A challenge to the "measurement" camp

You tried @djones51,  but obviously @andy2 , the person making the challenge, is not at all confident in his challenge, or he would have supplied the measurements when you took him up on the challenge. 

mahgister,

"glupson do you listen to Scarlatti? "

I had to learn about him during music classes in elementary school, probably heard some of his works, but do not really recall anything more than "Domenico". Even that I am not 100% sure right now. In short, I have not truly listened to him. I will check him out.

Andy2  is blabbering about amps and feedback now. Where's the cable measurements? Who said anything about sound you wanted to know the best cable, obviously the cable that doesn't introduce capacitance, inductance and is shielded against EMI is the best.

It seems blabbering and insults is all he is capable of, well that and reneging on a challenge that he made. If he had any respect left, he would just delete this testimony to his inadequacy.

Hey Andy, as I said, don’t wrestle with pigs in mud. You cannot beat them in their game. That’s all they do full time nonstop in the Internets. They are professional..... pigs 

^It's interesting that I made a post with regards to feedback amp vs. no feedback amp with information comes from PassLabs and they attacked that too.

I think they just smell some blood and go after it without knowing what it is first.  

As I said, professional full time Internet trolls. Especially AtDavid guy with his many fake accounts. DJ is just a senile copycat. Don’t mind him. 

I don't know about anyone else but I assumed you were referring to Pass. Who else could it be? Here read this instead.

https://linearaudio.net/sites/linearaudio.net/files/volume1bp.pdf

Noname don't be catty. Let's see that smile 😊

@djones51, jokes on us expecting @andy2 to behave like an adult. He just regurgitates things he reads without understanding it in any detail anyway. That is why he can’t provide measurements. He has 0 ability to do that.  The paper you posted will be way over his head.

in the Internets

??? are you in the Internets ???

LOL!! The hyenas are circling. Or is it 🐖 🐷 pigs?

No, fisherman who are just letting out some line to give you hope, but mainly we are just letting you two "run at the mouth". It is rather funny that you two think people will look "highly" on you two for your childish behavior.

Pigs are very intelligent animals. I grew up on a farm raising pigs so you're not really insulting me. 

thyname , a serious question have you ever questioned any of these audiophile components like USB reclockers, audiophile ethernet switches, 4 and 5 figure cables ? Anything? 

For those interested, here's the article from PassLabs talking about feedback vs no feedback.  Forward to Figure 11.  It shows feedback reduces the overall distortion but has more higher order distortion which the ears are sensitive to.  This is another example in which something measures well but it creates higher order affect which can be difficult to quantify and not always obvious in real life.  

http://www.firstwatt.com/pdf/art_dist_fdbk.pdf

Negative feedback can reduce the total quantity of distortion, but it adds new components on its own, and tempts the designer to use more cascaded gain stages in search of better numbers, accompanied by greater feedback frequency stability issues.
The resulting complexity creates distortion which is unlike the simple harmonics associated with musical instruments, and we see that these complex waves can gather to create the occasional tsunami of distortion, peaking at values far above those imagined by the distortion specifications.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DC0s6KqQz3g

Thought this might be of interest, and yeah something about speaker wires that is measurable, dead easy to measure.

Enjoy!

Nelson Pass’ article is a marketing blurb meant to fool people like Andy2, who don’t know much about amplifier design. Obviously it worked.

Of course, someone observant would say, HEY! the distortion went up from 3 to 6 to 10db feedback, but at 15db feedback, it looks like it goes down some. Why didn’t your experiment include 20 or 30db of feedback Mr. Pass? .... well @andy2 , why didn’t it? You are the "expert" according to you. So tell us why he didn’t include 30db of feedback in that graph, and better yet, what would have happened with 30db feedback in an amplifier capable of properly implementing that.

We all wait with bated breath for your wisdom ....

I see the “ stifling” efforts are still in full swing. If anyone would like some real banter come join my game room, lol. No mods there, just a few rules, and bring your best banter. No logic or common sense needed as many there prove every day.  Thing is, I didn’t realize people came to this forum for banter. Was hoping this was more of a place where people tried to help each other to further the enjoyment of their hobby. Maybe some people don’t really enjoy this hobby, only come to try to ridicule others. The level of constant bitterness would lead to this being a logical conclusion. 

The whole point of the post (or poster) is to "stifle". Why do you keep participating speedbump6? What's up with the whole virtue signalling thing?

Switching topic a little bit, I have heard Pass amplifiers in a couple of systems over the years. I know they are considered to be really good around here. It might have not been amplifiers that were not great, but those systems were not enjoyable to me. None of them. I have had exactly the opposite experience with Gryphon. Does Gryphon crowd use fancier cables?

glupson,

Something tells me the answer to your question may be revealed in @andy2 's inability to answer my question about feedback.

