"I'm not interested in on-line argument."
I know what you mean. I just hate it when people find flaws with my explanations:).
Kidding. Peace.
When you publish the data that will be a good thing! |
A power conditioner is intended to "duh dut dut dahh" condition the incoming ac power. If it works, it provides a more uniform ac output with an improved amount of immunity to trash on the ac line. In other words, if your power conditioner works then it will do so with any power cord of adequate size.
Audiophiles scare me sometimes. |
Elizabeth, it is about where the wires are in the circuit(s) and what is in front of them.
If the thread would have been about the effect of high capacitance versus low capacitance ic's between pre amp and amp (for example) that would be a different discussion. |
If this is true;
"There is no real controversy. When a scientist can conduct a properly designed experiment such as a controlled blind listening test with only one variable (A stock power cable vs an aftermarket one) using the scientific method (Hypothesis-Materials-Procedure-Results-Conclusion) and the results consistently conclude that a positive/verified difference can be made... then there is no controversy. It is validated FACT."
There is a neat opportunity to get on national news or the tonight show (US) or whatever. I think there would be a lot of general interest outside the world of audio and I'd certainly like to watch it. Someone who can do this could make a valuable contribution to science as well as get a bit of instant fame.
For what it is worth, validation requires independent verification of reported results. Otherwise you get stuff like reports of successful cold fusion where measurement error was creating false results, or the guy who thought his horse could count but didn't realize that the horse was just tapping its foot on the ground until it saw him smile. |
"Much of the science behind power cords, interconnects and speaker cables has been explained. It takes a good background in Electrical Engineering to understand it."
You can't lump in power cords with ic's and speaker cables. Electrical engineers (like me for what it is worth) will tell you that one is connected to a device designed to accurately amplify or transmit a signal and the other is connected to a filter network designed to gobble up hash on the incoming power line. It is an apples an oranges thing.
In all honesty, if someone discovered a way to improve sensitivity of equipment by changing power cords it would be a significant technical advance and very newsworthy event. There would be great benefit and wide ranging application in medical, industrial and military equipment for example. It would be a nobel prize worthy achievement. |
"And I bet most of the high end cables out there are merely off the shelf wire that everyone else uses. "
If you read what is on the Shunyata website, they agree with you.
"The majority of cable manufacturers buy their wire pre-made from major US or overseas suppliers. In many cases, it will be the least expensive wire available given that it is hidden from view." |
"So are you saysing that frequency bandwidth, and the LRC characteristics do not impact the performance of powercords the same as speaker cables and interconnects?"
No, (actually sort of yes due to reduced effect of L and parasitic C at 50 or 60 hz vs up to 20,000 hz, but lets say no for discussions sake).
What I would say is that minute differences in incoming ac, such as you might get from a new power cord are orders of magnitude lower than the constant and unavoidable ac line fluctuations that your stereo has to deal with.
Whenever someone in the house is using a hair dryer or the refrigerator motor is running or the lights are left on downstairs, or the music you are listening to changes in volume or etc. etc. ad infinitum, the incoming ac is measurably effected.
Luckily for us good designers install ac line filter networks in audio gear (and other good designers make supplemental stand alone filters for those of us are fussy). With well designed equipment the filter will do its job and protect you from being bothered by the big stuff let alone the minute stuff.
If you're oscilloscope is not giving you the resolution you paid for or if your stereo is not making your ears light up, the answer might be a relatively inexpensive line conditioner or having your existing components checked for blown caps & etc. If you can hear minute differences in ac noise due to different power cord capacitance (for example), something is significantly amiss. If you can hear minute differences in power cords but are not constantly bothered by the large scale ac line fluctuations, I think the most likely explanation is not electrical in nature.
Interconnects & speaker cables - here the designers job is to accurately transmit the most minute details of the incoming signal, and they are pretty good at it. Filtering is a 4 letter word in these applications
Happy Listening,
holdout from a bygone era :) |
"So if I used lamp cord to power a pair of Levinson mono blocks I'll be ok?"
