Johnny Walker blends malts all the time. Blue Label includes Lagavulin ... The real crime in my book is adding ice My point is that a tiny dram of another whisky has a chance of improving the single malt, which itself is likely a blend of many barrels, Bit like changing a power cord on a CD transport really | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
While I looooove Laphroaig, Lagavulin, and yes The Macallan, my favorite for a while now has been the ridiculously affordable Bunnahabhain 12. As far as blending goes, the practice has definitely gotten bad press over the decades, but there are plenty of really great blends available. It's simply a way to highlight the character/strengths of more than one whisky in a single dram. In fact, my "daily drinker" has been The Famous Grouse for years - a bit of peat, a bit of fruit, and a balanced finish that is so satisfying. @richardbrand +1 on the "no ice" rule, but I do add a single or sometimes two drops of distilled water to my glass. I was very skeptical of how this could possibly change the profile of a potable with such a strong flavor to begin with, but one taste test later I was convinced. FWIW, I use "pretty good" PCs in my system (all AQ ranging from their Z series through Monsoon), but I confess I have not done a listening test, blind or otherwise. I can say I am a sucker for a pretty face, and they do look nicer than stock PCs. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
@richardbrand I’m aware. But you’re not Johnny Walker. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
I am old enough to remember when blending whiskies indeed was banned. I recall their was once a similar sensible law for power cables as well. Copper was copper and silver was silver, no mixing permitted. Now they are allowed to blend all sorts of metals together- blasphemy! Why did we allow them to rescind that law? Now they have all sorts of mutts in the mix- tin plated copper, silver/copper, silver/gold, silver/gold/copper/palladium. What will they do next? use carbon and graphene? Gonna sound like shite. They are all doing it! Shunyata, Nordost, Audioquest, and even the newer little family distilleries that have popped up over years- Snake River, Zavfino, Acoustic Zen have their own blends with their "signature" flavours. Bollocks! I did find one with a sensible name that uses a single grain. Audio Sensibility, but I see they import their ingredients from a foreign country! Oh well, might as well get adjusted with the changing times. Maybe there is something my palette can tolerate and find acceptable. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Yes they definitely do, I have an esoteric P10 transport and I was using the harmonic technology 10 gauge round copper OCC power cord and it was excellent sounding, and then I upgraded to the NeoTech the Grand rectangular OCC copper and what a difference. OCC single crystal wire is the best wire for audio bar none no matter what those expensive companies are charging for cheap OFC, When properly designed OCC single crystal wire will beat OFC every time. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
mclinnguy, Yes all those companies that you mentioned all get their OCC single crystal wire from Neotech in Taiwan and the reason for that is that Neotech was one of only three companies that were licensed to make OCC single crystal wire and they produced it for many other companies out there like the ones you mentioned and even more, and even better than the round OCC is the rectangular OCC which I upgraded to from the round OCC and I can tell you in every instance whether it was speaker wire interconnects or power cords everything improved audibly where there was no question that it was better you could hear the difference very clearly | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Thanks for your post. Any thoughts or direct experience with Neotech NEMOP-3300 power cable? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
lalitk, No unfortunately I don't I use their top of the line stuff my speaker wire and interconnects are the Sahara rectangular copper OCC and my power cords are all the grand rectangular copper OCC, but anything this company makes is very very good, OCC single crystal wire is the best conductor on the market far superior to anything OFC that these companies are ripping people off for, OCC single crystal is more expensive than OFC but it's well worth it, just for your information neotech supplies pretty well everyone that uses OCC single crystal wire in their designs they are one of only three companies that received the licensing to make OCC single crystal wire. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Anyone know what happens when you bend a single crystal wire? My metallurgical training would suggest the single crystal would morph into multiple crystals, or grains. It is called work hardening. Grain boundaries increase resistance. Unlike other crystals, metal crystals often have an extra half-sheet of atoms which allows the crystal to 'slip' and plastically deform way below the breaking point of brittle crystals. The purer the metal, the easier it slips and the softer it is. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
@zuesman ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
I disagree! I removed a captive power cord and replaced it with a Furutech IEC connector so that I can connect my Audioquest Hurricane to my InstantPot. It blew me away! | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Spectral results--Each count was 12 hours. High resolution gamma spectroscopy using NIM's. The NIST certified rate is 20.030 CPS for the Region of Interest (ROI). The region of interest is approximately 661.7 keV. Results--As you can see, the filtered data is very close to the "True" count rate as per NIST certification. The filtration costs > $50,000 and cleans up the AC power before it powers the sensitive electronics. The crystal operates at - 200 degrees Celsius and is ultra sensitive to electronic noise. Using a Nordost Power Cable made no statistically relevant difference as compared to a standard cable. I am not sure what this means on the sonic front but if a Power Cable made NO difference on highly sensitive equipment, how could it make a difference on a CD transport.
