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Post by jin167 on Oct 24, 2016 23:02:54 GMT -6
It's not about the power cord taken alone. It's about how it affects specific power supplies and an overall grounding system taken as a whole. It SHOULD not make a difference if everything is designed properly however in the real world a lot of stuff isn't and different power cord designs, especially simply adding shielding, can make what to me was a surprising difference. I get your point. I never said proper grounding, power supply topologies, clever routing and installation, length of cables, different potentials etc. would NOT make huge differences in this field. They DO. I absolutely agree with what you say about power supply as a whole system. YES. These things can make a huge difference. About shielding power supply cable - the electromagnetic field around the power cable is much stronger than the one of signal cables. Shielding them might lower the influence on other cables in suboptimal studio installations and therefore - might - make a difference. Hmm. Unorthodox. Didn't calculated if this makes much difference. If it does enough to improve audio in the end. Why not? Even then - the core does not make the difference. And from scientific point of view NO esoteric explanation needed, d'accord with known physics, laws of electrodynamic fields... Huge electromagnetic fields make problems. Industry machines with fat electro motors. Poorly designed or defect washing machines, dryers, there are lots of potential sources of problems. But most of the problems come thru the power line and not by induction into the cable from wall plug to IEC thru the walls. Ferrit filters on power cables from digital equipment with switcher psus to avoid bringing HF dirt into the mains system etc. - yes. Makes sense. No (acceptable) LCD display without this already stock. Good connection, good plugs etc. - i agree with ALL of this. Poor PSUs have poor filtering and therefore dirty frequency stuff above 60Hz. Yes. But - a mains power cable alone makes no difference if it is generally suitable for the load, because a pure cable is - no - serious lowpass filter. Power line filters do make sense for sure. Yes. I do not believe that we are really talking different things. There are lots of ways to improve the power supply system. And of course we are NOT talking ideal or even flawless PSUs inside all studio equipment or an ideal grounding. Therefore these things really matter. Noone is blind about real world mains and psu problems. Especially if we think about decades old equipment, that is in use, with insufficiant capacitors in psus due to age. I get that you improve studios with rebuilding the mains supply system. Makes totally sense. I get that you use seemingly better kind of mains cables and overall get improved performance of the system. You might not think about connector qualities anymore. You will re-think mains cable length and routing if you invest into expensive mains cable. And this makes huge difference. Twisted pair mains power cables? Naaa. Esoteric cable alloys? Naaa. We are not talking theory. Physics and engineering is not abstract model science depending on ideal conditions and becoming invalid because of tolerances, real world problems etc.. There are several methods of evidence. The statistical method is only ONE of them. And most probably the weakest, most failure prone, hardest to make systematically correct, most expensive. Deduction from the known is not only more "elegant" but also brings the explanation of the phenomenon with it most of the time. Not deduction from belief but from the known. There are few elementary powers in the universe. No way seemingly hearing improvement in audio range with the power cables we are talking about is an evidence for an unknown "new" elementary power that is "overlooked". There is many other explanations already that are well inside the known physics, cybernetics, hearing biology, psycho-acoustics and psychology. There is no reason to belief someting that can be known. And of course no serious evidence of such a mysterious new physical principle or elementary power has been given in the last 100 years of electricity. Because you can not proof what does not exist.It's often the other way around unfortunately. You can't un-prove what does not exist. Learned this from years of debate with creationists and anti-vaccers.
