I just saw viber6’s post about Enid Lumley.
I learned a great deal from Enid and her columns. Things that I see others do not observe nor practice. For example, having a power cord directly on top of a speaker cable is asking for trouble. ASKING FOR IT. OH, does that bring back a memory. Have I got a story for you!!
Back in 1994, when I was writing for TAS, a gentleman in Mill Valley invited some people to his home. He was thinking of starting a new magazine. So: the luminaries, some visiting from the East Coast:
Sallie Reynolds, TAS Executive Editor
Tom Miller, prominent TAS reviewer
Richard Brown - Bel amps designer
and a couple of people who’d prefer - to this day - to remain unmentioned.
The system: Wilson Grand Slamms (THE hot new speaker of the day)
Rockport Sirius Turntable, equipped with Van den Hul Grasshopper
Jadis JP-80 preamp
Bel 1001 amps (2 of them, I think)
Transparent Reference speaker cable and interconnects
Power cords were NOT an industry at this point. Just the manufacturer supplied cords. (Can you imagine we actually listened to components with ordinary power cords. MERCY!)
An Elvis Presley cut was played from one of his albums with engineered by the legendary Bill Porter.
Sounded great - to everyone else. Me? I heard a "burr" (slight edginess) throughout the cut.
So, after the song ended, I politely asked if I could move one thing. The host was very gracious and said yes. I walked over to his wall, pulled a book off of it, and, standing it upright, put the speaker cable ON TOP OF THE BOOK. It had previously been laying DIRECTLY on top of the power cord.
I asked for the cut to be replayed. It was. At the end of the cut...SILENCE in the room.
Sallie Reynolds: "WHAT DID YOU DO? The upper midrange grit is GONE! I thought it was on the record!"
ME: Um, I just removed the speaker cable from sitting right on top of the power cord.
People in the room: "WOW"
Even Dick Brown looked...startled.
Tom Miller to me "Showoff." (We were both reviewing the Audio Artistry Dvorak speakers. Him: Main Review. Me: Commentary.)
I just shrugged. "It wasn’t me. This is what Enid has been insisting on in her columns. DON’T YOU GUYS EVER READ HER COLUMNS?!?!? It’s YOUR magazine!"
Motto: DO as Edith COMMANDS!!
Never, EVER have your power cords lying on top of your speaker cable or interconnects. EVER. and don’t have them (the power cords) close to them if you can help it. Tie them up. TAPE THEM to something, but keep them away from the power cords or you will get bleed thru and EMF, EMI, EM something (joking) and your music WILL suffer. I guarantee it. Now, you may not hear it, but all that means your system is not ideally setup somewhere in there. OR. OR. As a very famous designer said: "Either that or you don’t know how to listen to music critically." I forget who it was. I thought it was Ivor Tiefenbrun, but no. His statement was: "If you haven’t actually heard it, you DON’T have an opinion." So, some other legendary designer said that. I’d try to remember, but at 70, I forget things...
And turn off the damn microwaves, even if you have dedicated circuits. I have 7 dedicated circuits, and I can ALWAYS tell if I’ve let the microwave on: high bells and triangles have a slightly tizzy sound to them and the overtones die out prematurely.) The only time that was an exception was when I had my sound system in the basement sound room. Who knows, maybe RFI or EM doesn’t travel downwards. But that was the ONLY time it was like that. And that was after I moved back to Connecticut in 2002.
When had I lived in San Francisco (’75-2002), I was thinking of something Enid had written about radio frequency and I remembered, one day, out of the blue, "Hmmm...what if I turn off the microwave? Enid says that makes a difference." Damned if she wasn’t right - and I had SOTA components:
Versa Dynamics 2.3, then "the best turntable in the world."
Goldmund Mimesis 9 "Wanna hear the floorboards creak, the sidewalls when the piano sound bounces off it and heads toward the other wall?"
Convergent CAT SL-1 Reference "There’s no preamp like the sound of NO PREAMP"
WATT/Puppies "I’m as resolving as ANY electrostatic on the Planet!"
Avalon Ascents ("Wanna hear "continuousness" for the FIRST TIME?? Take a gander at me! I sound absolutely live, like 25 speed Kodachrome. NO GRAIN WHATSOEVER. It’s OPEN WINDOW TIME ON THE OPEN PRAIRIE!!"
Infinity IRS "NOBODY IS BETTER THAN ME. NO.BODY."
Room: Edwardian, built in 1912. Plaster walls. 10’ high, 15’ wide, 27’ long. ("Oh, your room is kind of like Harry’s old room," as the venerable Dr. Robert E. Greene said to me as he dropped by for a visit).
In other words, very solid walls (no drywall BOOM! here)! Built over a garage on Potrero Hill in San Francisco. Translation: Carved-out-of-rock-solid-floor. Low bass sounded like a 5.0 earthquake! In other words: ROCK THIS BUILDING. (The only time the landlord came down and asked: "Um, what’s that shaking the house?" Me: Oh, sorry, that’s the organ note on Also Sprach Zarathustra. "THAT’S A STEREO SYTEM? I thought it was an earthquake, but it only lasted 10 seconds." Me: "Nope, just the organ note on Also Sprach Zarathustra. You know that recording, right?" Landlord: " Dear Lord! I’ve never head that kind of sound before." Me: "Um, I’ll turn it down." HIM: "NO! TURN IT UP! That was FANTASTIC!!!" (he was 72, and still remembered when music was all tubed and analogue.
So: ideal setup to test ALL of Enid’s proclamations: keep the speaker cable OFF the floor. No power cords on top of speaker cable. All power cords at 90 degrees to signal cables and at least 4" away from each other.
This woman KNEW what she was talking about.
