Handmade luxury stuff is a whole different thing than mainstream electronics. Has very little to do with retail price to material production cost ratio. The so-called Hi-End audio is a niche market for rich people mainly.
Don't try to rationalize it from a DIY and engineering view point, its a waste of time.
I have set up top dollar systems that use many of the well regarded gimmicks of that industry.
Three things I have seen: 1. The chosen speaker plus room interface in the majority of such systems is a mess. 2. All weird stuff and cabling exotica does clearly audible manipulation. They are empirically designed to be audible in analogous systems. 3. Sound is changing, it does not get better. Its a tonal soup.
To sum up. Cables and gimmicks do sound different in such systems. It hits you clearly in a few notes time. People don't lie. They don't pay $$$ for cables just bcs they are fantasizing things. Too many systems, decades of special cable use, too many users. Can't statistically sleep and imagine forever.
Just different is a bad investment. A genuine improvement is more information from the source and less masking of it from the speaker transparency, pattern throw, room coloration.
If those bases are covered, then most cables and gimmicks previously used, prove additive.
Don't try to rationalize it from a DIY and engineering view point, its a waste of time.
I have set up top dollar systems that use many of the well regarded gimmicks of that industry.
Three things I have seen: 1. The chosen speaker plus room interface in the majority of such systems is a mess. 2. All weird stuff and cabling exotica does clearly audible manipulation. They are empirically designed to be audible in analogous systems. 3. Sound is changing, it does not get better. Its a tonal soup.
To sum up. Cables and gimmicks do sound different in such systems. It hits you clearly in a few notes time. People don't lie. They don't pay $$$ for cables just bcs they are fantasizing things. Too many systems, decades of special cable use, too many users. Can't statistically sleep and imagine forever.
Just different is a bad investment. A genuine improvement is more information from the source and less masking of it from the speaker transparency, pattern throw, room coloration.
If those bases are covered, then most cables and gimmicks previously used, prove additive.
Wavebourn,
Sorry,the right word is concerned not conserned isn't it?🙂
I'm sure you know your designs well.
Sorry,the right word is concerned not conserned isn't it?🙂
I'm sure you know your designs well.
I simply haven't seen any evidence that hearing a difference in one cable from the next is solely caused by a defect in the associated equipment. Maybe you can show me something.
From this statement am I to believe that although there is a difference between good quality cables and not so good cables, but no difference between good quality cables and really, really good quality cables?
And finally, if a cable improves the quality of the sound, why is using it so offensive? I've heard a power cord improve the sound of a system by lowering the noise floor with a subsequent gain in resolution. Maybe someone could call up Luke Manley of VTL and Jim White of Aesthetix and ask them what's wrong with their designs.
John
How can anyone know this?!! I can hardly believe that humans are so perfect that imperfections have an evolutionary advantage.🙂
John
Salas said:
Isn't it logical that,when comparing two things and sound changes,you are in front of a choice?
A choice to offset some other imbalance yes. Genuinely better no. Two wrongs don't make a right. Practically you have to cook and I understand that you need to balance the ingredients.
The mere fact that when an amp or a source or room is changed in a Hi-End system, normally the old cables may not be optimum anymore, hints to the assumption that we balance coloration.
The mere fact that when an amp or a source or room is changed in a Hi-End system, normally the old cables may not be optimum anymore, hints to the assumption that we balance coloration.
Better to 'think' you heard something and take precautionary measures, than to not act and get eaten by a predator.jlsem said:
If cables made of acoustically damping material and their volume in respect to room's volume is significant they can improve the sound quality a lot, and the improvement will greatly depend on where that cables were placed. 😎
Salas said:
My arguments mostly were of a change/difference and not improvement,therefore we seem to agree.Still have my reservations if any sort of equipment replacement or another room has effect only in "high end" systems.
It has effect on all systems. But in a studio for instance, they will change the acoustics of the new room, not the cables.
P.S. To make it more practical, just use a steady pair of high resolution, renowned to be tonally correct headphones. Preferably with a headphone amp that can be driven from line out and speaker out. Easy with a resistive voltage divider.
That will serve far better so to compare and know where the speaker and room must go, or what wires etc. really do.
That will serve far better so to compare and know where the speaker and room must go, or what wires etc. really do.
RDF posted an FFT plot of his line voltage. It sucks. Mine looks the same!
I have lived in this house for 30 years. During that time I never analyzed the power line. I have built audio amplifiers using tubes, transistors, mosfets, and chips. I take reasonable care during the design and implementation and have never noticed any power line related problems, and that includes Hammond transformer buzz.