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Post by johneppstein on Oct 25, 2016 3:07:52 GMT -6
I'm glad there are guys who feel they can hear the difference in a power cable. That's fine for them. I've known guys who felt that using copper water pipes as speaker cables is making a huge difference for them too. (seriously) It falls on deaf ears when tell them that the leads inside the speaker are 20 gauge. Erm, resistance is cumulative. Ohm's law, y'know? Buit that really isn't the point, is it? The point is how it affects the decisions made by the engineer and producer on the session, not what some putative punter hears on his K-Mart stereo. The surgeon is always looking for a sharper scalpel. No. To reiterate - the point of this stuff in the studio is how it affects the decisions of those making the record. These decisions will be in some way audible to the end user, even if the end delivery format is mangled nearly beyond recognitionj
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Post by johneppstein on Oct 25, 2016 3:21:09 GMT -6
Just because there are nutcase snake oil salesmen in the world does not mean thaqt everyone is a nutcase snake oil salesman unless they arte deadly skepitcal of everything that doesn't tow the line of reactionary conformity. Science is not dogma. Religion is dogma. If I'm not mistaken, religion is a verboten topic on this forum. Science is paying attention to the observations of astute people and investigating why these people are observing these things. That's how we discover such things as proof of Einstein's theory and black holes by observastion of gravitational lensing once a better tool (the Hubble telescope) becomes available to test things that before could not be quantified by hardware. Not everything is known. People who think it is are...... Well, I'll leave that up to you. As to the religion of ABX, please see my previous post on the flaws of blind testing as practiced by adherents of that religion. Note that I'm not saying that blind testing, if done correctly and applied in cases where it's appropriate is not a useful tool; it is. But it is fiendishly difficult to set up a blind test properly and even then it is not the appropriate methodology for much of what people attempt to apply it to. For example, you cannot use a blind test to prove a negative. "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." - William Skakespeare
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Post by johneppstein on Oct 25, 2016 3:44:21 GMT -6
Twisted pair mains power cables? Naaa. The Jensen paper I referred to that supported twisted pair power cables was NOT the one linked to in this thread. (That one touched on the subject but did not go into detail.) The one I referred to was (1) a much shorter paper and (2) went deeper into the scientific reasons and measured proof for this practice. At the time I read it it wass not available online, only by mail from Jensen. I might still have it somewhere, but all my stuff is in boxes from my recent move, and most of the boxes of papers are unsorted due to the inadequate time I had to pack. BTW, that paper concerned twisted pair IN THE WALLS, not a twisted pair IEC cable.
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Post by rowmat on Oct 25, 2016 4:10:37 GMT -6
Just because there are nutcase snake oil salesmen in the world does not mean thaqt everyone is a nutcase snake oil salesman unless they arte deadly skepitcal of everything that doesn't tow the line of reactionary conformity. Science is not dogma. Religion is dogma. If I'm not mistaken, religion is a verboten topic on this forum. Science is paying attention to the observations of astute people and investigating why these people are observing these things. That's how we discover such things as proof of Einstein's theory and black holes by observastion of gravitational lensing once a better tool (the Hubble telescope) becomes available to test things that before could not be quantified by hardware. Not everything is known. People who think it is are...... Well, I'll leave that up to you. As to the religion of ABX, please see my previous post on the flaws of blind testing as practiced by adherents of that religion. Note that I'm not saying that blind testing, if done correctly and applied in cases where it's appropriate is not a useful tool; it is. But it is fiendishly difficult to set up a blind test properly and even then it is not the appropriate methodology for much of what people attempt to apply it to. For example, you cannot use a blind test to prove a negative. "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." - William Skakespeare Did you actually read the entire article? The 'foibles' of blind testing were mentioned. My point was the author was not a cable sceptic, take his review of the CD enhancer device as that of a nutcase snake oil salesman if you will or not, but at least he wrote the power cable article and included test results which may have conflicted with his own opinions. Of note a total of five Nordost Valhalla power cables were swapped out for standard cables on each part of the system during the testing. At $2,500 per cable that's $12,500 worth of power cables in 2004. (closer to $20,000 in today's money) The tests showed that no one could reliably identify which cables were which. I don't know about you but for $12,500 I would think most would want to hear some distinct improvement even allowing for the foibles of most testing procedures. $12,500 would buy quite a bit of room acoustic treatment which I would argue would have made a distinct improvement and be money far better spent.