Glupson, all the gryphon owners I know of match them with high quality, ie fairly expensive, cables.
im sure there might be some who don’t, I’ve just not met them. I suspect that the higher the equipment cost, the more likely you are to also find more expensive cables. 

@andy2 - did you manage to see the video about speaker cables absorbing RFI ?? Pretty good information.

To be clear, the speaker wires can convert radio waves into electrical energy = noise.

The meter on the tuner is a measurement device!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DC0s6KqQz3g

Wire changing radio waves into electrical energy sounds like an antenna to me. Didn't they have any insulation on the wire? 

rixthetrick,

This is a relatively well known potential noise source, but a lot of it has to do with the bandwidth of the feedback network, not to mention it takes a fair amount of RF to inject anything audible, and it needs to be AM modulated in some fashion.

---- IF YOU HAVE SILENCE ON YOUR SPEAKERS WITHOUT A SIGNAL, THERE IS NO RF INJECTION VIA THE SPEAKER CABLES ---- ... that should be pretty obvious, but alas, it seems not to be. Put your head up against the speakers ... anything that seems RF related? .. No? .... it will be 10's of db quieter at your listening position.


All those no global feedback amplifiers? ... they are fairly immune to RF injection on the speaker wires.

Next you have to look at the RF source and modulation scheme. Remember cell phones not too long ago where you could hear them in your computer speakers? That was time division multiplexing, essentially bursts of radio with burst rates in the audio bandwidth. Your modern cell phone, WIFI, Bluetooth, FM and TV do not use that modulation scheme.  Those cell phone signals did not inject via the connection to the speaker, they connected through high impedance analog nodes at inputs to amplifiers.

Of course, this is all assuming things like no EMI filtering capability in amplifiers, and that is going to come down to the experience of the designer, but my experience is mass-market stuff in that regard is actually better, not worse, especially if it incorporates digital as they need to ensure nothing gets out, not just nothing gets in.

The video shows that weaving conductors (tight twisting) will reduce effectiveness as an antenna. That is nothing new. However, it **claims** but provides no proof at all of anything audible, which would actually be excruciatingly easy ....

REPEATING AGAIN --- IF YOU HAVE SILENCE ON YOUR SPEAKERS WITHOUT A SIGNAL, THERE IS NO RF INJECTION VIA THE SPEAKER CABLES ----  that should be pretty obvious, but alas, it seems not to be. Put your head up against the speakers ... anything that seems RF related? .. No? .... it will be 10's of db quieter at your listening position.


Keep in mind the owner of GR Research is not an engineer.

Interesting post and video .... Thanks roberttdid for the explanation.....

I didn't watch the video. When I saw who it was I turned it off. I figured it would be something goofy. 

I wouldn't discount everything the owner of GR Research says. I think he is more on the ball w.r.t. speaker burn-in than many others out there who claim it is almost instantaneous, which is not a small number of people.

speedbump6,

I also assumed that Gryphon people do use expensive cables, why wouldn’t they? I also suspect that Pass amplifiers rarely get connected with lamp cord. Those are assumptions and suspicions/guesses. I am quite convinced that difference in my preferences may be due to more things than cables. Maybe even the room.

I watched the video,  didn't tell me anything new but he didn't seem as annoying as I remember from other videos. Another guy that I find annoying is the PS Audio guy. Not saying they aren't smarter than me or don't know their stuff just don't care for their YouTube shows. 

The GR Research guy knows his stuff on some things, not on others. Paul from PS .... ya, those are mainly marketing blurbs and miscellaneous ramblings.


When you hook up an expensive power cable to your Power Regenerator, and then claim that it sounds better, the natural inclination of most engineers would be "what did I do wrong in the design of my power regenerator", not "wow this cable is awesome".

Any power regenerator will introduce a noise of his own making by the mere presence of his electronic components...His design is the results of a wise trade-off  created by the original designer...

If we introduce this power regenerator in a particular audio system with a noise floor of his own, adding to it a power cable then  modifying this particular trade-off,  would it be unthinkable that a power cable can improve  the original trade-off or destroy it in some case?

It is a question.... I am in no way an engineer, or even a scientist....

Thanks....

mahgister,

The whole point of a power regenerator is to decouple the output AC from the input AC.  PS is claiming changing the input AC cord significantly changes the sound.


If that is the case, then their device does not do what it is supposed to do.

i understand but this decoupling cannot be perfect or absolute no? there is a trade-off implicated in the decoupling itsef....With or without power cord.... The regenerator is always linked to the electrical grid of the house and change the general noise floor of the house and change the particular noise floor of the audio system, no ?

This is my point....

Thanks for your answer....

@roberttdid - so minute differences in resitance and RFI rejection are not indicators of anything that audibly effects a speaker cable, what would you as an engineer say would be measurable indicators to look for in a speaker cable?

Does capacitance have any bearing on sound quality?