Last summer lightning scored a direct hit on the power pole in the backyard. The transformer blew and was replaced. The new transformer is about half the size of the old one and is in a plastic bucket instead of metal. Guess what, an amp that was flawless now has a faint buzz coming from the Hammond transformer.
I did an FFT of the power line and it looks a lot like the one posted by RDF. I wish I had looked at it before the transformer was changed. I connected it up to a distortion analyzer and read 10% distortion. I scoped it, and the sine wave shows signs of transformer saturation. I did all of this early on a Sunday morning before everybodies air conditioners went into overdrive (about 3PM). I will try it again some steamy afternoon.
How to you measure your line voltage safely without undue frequency limitations? Use an output transformer! Yes, choose an OPT with a suitable frequency response (just about all of them qualify), and a reasonably high impedance (I used 6600 ohm), SE or P-P. Load the secondary with a suitable resistor (8 ohms) and plug the primary into the wall outlet! A 6600 ohm OPT will transfer about 2 watts into the load resistor. This can be measured in the same fashion as a 2 watt amplifier.
Note, the OPT used in this photo was powered by a random line cord found in my lab. It probably came from an old computer. I do not have any high dollar power cords to test.
I remember seeing an advertizement for an expensive power cord several years ago that was constructed in a fashion such that it acted like a common mode choke. The two power conductors were wound over the ground conductor in reverse directions from each other. Maybe it never caught on because it was ahead of its time, or maybe it just didn't work.
Attachments
Well, this is just getting plain nutty. Are you and Stuart trying to tell us that a person who hears acutely and accurately is at an evolutionary disadvantage compared to someone who has noises in his head? Maybe I'm ignorant of some evidence in the fossil record, but none of that makes any sense at all.
John
There are some power cords that have additional filtering as well as substantial shielding. I don't know what's going on in the rest of the country, but I understand that the power company here uses power lines to transmit data from station to station and at least one Texas-based cable manufacturer has developed supplementary filtering to purge those signals.
John
jlsem said:
Nope - what they are saying is evolution-arily correct.
An evolutionary survivor responds instinctively to all danger signals, whether the danger is actual or just apparent. Hence, the caveman who responded to a snapping twig sound was the one who avoided being eaten by the sabre-tooth tiger. If he (or she) occassionally responded to what they THOUGHT was a snapping twig, even though it wasn't, they were still alive. As against the caveman who failed to respond or "tuned out" and hence got eaten.
It is, in short, evolution-arily superior to over-respond to threat signals, rather than under-respond. Or even shorter, its better to imagine you heard something, even if you didn't.
In this context, the premise is that our audiophile THINKS they hear something, and as they consider their equipment to be constantly evolving ot a higher level, they respond to that signal whether it is real or not. They buy the $850 power cord.
This is NOT proof that audiophiles (and especially audiophools) are more evolved. If anything, its a premise that indicates they jump at shadows...
John, a nice reading of some of Stephen Pinker's work will make the evolutionary history and functioning of the mind much clearer, along with a review of the evidence for current understanding of brain function.
I'm not sure how you get to the conclusion you jumped to. There is NO human who hears (or sees) "acutely and accurately." Humans are saddled with a very imperfect gray goo computing system fed by some haphazard data gathering organs. In the immortal words of Harry Callahan, "A man's gotta know his limitations." We all have them or sensory illusions wouldn't work. And Penn and Teller wouldn't astound.
I'm not sure how you get to the conclusion you jumped to. There is NO human who hears (or sees) "acutely and accurately." Humans are saddled with a very imperfect gray goo computing system fed by some haphazard data gathering organs. In the immortal words of Harry Callahan, "A man's gotta know his limitations." We all have them or sensory illusions wouldn't work. And Penn and Teller wouldn't astound.
Hi John,
I'm really sorry to comment further on this, but I think I should look at your statements.
In general, any time a design focuses on one parameter, it does so at the detriment of all the others. If you remember this, staying clear of expensive trash will be much easier. Note that this is a general statement. I have no clue what you use, nor do I wish to know.
1. was defective or improperly designed or ....
2. the second cable had better shielding and the environment was electrically noisier than average - requiring that better shielding.
I must define "improves the quality of the sound" that way because a subjective definition has far too many variables to be useful.
An optical amplifier? 😀
Okay, I bite.
If a power cord reduced the level of background noise, and we are to accept the previous cord was not defective, that proves beyond any doubt that the power supply is not designed correctly. Especially if that cord was able to reduce what I'll assume was high frequency noise through higher capacitance and possibly an inductance, however configured. Keep in mind that a power transformer should reduce the noise coming in. For a power cord to make this much difference points to an astonishingly poor grasp of power supply design by the manufacturer. Hey! I know a designer like that (
Counterpoint). Now, there is a prime example of what I am talking about.