That is a really neat question when you think about it from the manufacturer/designers perspective.
"I'm going to market a state of the art device for a given market (audio,medical,research, etc.,etc.). I know that the incoming power characteristics will be somewhat different at every customers site. Some sites will have issues with nominal voltage, some with higher than normal high frequency hash, some will have better or worse power factors, some will experience voltage swings, some with high levels of emi, most if not all will have a combination of issues to a greater or lesser degree.
Since I can't control customers site conditions, and since my business relies on quality and in some instances upon performance verification, should I install a robust filter network to make sure that my system is highly immune to varying site conditions?" |
"Probably because we still cannot measure everything the human ear can discern. "
I enjoyed your comments. It does seem like the above concept might be more accurately stated as "although we can measure far more than the human ear can discern, correlating human response to the measured data remains a challenge"
Which is sort of what you said in your last line, I just don't like to leave the measurement thing hanging. |
"If it is sounding better why to question it. Maybe it sounds better because of faith in cables (placebo effect) but final result is what counts. On the other hand cable deniers might hear no difference because of just the opposite - negative placebo effect"
Very valid points in my opinion. Since it is a hobby why not do whatever it is that makes your toe tap?
"I'll let the deniers go to the shunyata site and read the white papers for any type of explanation why one snake sounds different than the others."
For what it is worth I think "holdouts from a bygone era" was more catchy than "deniers":). Not my call though.
In any case, I went to Shunyata's website and didn't find anything like an explanation. They do have a lot of verbiage about use of proprietary materials though (which is 100% consistent with old newspaper adds for snake oil & such). |
The hanging curve ball on a line impedance issue explanation is the 40 - 200 foot of romex on the other side of your receptacle.
If I'm losing 50% of peak power power in my 6 foot cord then I'm losing another 500% of peak power in my 60 feet of romex:).
But, if measurement data becomes available that will be a good thing!! |
"as they are completely running around in circles with the same hollow arguments [which have been convincingly refuted] "
This is kind of neat I think.
Person 1 can read a thread and come to a strong and definitive conclusion.
Person 2 (me) can read the same thread and not see anything that would support the conclusion. There are the yes I can vs. no you can't comments but this seems (to me) to be a wash.
Apparently either person 2 is blinded by his biases or person 1 has biases which drive him to read things that aren't there.
As I'm not an outside and objective onlooker I can't speculate on which person is more correct, but it seems like we can perceive what we wish to in reading just like in hearing. |
"But if you have never tried it any other way, how could you possibly know any of the stuff some of us are speaking about?"
I've never tried jumping off a building, but I've got faith in how the physics would play out:).
If it is relevant, I, and by his comments, poor maligned and mistreated Rwwear have done all the classical things to establish and maintain a hard buss to breaker/fuse panel and we've both tried power cords from some of the big name company's. In honesty though the most expensive power cord I've had in my system was 600 srp so the case could be made that I haven't tried a 'real' power cord.
I bought them (only three in total actually, another argument could be made that I'd need to try 5 or 10) after eating up audio dealers valuable time and effort on equipment auditions that didn't motivate me to purchase, and it sounds like Rw (shorthand) gets them for free.
I don't think there is any merit to your position on the benefit of high cost pc's and I accept that you don't find merit in mine either.
Data in hand is where things will be interesting. If it can be proven that pc's can fix problems I have some industrial equipment applications that I need to talk to the pc manufacturers about. |
"Let me ask you this then: What sort of proof was necessary to convince you the world isn't flat??"
To prove it wasn't round I'd want science and data:), I've never believed that it was flat so I'd be speculating on an answer to that one.
People (and I am a people two so don't take this as persnickety please) have limited ability to make extremely minute sensory discriminations and accurately weigh them against memories of other extremely minute sensory discriminations. When you add in all of our human biases, the limited abilities are further hampered and possibly overwhelmed.
As a statistician friend of mine said, "In God we trust, everyone else must provide data".
I do tend to agree with all who think this thread has run it's course, so if you don't mind I'll take my toys and go home now.
