John Curl's Blowtorch preamplifier part III

[jneutron]

What I am doing here is offering my professional and personal opinion as to what makes better audio quality over the typical mid fi performance. My opinions have been formed over many decades with dozens of good listeners, some of whom often heard better than I normally could, but whom I trust. My former business partner, Bob Crump, was such a person. I learned a lot from him, including serious break-in protocols that he implemented when we did CES shows together for many years. I do not go to such extremes, but then I can't duplicate a CTC Blowtorch today for the same reason, and I doubt than anyone else can either. Of course, something different could be better, but we hit on a strong series of decisions that put us up against the entire World in quality preamp design, and we normally won independent 'shootouts' or comparisons with other quality preamps. Without Bob, I cannot accurately reproduce the CTC Blowtorch preamp, but there are about 45+ out there, so one might be available, usually when someone dies and the unit goes on the open market. That is the only way.
Now, of course, I have designed Parasound, Constellation, and Audible Illusions products but they well never match the CTC Blowtorch completely.

Which is all fine and dandy, I'm sure many people appreciate that.

But your understanding of conduction within materials is somewhat in error. You should probably limit your messages to your expertise, as you are a good designer.

jn

 

[john curl]

JN, you contribute virtually nothing here, in my opinion, except criticism. It gets old, after awhile. I will continue to say what I think is useful to others, (not my critics).

 

[indra1]

... Conductor directionality however, has never shown itself in anything I have ever been involved in or reviewed. ...

Thank you John. One item less to allocate for.

 

[gpapag]

Gpapag, I am not here to PROVE anything to you.

You don’t have to Mr. Curl, I never asked. It’s all in post #14133.

Now, attempt to extrapolate to what might happen under an electron microscope with electric current flowing.

You may extrapolate as far away and in any direction you wish.
After all, apples and oranges, both are fruits.

If you cannot, then I will not discuss the situation with you further.

Bungee logic jumping is not my forte. Have a good day Mr. Curl.


George

 

[TNT]

What I am doing here is offering my professional and personal opinion as to what makes better audio quality over the typical mid fi performance. My opinions have been formed over many decades with dozens of good listeners, some of whom often heard better than I normally could, but whom I trust. My former business partner, Bob Crump, was such a person. I learned a lot from him, including serious break-in protocols that he implemented when we did CES shows together for many years. I do not go to such extremes, but then I can't duplicate a CTC Blowtorch today for the same reason, and I doubt than anyone else can either. Of course, something different could be better, but we hit on a strong series of decisions that put us up against the entire World in quality preamp design, and we normally won independent 'shootouts' or comparisons with other quality preamps. Without Bob, I cannot accurately reproduce the CTC Blowtorch preamp, but there are about 45+ out there, so one might be available, usually when someone dies and the unit goes on the open market. That is the only way.
Now, of course, I have designed Parasound, Constellation, and Audible Illusions products but they well never match the CTC Blowtorch completely.

Would it be outrageous to suggest that your successful amplifiers is the result of very solid electronic circuit design from your part and good equipment realisation but that none of the hocus-pocus stuff has anything to do with it - other than to create mysticism - which probably also is important to succeed - but it has noting to do with anything measurable or audible?

Do you see this as at all plausible Mr. Curl?

//

 

[simon7000]

What surprises me is the fact that many of those who write about obstacles for electrons must have some education and knowledge in electricity and electrical engineering. So they should know something about signal propagation and Maxwell. Or, is sclerosis so forgetful?

Don't confuse charge with electrons! That is Scott's job.

One of the more interesting wire claims is that by coating the conductor with something that does not conduct as well, due to skin effect it acts as a filter for high frequencies. My arithmetic says you would need about a .003" coating to work for audio cables and that would give about 8 dB of attenuation for signals from the AM radio service in a 6' interconnect.

Now copper oxide has about 1000 times the resistance of copper. So depending on the film thickness you would see very high frequency attenuation, but normally out of the audio band. However defects in the wire would effectively increase the oxide penetration depth and change things.

Low quality wire (more oxides by conductor color) does show up a bit worse in my tests.

 

[scott wurcer]

Don't confuse charge with electrons! That is Scott's job.