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Post by johneppstein on Oct 25, 2016 4:33:04 GMT -6
Just because there are nutcase snake oil salesmen in the world does not mean thaqt everyone is a nutcase snake oil salesman unless they arte deadly skepitcal of everything that doesn't tow the line of reactionary conformity. Science is not dogma. Religion is dogma. If I'm not mistaken, religion is a verboten topic on this forum. Science is paying attention to the observations of astute people and investigating why these people are observing these things. That's how we discover such things as proof of Einstein's theory and black holes by observastion of gravitational lensing once a better tool (the Hubble telescope) becomes available to test things that before could not be quantified by hardware. Not everything is known. People who think it is are...... Well, I'll leave that up to you. As to the religion of ABX, please see my previous post on the flaws of blind testing as practiced by adherents of that religion. Note that I'm not saying that blind testing, if done correctly and applied in cases where it's appropriate is not a useful tool; it is. But it is fiendishly difficult to set up a blind test properly and even then it is not the appropriate methodology for much of what people attempt to apply it to. For example, you cannot use a blind test to prove a negative. "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." - William Skakespeare Did you actually read the entire article? The 'foibles' of blind testing were indeed discussed. My point was the author was not a cable sceptic, take that as a nutcase snake oil salesman if you will, but at least he wrote the article and included test results which may have conflicted with his own opinions. Of note a total of five Vahalla power cables were swapped out for standard cables on each part of the system during the testing. At $2,500 per cable that's $12,500 worth of power cables in 2004. (closer to $20,000 in today's money) The tests showed that no one could reliably identify which cables were which. I don't know about you but for $12,500 I would think most would want to hear some distinct improvement even allowing for the foibles of most testing procedures. $12,500 would buy quite a bit of acoustic treatment which I would argue would have made a distinct improvement and be money far better spent. You know, not all expensive cables are created equal. You can't say "Oh, I tested this one so they're all nonsense!" Now, I don't use expensive power cables, I can't afford it. And I do think that a great many are ludicrously overpriced. But I've heard enough from people whose ears I respect and who are not the sort to be fooled by expectation bias to believe that there likely something there. Am I going to run out and buy such cables? No, I don't have the money and if I did there are too many things ahead of that on the list - more good microphones, a bunch of reels of tape, better monitors, console upgrade, a few more compressors to round out the basic collection, etc, etc, etc. If somebody buys me a grand prize winning ticket to the Mega-Millions lottery I might consider it. But personally, I suspect that cables I could make myself out of premium quality #12 with quality connectors would probably get me in the ballpark
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Post by rowmat on Oct 25, 2016 4:46:28 GMT -6
I would think for not much more than $50 most DIY'ers could indeed get themselves in the 'ballpark'. However for $2,500 I would expect get off the planet!
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Post by Martin John Butler on Oct 25, 2016 10:09:45 GMT -6
A $2,500 power cord might make sense on a $150,000 stereo system, but even then, I'd want to audition them. My friend had an $85,000 system, and tried a few different brands of cables, and he settled on Synergistic Research. His cables cost a little over 1% of the budget, which doesn't seem unreasonable for someone at the high end.
People keep mentioning extremely high priced cables, which of course exist, but audiophiles I've known typically buy a much less expensive power cord. Usually they spend maybe $100-$350, after trying a few out. So mentioning those super high prices all the time is just another attempt to make people buying them seem silly or misguided.
If you had a Mercedes Maybach, you're probably not going to the corner tire shop for wheels, it's the same kind of thing when it comes to the high end. They're for hobbyists and enthusiasts, and that's fine with me. Every hobby, cars, boating, flying, motorcycling, hiking, you name it, have high end gear that might not necessarily be that much different then lower priced models, but then they might be just different enough to be of value to the hobbyist.
As Jim Williams recommended, I too think it's wise to just buy a power cord or cables from a company like Kimber Kable, a company where serious engineers and designers spent decades testing and redesigning.
I'd bet you can find some of their power cords for $100-$300. Making one for $50, you'd lose the time it takes to make it, and still may not have as good quality as a Kimber Cable, because they've done it million times before.
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Post by rowmat on Oct 25, 2016 13:21:27 GMT -6
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Post by Martin John Butler on Oct 25, 2016 17:34:43 GMT -6
Oh jeez, I've met him a couple of times, and I wouldn't take one second of his shpiel to heart. He'd listen to a shitty 70's Kenwood receiver and tell you it sounds no different than your 300 watt MacIntosh amp and preamp, then tell you he can prove it, seriously, he would. The guy's just insufferable.
No time to watch right now, but I've heard it all before, and I found him to be completely obnoxious. Friends who's opinions are respected by tens of thousands of people can't stand this guy for minute. He's like the guy at church yelling you're all sinners and going to hell. Sometimes if you know the source of information, you know better than to pay attention to it.