😀
Look, many high end equipment designers in audio do not have a great hold on power supply design. There are people here on this forum that do that one job, and they could really teach me a thing or two. Still, it's very sad that I often am forced to correct or redesign power supplies from time to time. Some of these supplies are large, complicated affairs that work poorly. I actually do test power supplies for noise, external noise feed through, regulation for both external and internal changes. That's if I am forced to examine them. In every single case, the "repaired" design sounded better to the customers who complained about noise in their equipment. The major difference is that I had cold, hard numbers and waveforms to back me up as well. It has also been often reported that after a power supply fix, power cords no longer changed the sound, nor did things like the PS Audio power line conditioners. Did you know that often these devices make the equipment sound better simply because they regulated the voltage level of the AC supply current? That points to major power supply issues in the equipment (or the fact that you expect it to sound better, and surprise, surprise! It does!).
John, I've had hands on experience for many years. These are things I have actually verified on my bench and customer's systems over many years. To be fair, there are many times when higher than average electrical noise has been the base problem. More than one customer was able to recoup their money by selling their power conditioners and wild cords.
Remember. We are talking about physics here. No magic at all. Just complicated factors and others eager to profit from a lack of understanding of the subject. Cables really ought not to be used as a form of "tone control", but I guess if they do the trick, great!
-Chris
I'm really sorry to comment further on this, but I think I should look at your statements.
The difference may be due to the listener's anticipation of a change (yup, you tricked yourself). It may also be due to a cable having odd properties that may interact with the equipment. Everything I just said falls in agreement with my previous comments. What you tried to do was to constraint a situation while ignoring my conditions. Read carefully please.
In general, any time a design focuses on one parameter, it does so at the detriment of all the others. If you remember this, staying clear of expensive trash will be much easier. Note that this is a general statement. I have no clue what you use, nor do I wish to know.
Ahhhh, no. Why would you ask an exaggerated question like that? Are you defining the quality as what is recommended, how they are priced or if they are technically better or not? You must define your definitions if you want any kind of answer to a question like that.
Well, in technical terms then. If a cable improves the sound, it must be more accurately passing the signal - yes? Therefore, the previous cable either:
1. was defective or improperly designed or ....
2. the second cable had better shielding and the environment was electrically noisier than average - requiring that better shielding.
I must define "improves the quality of the sound" that way because a subjective definition has far too many variables to be useful.
An optical amplifier? 😀
Okay, I bite.
If a power cord reduced the level of background noise, and we are to accept the previous cord was not defective, that proves beyond any doubt that the power supply is not designed correctly. Especially if that cord was able to reduce what I'll assume was high frequency noise through higher capacitance and possibly an inductance, however configured. Keep in mind that a power transformer should reduce the noise coming in. For a power cord to make this much difference points to an astonishingly poor grasp of power supply design by the manufacturer. Hey! I know a designer like that (
Counterpoint). Now, there is a prime example of what I am talking about.Yes !!! Have you? Either that, or they should administer an IQ test before allowing people to come into possession of their equipment.
😀
Look, many high end equipment designers in audio do not have a great hold on power supply design. There are people here on this forum that do that one job, and they could really teach me a thing or two. Still, it's very sad that I often am forced to correct or redesign power supplies from time to time. Some of these supplies are large, complicated affairs that work poorly. I actually do test power supplies for noise, external noise feed through, regulation for both external and internal changes. That's if I am forced to examine them. In every single case, the "repaired" design sounded better to the customers who complained about noise in their equipment. The major difference is that I had cold, hard numbers and waveforms to back me up as well. It has also been often reported that after a power supply fix, power cords no longer changed the sound, nor did things like the PS Audio power line conditioners. Did you know that often these devices make the equipment sound better simply because they regulated the voltage level of the AC supply current? That points to major power supply issues in the equipment (or the fact that you expect it to sound better, and surprise, surprise! It does!).
John, I've had hands on experience for many years. These are things I have actually verified on my bench and customer's systems over many years. To be fair, there are many times when higher than average electrical noise has been the base problem. More than one customer was able to recoup their money by selling their power conditioners and wild cords.
Remember. We are talking about physics here. No magic at all. Just complicated factors and others eager to profit from a lack of understanding of the subject. Cables really ought not to be used as a form of "tone control", but I guess if they do the trick, great!
-Chris
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