It was GROOVY, man!!!
I learned a great deal from Enid and her columns. Things that I see others do not observe nor practice. For example, having a power cord directly on top of a speaker cable is asking for trouble. ASKING FOR IT. OH, does that bring back a memory. Have I got a story for you!!
Back in 1994, when I was writing for TAS, a gentleman in Mill Valley invited some people to his home. He was thinking of starting a new magazine. So: the luminaries, some visiting from the East Coast:
Sallie Reynolds, TAS Executive Editor
Tom Miller, prominent TAS reviewer
Richard Brown - Bel amps designer
and a couple of people who’d prefer - to this day - to remain unmentioned.
The system: Wilson Grand Slamms (THE hot new speaker of the day)
Rockport Sirius Turntable, equipped with Van den Hul Grasshopper
Jadis JP-80 preamp
Bel 1001 amps (2 of them, I think)
Transparent Reference speaker cable and interconnects
Power cords were NOT an industry at this point. Just the manufacturer supplied cords. (Can you imagine we actually listened to components with ordinary power cords. MERCY!)
An Elvis Presley cut was played from one of his albums with engineered by the legendary Bill Porter.
Sounded great - to everyone else. Me? I heard a "burr" (slight edginess) throughout the cut.
So, after the song ended, I politely asked if I could move one thing. The host was very gracious and said yes. I walked over to his wall, pulled a book off of it, and, standing it upright, put the speaker cable ON TOP OF THE BOOK. It had previously been laying DIRECTLY on top of the power cord.
I asked for the cut to be replayed. It was. At the end of the cut...SILENCE in the room.
Sallie Reynolds: "WHAT DID YOU DO? The upper midrange grit is GONE! I thought it was on the record!"
ME: Um, I just removed the speaker cable from sitting right on top of the power cord.
People in the room: "WOW"
Even Dick Brown looked...startled.
Tom Miller to me "Showoff." (We were both reviewing the Audio Artistry Dvorak speakers. Him: Main Review. Me: Commentary.)
I just shrugged. "It wasn’t me. This is what Enid has been insisting on in her columns. DON’T YOU GUYS EVER READ HER COLUMNS?!?!? It’s YOUR magazine!"
Motto: DO as Edith COMMANDS!!
Never, EVER have your power cords lying on top of your speaker cable or interconnects. EVER. and don’t have them (the power cords) close to them if you can help it. Tie them up. TAPE THEM to something, but keep them away from the power cords or you will get bleed thru and EMF, EMI, EM something (joking) and your music WILL suffer. I guarantee it. Now, you may not hear it, but all that means your system is not ideally setup somewhere in there. OR. OR. As a very famous designer said: "Either that or you don’t know how to listen to music critically." I forget who it was. I thought it was Ivor Tiefenbrun, but no. His statement was: "If you haven’t actually heard it, you DON’T have an opinion." So, some other legendary designer said that. I’d try to remember, but at 70, I forget things...
And turn off the damn microwaves, even if you have dedicated circuits. I have 7 dedicated circuits, and I can ALWAYS tell if I’ve let the microwave on: high bells and triangles have a slightly tizzy sound to them and the overtones die out prematurely.) The only time that was an exception was when I had my sound system in the basement sound room. Who knows, maybe RFI or EM doesn’t travel downwards. But that was the ONLY time it was like that. And that was after I moved back to Connecticut in 2002.
When had I lived in San Francisco (’75-2002), I was thinking of something Enid had written about radio frequency and I remembered, one day, out of the blue, "Hmmm...what if I turn off the microwave? Enid says that makes a difference." Damned if she wasn’t right - and I had SOTA components:
Versa Dynamics 2.3, then "the best turntable in the world."
Goldmund Mimesis 9 "Wanna hear the floorboards creak, the sidewalls when the piano sound bounces off it and heads toward the other wall?"
Convergent CAT SL-1 Reference "There’s no preamp like the sound of NO PREAMP"
WATT/Puppies "I’m as resolving as ANY electrostatic on the Planet!"
Avalon Ascents ("Wanna hear "continuousness" for the FIRST TIME?? Take a gander at me! I sound absolutely live, like 25 speed Kodachrome. NO GRAIN WHATSOEVER. It’s OPEN WINDOW TIME ON THE OPEN PRAIRIE!!"
Infinity IRS "NOBODY IS BETTER THAN ME. NO.BODY."
Room: Edwardian, built in 1912. Plaster walls. 10’ high, 15’ wide, 27’ long. ("Oh, your room is kind of like Harry’s old room," as the venerable Dr. Robert E. Greene said to me as he dropped by for a visit).
In other words, very solid walls (no drywall BOOM! here)! Built over a garage on Potrero Hill in San Francisco. Translation: Carved-out-of-rock-solid-floor. Low bass sounded like a 5.0 earthquake! In other words: ROCK THIS BUILDING. (The only time the landlord came down and asked: "Um, what’s that shaking the house?" Me: Oh, sorry, that’s the organ note on Also Sprach Zarathustra. "THAT’S A STEREO SYTEM? I thought it was an earthquake, but it only lasted 10 seconds." Me: "Nope, just the organ note on Also Sprach Zarathustra. You know that recording, right?" Landlord: " Dear Lord! I’ve never head that kind of sound before." Me: "Um, I’ll turn it down." HIM: "NO! TURN IT UP! That was FANTASTIC!!!" (he was 72, and still remembered when music was all tubed and analogue.
So: ideal setup to test ALL of Enid’s proclamations: keep the speaker cable OFF the floor. No power cords on top of speaker cable. All power cords at 90 degrees to signal cables and at least 4" away from each other.
This woman KNEW what she was talking about.
It was GROOVY, man!!!