Charge is a property not a thing, I've asked you numerous times to list a reference or text from which you are working. I'll ask jn or anyone else here do you know what Ed is talking about? Remember last time the "charge" I guess went charging down one lead of the cable at c or something like that???? It is good to not confuse the propagation of EM waves with electrons.

 

[scott wurcer]

My arithmetic says you would need about a .003" coating to work for audio cables and that would give about 8 dB of attenuation for signals from the AM radio service in a 6' interconnect.

Any hams here to comment?

 

[DPH]

No, last time we hashed through this I ran the prop velocity calcs on a couple variations and it's close enough to the speed of light to be uninteresting, while electrons net drift at sane current densities was, as expected, snails pace.

I'm staying out of it. There's enough highlighting of human nature at play here, and these are topics we have thrashed time and again, and no ones looking to change their mind.

 

[cbdb]

Gpapag, I am not here to PROVE anything to you. I found, after many hours of research and a fair amount of cost, a solid measurement that shows how EASY copper and other similar metals can actually migrate, even just being at room temperature. This is what this treatise shows.
First and foremost, I trust my ears and the ears of my associates. From there I have attempted to find measurements in the literature that can show that what my associates and I hear is actually possibly measurable. Gpapag, you have it backwards, you want MEASUREMENTS to prove what you can hear. We hear first, then try to measure or to find a parallel experiment that shows what is possible. After all a clean copper sheet just sitting at room temperature is very far from the many amps insisted on by others here. Now, attempt to extrapolate to what might happen under an electron microscope with electric current flowing. If you cannot, then I will not discuss the situation with you further.
Some people here are trying to PROVE a NEGATIVE. Lots of luck!

Back to the old standby, my hearing is better than yours as the only proof. I dont believe you or your ears. After 25 years of recording, mixing, editing, and designing audio, ( spending 8 hours a day listening, changing, relisining, etc. ) ild bet my listening is better than yours but I'm still not naive enough to trust my ears on such tiny changes, if they exist.

 

[cbdb]

JN, you contribute virtually nothing here, in my opinion, except criticism. It gets old, after awhile. I will continue to say what I think is useful to others, (not my critics).

Actually he contributes more than you do. He contributes reality with facts. You contribute... tall tales of your greatness and hearing, ( which by the way should be called listening ) name dropping and " improvements" that have no basis in science, as was just pointed out re cable directivity.

 

[benb]

Any hams here to comment?

I'm an Extra Class (AK4XL) but don't recall if any of the test questions are on skin effect. I certainly can't do a skin effect calculation in my head, but if I wanted to I could look up the formula.

I recall Teh Big Solution for skin effect was to use Litz wire. I don't know why I don't hear more about Litz wire in high-end audio, I'd think it would go along with Teflon insulation as Da Bomb for use in ultra-expensive components.

 

[billshurv]

My tonearm apparently has pure silver litz wire inside. For phono it seems to have a cult following.

 

[hitsware]

A big part of it's usefulness is flexibility right ?

 

[scott wurcer]

I'm an Extra Class (AK4XL) but don't recall if any of the test questions are on skin effect.

I was interested in data on antenna loss related to surface corrosion. A dB/ft would be the end of a 50' feed line.

 

[billshurv]

15 years in radio basestations and surface corrosion was never once mentioned even where clients were anal to the last 0.1dB.

 

[bwaslo]

I did the Extra class exam a couple years ago. Pretty sure there was nothing on skin effect in there.

 

[scott wurcer]

15 years in radio basestations and surface corrosion was never once mentioned even where clients were anal to the last 0.1dB.

I found some data taken by a ham on coil Q with wire that has been outside for years and numbers were in the <0.1dB range. BTW the best hams are very savvy and the snake oil does not penetrate far with them.

 

[billshurv]

In my first job there was an awful lot of ex military radio stuff being reconditioned in the labs. Back in those days this was encouraged by the management as a morale booster!


Lots of trick ingredients in our products, but only because they were needed.

 

[gpapag]

Antenna elements oxide buildup, why should it cause a problem?
Oxide is dielectric. So is air around antenna. The interface btn dielectric and conductive material is transferred a few microns deeper, so are the skin currents.
In the extreme scenario of oxidation going deep into metal, what happens is thinning of antenna conducting elements. Bandwidth of antenna operation is slightly reduced (decreases monotonically with element thickness).

George