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@thecarpathian . LOL... | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
@thecarpathian You asked in my opinion what "is the best type copper for cable application?". I am here primarily to learn, so really I am the worst person to ask! However my physics background forces me to apply Occam's razor to claims. If there is a simple explanation, it is more likely to be correct than a complex one. Or as Einstein said, make the explanation as simple as possible, but not more so. To your question: Theoretically, for high voltage transmissions lines, aluminium is best with a steel core to hold it up. For microwave frequencies, use hollow pipes because of the skin effect. For speakers, usually a high current application, the shorter the better. Ideally the amplifier is in the speaker so its output can be feedback-corrected to match the speaker. Otherwise you probably want low resistance in the cable and the connectors. If you halve the length, or double the cross section, you halve the resistance. Note that all speakers have varying impedance across their frequency range, especially around cross-over regions. Changing the resistance of the cable will alter the tonal balance, for better or worse. Changing the purity and crystal structure only have small effects on resistance. The mere act of changing a cable scrapes oxidation from its connector surfaces, and suddenly the resistance drops a bit. The speaker gets a bit louder and louder sounds better. In practice, most of my cables are cheap! I did buy one slightly up market power cord but I cannot find it. I did modify one power cord by adding ferrite chokes to mitigate RFI emissions and that solved a particular problem. I still feed my Quad electrostatics with the Naim speaker wire my dealer threw in forty years ago. I re-terminate it every few years. When I bought current-hungry KEF Reference 1 speakers I bought a pair of QED silver coated copper leads with a fancy twist, secondhand. I could bi-wire them but can't be bothered - still enjoying them too much. I did buy some van den Hul balanced interconnects, because the blurb on their website made some sense from a physics viewpoint. They use the cable weave invented by Alexander Graham Bell. Am still seeking advice on rewiring my old SME tonearm! Reducing the number of corroded connections and going balanced has some appeal! Siver litz or copper? My digital connections are all HDMI, no dramas as long as they include Ethernet. I only stream audio in order to sample tracks, and then it is WiFi to my phone and Bluetooth to my pre-amplifier. Basically a cable sceptic but so many report benefits, they can't all be wrong. Can they? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Can you plug tubes into that thing and have it show the relevant statistical difference between a Mullard and a Telefunken? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
@thecarpathian from that post what are those facts that you speak of? If I read and understood the conducted measurements correctly… 1. the AC filtration system costing > $50,000 was utilized to clean the AC power and the measurements were taken post this stage 2. the measurements were taken in isolation 3. the real world audio system never uses a $50,000 plus AC filtration and there is never a single component running in isolation (unless it is an all in one integrated sitting on a dedicated circuit which is possible but I don’t think I’ve seen too many systems set up thiscway. If you look at the big picture which doesn’t include a $50,000 AC conditioner and includes a number of components including digital and some with SMPS and all of them are pooping back into that AC line but hey we have that $50,000 AC filter don’t we…nah we don’t So please what facts were provided…tell me @grunge1000 you stated you don’t know how this translates to a sonic change if any…I agree. No way to tell. Measuring the wrong way, measuring all the wrong things…
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No, common sense says they can't. If you are looking for more good "blurbs on their website" including webinars, check out this company: It is the most transparent and informative cable company website I have seen, and they do everything themselves in their German factories, even test the raw copper before sending it out to be drawn in the mill. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
I think you are reading the results wrong. The cable tests were unfiltered (No AC filtration). I used the filtered and unfiltered tests to prove that AC filtration is measurable (Albeit very small but measurable difference). The PC didn't make any difference in this counting system, and it would have if there was some sort of signal degradation due to an "inferior" PC. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
@grunge1000 ok that’s fine and even so… Still, the measurements were performed in isolation, not within an ecosystem of components, routers, SMPs polluting the line, digital streamers, computers, whatever else we have in our systems that creates that unique environment that no one takes into account when performing measurements on cables and even components. In addition, the dataset is way too small to have anything conclusive as outcome. Measure it in silo all you want. Doesn’t translate to a real life use case. And doesn’t mean anything when we’re talking sound - tonality, imaging, soundstage, etc. As I mentioned earlier, how do you measure that? To add, I literally had just spent almost two days auditioning a new (to me) power cable in my system. I had high expectations for it. It sounded worse than any of the 3 power cords I currently own. Drastically different and in a very bad way as far as my system synergy is concerned. Despite costing 3x as much as my cheapest power cable, it was beat by the latter. So it’s going back. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
As to your question; Everything @grunge1000 posted is a fact. I don't think he's lying, do you? Does any of his experiment and results pertain to audio in any way? Beats me. He even stated as much himself. I've stated through the years many, many times that I would never presume to tell anyone what they hear or don't hear. I don't believe @grunge1000 ever stated as much either. My slant is he, being of a scientific mind, is simply looking for the 'why' are people hearing what they say they are hearing. Did his experiment prove anything conclusively either way? Again, beats me. But, the conclusion of his experiment is a fact, and this subject, being that it boils down to personal perception, is indeed a cloudy one. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