Happy Listening
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Bradluke0 - Noticed on a couple of other posts that you are also concerned about cable resonances if cable elevators are not spaced correctly and believe that cables have a grain structure which dictates a best direction for the cables.
It is your privilege to believe what you wish, but sometimes when the listening results are consistently outside of the boundaries of explanation it might be worth re-evaluating the listening methods.
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>>Audiophilia is about faith and hope, not evidence. :)<<
"To me , listening is a learned skill ."
I think a lot of it is also about training yourself to believe you hear improvements. Making your music sound better is fun and rewarding and it is somewhat based on what happens outside the ears and somewhat based on what happens inside.
If you can continue to 'hear' improvements after you've tweaked all the things that actually improved the sound then it continues the fun part of the hobby. That is certainly everyones privilege. |
"Either you trust the ears or you don't."
If you don't blind test there is no way to know if you are trusting your ears, outside of faith and hope which another person mentioned and which I continue to think of as everyones right and privilege.
There are already long debates on this website exploring why audio is the singular pursuit in the known universe where proven valid testing methods shouldn't be used and known erroneous tests should be accepted.
Do agree with "trickery works both ways", if the testing means are insufficient then any conclusion is questionable. |
Hmm, noticed that Lacee's favorite power cable manufacturer was using a Yokogawa oscilloscope for some development work.
I've got the same scope in our shop at work (and its big brother) and they come with a low cost detachable power cord. Depending on measurement location ours are often also tied to a really long extension cords, sometimes even a string of two or three.
I guess that since power cords change the output of quality electronics, all of the scope measurements are meaningless unless referenced to a specific power cord?? Weird that manufactures of measurement equipment for industry and medical services & etc don't know this stuff. |
"Some folks are about sound, some are about measurements and seldom do the twain meet."
Agreed, but power cords don't know the difference between signal amplification for sound and signal amplification for measurement or any other purpose. Either they change the output of well designed equipment (putting research, medical diagnosis, and etc. at risk) or else they don't.
Would be interesting to visit someplace at the heart of state of the art electronics, say fermilab, and see if you can find one single 120v power cord that was beyond what you can buy at wall-mart. |
"Look at how many different sounding amplifiers there are today, that on paper all measure the same."
That is actually just something someone made up, I guarantee it did not come from an electronics/measurement type person.
The goal of a good manufacturer is to control quality to the point where there aren't measurable differences between components that are supposed to be identical (e.g. mono blocks), but there are measurable differences even when everything that can be done to prevent them is done. The other thing is that your components are constantly changing, a twelve month old amp will not measure exactly the same as it did the day you bought it. All devices (resistors, inductors, capacitors, transformers, etc.) are constantly either breaking in or breaking down and no two devices are ever exactly the same. The bright side is that as long as things don't get too far out of tolerance specifications, nobody can hear the difference.
I quit stereophile quite a while back, but they used to make amp measurements if you wish to confirm that no too amps of different design measure the same.
"Some things have yet to be measured and sound is one of them."
If it can't be recorded/measured then there is no way for it to be played back on your stereo.
"You'll hear what bad specs sound like and what good specs sound like,"
Interpreting good versus bad is where things get really interesting and also get to be very much about personal preference.
"But this is just falling on deaf ears(literally) if you feel that all amps sound the same."
Even if I believed that I'd still be forced to admit that they measure differently and I couldn't debate you. It is the opposite of the power cord thing.
I'm not going to comment on your reference to the specific company and individual. I think it is aok for you to bring it up in a positive sense though (and as far as I know this may be a great company). |
Lacee. I read the DTCD stuff/Fremer's article on the cable company's website.
Would like to have one of those free to play with, or access to enough detail to be able to see what the thing actually does. Would love to find out that I was entirely wrong and that a device has now been created which will allow all well built electronics to be made better, this would be a really big deal.
A review in something like popular science or one of the many EE and electronics trade mags would carry some real weight. Else, audio mags are not known for reliable info. |
