maxima95, probably repeating something he read somewhere (and without really thinking about it much before posting, never a good idea) writes:
All of this nonsense about all the miles, nodes, transformers and such are just another B.S. line of thought (if you can call it thought) that naysayer latch onto as a form or "gotcha" ridicule that works on those easily swayed by such tactics.
Okay so let's fill in the thinking maxima95 couldn't be bothered to do.
Start with the fundamental principle of electricity: a current flowing through a wire creates a magnetic field around the wire, AND an electromagnetic field crossing a wire induces a current in the wire.
This is actually how the electricity is created in the dam in the first place. Also how the electric current is created in the phono cartridge. Its how transformers work. It is, and now finally we get to the point, how an antenna works.
String a wire, any old wire, anywhere, radio waves come along and induce a current in the wire. Always. Everywhere. Which all us old farts know from having played with the flimsy rabbit ears on TV and the messy FM antenna wire that used to come with every tuner. Every wire everywhere is an antenna.
Now maxima95, if you can be bothered to go look at your panel, your house, and your neighborhood, you will see wires going all over the place.
Because of the way electricity works higher voltages are more efficient over long distances, but very dangerous up close. So transmission lines are high voltage, residential much lower. High voltages are converted to lower voltages in things called transformers.
Probably given the obvious lack of knowledge should explain how transformers work.
Remember the part about fields inducing current? Okay. So a lot of wire wrapped around and around will create a very dense field. Take another wire, wrap it around a lot, all the fields crossing all the wires induces a lot of current.
Now I don't want to lose you here but its a little more complicated than that. Its not just current, usually thought of as flow. Its also voltage, which can be thought of as pressure. By changing the proportion of windings on one side vs the other you can design a transformer that will take an incoming voltage and transform it high, with less current, or lower voltage, but with more current.
Okay. Now we get to the important part.
All this crossing of fields and wires, its not perfect. Everything from the diameter and composition of the wires to the geometry of the windings and their physical spacing, not to mention the part I haven't even mentioned yet, got to leave you something to do on your own you know, all these things affect the precise character of the transformer. This is why there is so much variety in step-up transformers. Why they measure the same but sound so different.
These details of dimensions and construction, one affect they have is on the ability of the transformer to pass very high frequencies. Radio frequencies, being very high, are one of the first things to go.
Now go look outside your house. Might have to walk a ways down the block. Then again maybe not. Just keep looking up at the top of the telephone poles. Eventually you will see a great big round thing with Robbie the Robot type deals coming out with wires attached. There's your friendly neighborhood step down transformer.
So now just to be clear, you can ignorantly deride as nonsense everything to the dam if you want, and get away with it at least until someone comes along with the tech specs on all the transformers in between, but you sure cannot do that for your house and whatever all is downstream from the last transformer on route to your house.
From that point on everything is all one wire. But hey, don't take my word for it. Go pull the panel on your breaker box. Go ahead. Do it! You need to stop making silly arrogant statements on line and this is the way to stop this one. See how all the wires are connected? Three big fat wires come in from the utility- 2 hot, 1 neutral. All your 110v circuits, they come off the panel one breaker at a time, but they all come back and connect together at the neutral bus bar. Ground also connect together at a bus bar.
If you look at this and still think it doesn't matter, sorry, wrong and... but hey! Don't take my word for it! Check it out and prove it to yourself!
Play your favorite music. Listen real good. Now go flip all the breakers on your panel off, except what you need for the stereo. Play it again. That wonderful improvement you're hearing is all coming from having broken the connection of all those antenna wires in the house. What you just heard is exactly what you ridiculed as being nonsense.
As others have said, it's the first few feet your amp (or source) sees which relies on that outlet meeting said specs and ratings as the amp was designed to work with them, and not a different set of specs anywhere back on the line."
"As others have said" yada yada. Now maybe you begin to understand why "as others have said" is a poor argument. Never rely on others. DYODD. Please. Or the next time might not be snowing in Seattle and I won't have time to correct you.