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Post by johneppstein on Oct 26, 2016 15:55:28 GMT -6
Oh jeez, I've met him a couple of times, and I wouldn't take one second of his shpiel to heart. He'd listen to a shitty 70's Kenwood receiver and tell you it sounds no different than your 300 watt MacIntosh amp and preamp, then tell you he can prove it, seriously, he would. The guy's just insufferable. No time to watch right now, but I've heard it all before, and I found him to be completely obnoxious. Friends who's opinions are respected by tens of thousands of people can't stand this guy for minute. He's like the guy at church yelling you're all sinners and going to hell. Sometimes if you know the source of information, you know better than to pay attention to it. Oh, the "Audio Expert" <cough-cough>. Yeah. I have considerable experience tangling with him and I can tell you from experience that he's not above faking data to "prove" a point and then tries to move the goal posts when he's caught out. I don't know about him and Kenwoods but I do know that he's claimed there is no difference in audio quality betwenn a Soundblaster card and a professional converter, for example a Lavry. That was the subject of a long and acrimoneous set of threads at the Purple place, which "The Expert" somehow got suppressed. However the guy sitting next to him who looks a bit like a balding Santa Claus is my friend James "J_J" Johnston, formerly of Bell Labs and similar institutions who is one of the world's guiding lights in perceptual audio, who is worth listening to. His POV isn't always the same as mine, but he definitely knows his stuff, unlike the self-labelled "expert" sitting next to him.
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Post by Martin John Butler on Oct 26, 2016 16:23:27 GMT -6
Thanks John, your comments are much appreciated. I'll take a fair question and many of the guys here make fair points, even if differing from mine, but this guy's got an agenda, and it's not a good one. It's some kind of personal ego trip, designed to bring all the audiophiles and music producer/engineers down. He'd only be happy when there's no one left to enjoy music on a great listening system, because they're all the same, and he can prove it.
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Post by johneppstein on Oct 26, 2016 23:51:28 GMT -6
Thanks John, your comments are much appreciated. I'll take a fair question and many of the guys here make fair points, even if differing from mine, but this guy's got an agenda, and it's not a good one. It's some kind of personal ego trip, designed to bring all the audiophiles and music producer/engineers down. He'd only be happy when there's no one left to enjoy music on a great listening system, because they're all the same, and he can prove it. What "Beetlejuice"* wants more than anything else in the whole world is to be known as the James Randi of audio, which he'll never do because (A) He has agendas, (B) he's not objective (C) he doesn't understand or respect the scientific method (D) He fakes tests (and has been caught on more than one occasion, by different sets of people (E) he's dishonest (F) and he never listens to anybody except himself. If he ever cites a reference, double check it, because he'll interpret things through what the believes ought to have been said instead of what actually was. Before things became difficult between us I sent him a rough songwriter demo of something I was working on, with the written understanding that it was to be kept strictly private. After it became clear that I was not going to support his BS he said he was going to upload it to various websites as a sample of my finished work in an effort to discredit me. I had to sic my lawyer on him to get him to desist. * - I call him Beetlejuice because if you say his name 3 or so times he's liable to show up and start spewing....
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Post by Martin John Butler on Oct 27, 2016 7:43:23 GMT -6
Yes, he was here early on, and was intransigent. Thankfully, he moved on, but you never know..
What's also interesting, is how quickly we tend to accept someone's "expert opinion", when it jibes with their own ideas. We just happen to have dealt with he who can't be named, know where he's really at, and I wouldn't let that guy give my dog a treat.
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Post by jazznoise on Oct 27, 2016 7:56:02 GMT -6
I think thrash talking the guy after he's left is a little weak,and also doesn't make any critique of his arguments.
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Post by Martin John Butler on Oct 27, 2016 8:08:38 GMT -6
Well, normally, I'd agree with you jazz noise, but if you had any dealings with him, you might not feel that way. I would never have had reason to speak about it, except that someone posted a link, essentially accepting him as an expert, and some of us just happen to know better. I wanted those folks interested in our discussion to at least know something of it.
Honestly, I have no time to waste listening yet again to someone's opinions whom I disrespect, and then debating them. I'll let it be now..
