the black background i am opposing.
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You are not "hearing" what I am saying Kurt. I thought that this was common knowledge. It is to everyone that I have ever ran into in the audio world. I guess we listen differently here in the US 😀
Simultaneously capacitive and resistive. . .
@Kurt von Kubik
Ah, its not necessarily capacitance that causes the effect although an "NFB" capacitor (typically inverting input to ground/load resistor) can make for more dynamics and a capacitor at the output can allow an amplifier to play louder by reducing clipping, these don't contribute an "out of the black" effect. Neither case will reduce the output of the quieter notes.
However, there is a ready capacitor device that does.
I'll try to describe it (ut oh!). 😉
Signal from preamp/source and then. . .
Perhaps, next is the amplifier's potentiometer if it has one, and then next. . .
(beginning of "passive buffer" description)
Supplies: one larger size capacitor, one potentiometer and a scrap of cable.
Attach the pins of a larger capacitor to the outboard connections of a new potentiometer of perhaps 10k or 20k. One of these outboard connections is the input feed. The output feed is the center pin (nothing else is attached to the pot's center pin). (end of passive buffer description) Go from the output of this to. . .
The amplifier's input filter capacitor.
(none of this can replace a volume control)
Turn the dial on the "passive buffer" very, very slightly and only up to the point where the slightest difference is heard, and then set it very slightly less effective.
Use "only a touch" of this effect.
Presto! "out of the black" has been installed.
This illustrates that simultaneously capacitive and resistive, in series with the signal +, may indeed make that black background effect. The simple experiment has only 2 inexpensive pieces and a scrap of cable, so its not difficult nor spendy to try it.
The neat thing about this is that the effect is variable and has an "off" position.
If your rig is highbrow, you'll want to parallel that "big cap" (the one in this experiment, mentioned just above) with a small value of the Nichicon ES or whatever you happen to have for seemly results at small signal--get a bit cleaner so that the the clarity doesn't decrease with the drive.
So, yes, you can install that "black background" effect by making a small distortion (decrease drive) at the input.
As the name "passive buffer" implies, its not particularity effective, so you'll need a decent rig to hear the effect; however, a Tripath, TDA7294, Sanyo, STK, LM1875 should be sufficient (depends on a quality power supply) and still quite inexpensive.
In this experiment, its at the small signal point and so the effect gets larger by the gain factor of the amplifier--just like an equalizer, its gain on error.
However, a speaker cable doesn't have gain after that point, so I've no clue how it could be in the range of 20 to 40 times more effective (since there's no gain to amp the effect of a speaker cable).
@Kurt von Kubik
Ah, its not necessarily capacitance that causes the effect although an "NFB" capacitor (typically inverting input to ground/load resistor) can make for more dynamics and a capacitor at the output can allow an amplifier to play louder by reducing clipping, these don't contribute an "out of the black" effect. Neither case will reduce the output of the quieter notes.
However, there is a ready capacitor device that does.
I'll try to describe it (ut oh!). 😉
Signal from preamp/source and then. . .
Perhaps, next is the amplifier's potentiometer if it has one, and then next. . .
(beginning of "passive buffer" description)
Supplies: one larger size capacitor, one potentiometer and a scrap of cable.
Attach the pins of a larger capacitor to the outboard connections of a new potentiometer of perhaps 10k or 20k. One of these outboard connections is the input feed. The output feed is the center pin (nothing else is attached to the pot's center pin). (end of passive buffer description) Go from the output of this to. . .
The amplifier's input filter capacitor.
(none of this can replace a volume control)
Turn the dial on the "passive buffer" very, very slightly and only up to the point where the slightest difference is heard, and then set it very slightly less effective.
Use "only a touch" of this effect.
Presto! "out of the black" has been installed.
This illustrates that simultaneously capacitive and resistive, in series with the signal +, may indeed make that black background effect. The simple experiment has only 2 inexpensive pieces and a scrap of cable, so its not difficult nor spendy to try it.
The neat thing about this is that the effect is variable and has an "off" position.
If your rig is highbrow, you'll want to parallel that "big cap" (the one in this experiment, mentioned just above) with a small value of the Nichicon ES or whatever you happen to have for seemly results at small signal--get a bit cleaner so that the the clarity doesn't decrease with the drive.
So, yes, you can install that "black background" effect by making a small distortion (decrease drive) at the input.
As the name "passive buffer" implies, its not particularity effective, so you'll need a decent rig to hear the effect; however, a Tripath, TDA7294, Sanyo, STK, LM1875 should be sufficient (depends on a quality power supply) and still quite inexpensive.
In this experiment, its at the small signal point and so the effect gets larger by the gain factor of the amplifier--just like an equalizer, its gain on error.
However, a speaker cable doesn't have gain after that point, so I've no clue how it could be in the range of 20 to 40 times more effective (since there's no gain to amp the effect of a speaker cable).
Has this thread moved into a parallel universe??
Such nonsense ideas being proposed ... I must be getting senile ...
Such nonsense ideas being proposed ... I must be getting senile ...
Why would you call it nonsense Cliff? I find it difficult to believe that people claim that they design all of this great hi-fi, then claim that they can not hear the reasons for building superb components. If you can't hear the greatness, why even bother building it in the first place. That is what baffles me. Now granted, not everything out there, no matter how it measures, is capable of reproducing great sound, but it is out there.
I wouldn't be quite so harsh. What we have is a proposed effect for which there's no subjective listening evidence, for which there's no supporting measurements, and for which there is no agreement on terminology or description. Despite this, there's also firmly stated explanations for the effect having no basis in anything that's known about wires and transistors and for which there's also no evidence.
Now maybe that's nonsense to you, but to the folks spinning tales, this is just hours of fun.
MIT's secret box...
http://www.hififorum.nu/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=46217&SearchTerms=MIT
Peter
edit: Oops, not a speaker cable...
http://www.hififorum.nu/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=46217&SearchTerms=MIT
Peter
edit: Oops, not a speaker cable...
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