I am working on the premise that physics is pretty uniform, and that if we don’t know what to measure and how to measure the most important attributes of for example speaker cables - the mystery exists to be discovered. The answers are there, and in time will be as uncontested as the spherical like shape of the World (oh crap, those darned Flat Earthers).

I am really surprised that people accidentally come across really excellent sounding cable formulas that have no common scientific basis?

People were figuring g out ways to make good things long before they knew or understood the science of why it worked well. Trial and error, accidental, or logical thinking. Now we have science to help us explain the why. I think it’s foolhardy to believe we understand everything already, and new discoveries are made constantly that expand our knowledge, or modify what we thought we already knew about a subject. It quite obvious that even people who have problems with the cable subject will agree about different things we here in a sound system, soundstage, clarity, dynamics, etc, and not all of those things have ways to measure them. So they therefore don’t exist? They do, we just don’t have a way of measuring it at this point in time. 

"It quite obvious that even people who have problems with the cable subject will agree about different things we here in a sound system, soundstage, clarity, dynamics, etc, and not all of those things have ways to measure them. So they therefore don’t exist? They do, we just don’t have a way of measuring it at this point in time."

Exactly

I have an "Exactpower" transformer (heavy beast) that everything but my power amps go through & it also is sensitive to SQ changes via different power cords, even though it "shouldn't" be.

Most things in a system seem to react to each other, in different ways. Some things I don’t detect differences, while others seem to make a bigger impact. 

If the person buys (spends money) on a power regenerator and then needs to buy a new power cord for it to sound better, does a person feel at least a little cheated?

I would feel as if I had bought shoes and then found only one in the box, by design.

If the person buys (spends money) on a power regenerator and then needs to buy a new power cord for it to sound better,

On paper, but there is no such thing as 100% isolation.  They are all connected in there.  Also there is no such thing as "power signal" and "music signal".  They are all the same since you modulate the power to get musical signal, so in that respect, the musical signal comes straight from the power signal.  A quick look of the power amplifier schematic will show this.

It's like noise insulator.  Regardless how much you put in, there will be some noise that leaked through.  

glupson, when you buy a pair of shoes, don’t you also wear socks with them? 

andy2 trying to give engineering lessons .... now that is "lols".

Not 100% isolation, but the whole point of an power regenerator is to isolate, and the whole point of a power supply is to isolate the AC from the audio, and if they are each doing their job, then they AC should be totally isolated and the AC power cord for the regenerator should not matter one little bit.

Sounds like it is a pretty crappy power regenerator if an AC cord makes a difference that is audible .... well if it truly is.

Some noise may leak through, but some and audible are not the same thing. I don't spend that much on a regenerator for anything audible to pass through.

There is a reason why it's called "power conditioner" and not "power isolation".  If one is capable of reading schematic circuit, then one would understand there is no such thing as "isolation".

But I don't expect Atadavid to understand that.  

I don't think you even know what the term "isolation"means. Technically a transformer with non-connected windings is "isolated".  It is also not called a power conditioner, it is called AC REGENERATOR. At least have some idea about what we are talking about so you don't make yourself look so foolish.  Would you like me to draw you a block diagram for one?

A transformer is not an "isolator".  There is something called "mutual inductance".  Electrical 101.  If you open the secondary coil, the primary coil could go high impedance.

Atadavid, you don't know electrical engineering.  Basically transformer like that should be understood by first year student.

You really don't understand this concept of isolation or even what the noise sources are in an audio system do you?  Other than converting voltages, the primary function of a transformer is ELECTRICAL ISOLATION.  I know, pretty tough concept to understand.


If the primary and secondary of a transformer didn't allow power to transfer across the ISOLATION BARRIER, then you would have a hard time getting your audio equipment to work wouldn't you?  You don't want to isolate frequencies that are necessary to make your equipment to work ... be rather pointless.  But fortunately, most transformers have somewhat limited bandwidth which is good, so they act as pretty good ISOLATORS to harmonics on the AC line, mainly due to leakage inductance which may be parasitic or may be intentional.

Because of the ISOLATION BARRIER, transformers are also very good at ISOLATING the output from common mode noise, i.e. from other noisy items on the AC line, and/or EMI/RF injection. Parasitic capacitance in the transformer will allow some of that to cross the isolation barrier, however that is why better transformers will include electrostatic shields to ISOLATE the primary and secondary winding from parasitic capacitive effects. Depending on the winding construction, they may even have several electrostatic shields.

What's sort of funny is neophytes like you assume AC power cords that are good at passing high frequencies must be best to handle "power peaks", but that is not the case, and even some (many) experienced designers make that mistake in their thinking. Ideally you just want 60Hz (or 50), which gets rectified which implements a modulation function and gives you guess what ... 0Hz = DC, and if you sufficiently filter the incoming AC, you get closer and closer to that, but switch mode supplies in this regard can be much better.

Sorry to be so verbose, but I figured you could use the lesson so you didn't look like someone who just regurgitates things they read on the web.