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Post by donr on Oct 27, 2016 9:06:27 GMT -6
Thanks John, your comments are much appreciated. I'll take a fair question and many of the guys here make fair points, even if differing from mine, but this guy's got an agenda, and it's not a good one. It's some kind of personal ego trip, designed to bring all the audiophiles and music producer/engineers down. He'd only be happy when there's no one left to enjoy music on a great listening system, because they're all the same, and he can prove it. What "Beetlejuice"* wants more than anything else in the whole world is to be known as the James Randi of audio, . . ." Who wouldn't want to be the Amazing Randi of audo? Great analogy.
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Post by johneppstein on Oct 28, 2016 20:28:06 GMT -6
I think thrash talking the guy after he's left is a little weak,and also doesn't make any critique of his arguments. I'm not saying anything I haven't said to his face (online face,anyway) on numerous occasions. In fact, I'm being rather restrained. And his threat to pirate my songtwriter demo and present it as an example of my finished work was utterely unconscionable and more dishonest than your presidential candidate of (negative) choice. Not to metion blatantly illegal to post a copyrighted work without permission. Cost me $500 to my lawyer to shut him up and I still don't have absolute proof that he didn't do it anyway. He also posts childish "trash" about people who disagree with him on his website. ethanwiner.com/mixerman.htmNote the crudely photoshopped image. And FWIW, the assertion that Eric ever censored any of "The Expert's" posts is a blatant lie. Much easier to let him hang by his own petard. As ye sow, so shall ye reap. Now lets get back to the subject, please.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 28, 2016 20:52:29 GMT -6
Many years ago, scientists, geologists, physicists, chemists would happily completely ruin each other's lives for the sake of their beliefs. It was more than professional - it was personal. These days we look back on them with mild amusement....
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Post by Martin John Butler on Oct 29, 2016 8:36:53 GMT -6
Edison electrocuted an elephant in a highly publicized event to "prove" alternating current wasn't safe.
Any time someone says the can "prove" something involving electric current, I think about that. I keep an open mind, but I'm wary of folks who pontificate without actually trying something. I'm not necessarily referring to guys her, I've had this debate since 1996.
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Post by jazznoise on Oct 29, 2016 9:59:05 GMT -6
Edison electrocuted an elephant in a highly publicized event to "prove" alternating current wasn't safe. Any time someone says the can "prove" something involving electric current, I think about that. I keep an open mind, but I'm wary of folks who pontificate without actually trying something. I'm not necessarily referring to guys her, I've had this debate since 1996. The Third Reich refused to allow its scientists use the Theory of Relativity on the basis that it was "Jewish Science", meaning that they could never achieve anything with the seriousness or scope of the Manhattan project. Rejecting something based on cultural attitudes, or bias, rather than the material reality of the subject at hand is a flawed outlook. If the science adds up, we take it on board. If you're handed a paper, such as Oohashi's paper on the Hypersonic Effect, with a dodgy methodology, incomplete data and a set of scientific conditions that seem impossible to replicate then that's a different matter. Likewise it's a different matter if papers have come out against a theory. We can't use scepticism to reject the notion of gravity and then fly out our window. We have to be more material in our world view than that, or we won't be able to do anything constructive. Today I played a 100W, 10Kg bass amp that sounded fucking awesome. Unthinkable 100 years ago. It's a Class D amp, no doubt. We can let the sceptics decry it, or we can move forward. I used a plain kettle lead and power chord, sounded good. No issues to my ears. If someone else here's something, fine, but it's down to them to prove and outline the phenomena the rest of us are missing. And so far no one has made a good case.
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Post by jimwilliams on Oct 29, 2016 11:55:19 GMT -6
Try some Kimber 8TC speaker cable and tell us what you think? That's one easy way to confirm that cables can make a big difference.
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Post by Martin John Butler on Oct 29, 2016 12:25:28 GMT -6
Try some Kimber 8TC speaker cable and tell us what you think? That's one easy way to confirm that cables can make a big difference. Uhh.. that's what I'm talking about.
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Post by johneppstein on Oct 29, 2016 16:50:16 GMT -6
Many years ago, scientists, geologists, physicists, chemists would happily completely ruin each other's lives for the sake of their beliefs. It was more than professional - it was personal. These days we look back on them with mild amusement.... If you think those days are gone I envy your naivete. Seriously. The amount of infighting that goes on in a major university,not to mention between rivals from different institutions, well....
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