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Post by Martin John Butler on Aug 19, 2013 11:04:57 GMT -6
Thanks John, too bad my bank account isn't quite as weighty ;-)
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Post by tonycamphd on Aug 19, 2013 11:22:57 GMT -6
Tony, unfortunately that's not correct. USA 120VAC (single phase) line power is not balanced and is not split across the hot and neutral. HI Svart, to clarify, I never suggested that any service supplied power leg is balanced? Residential feeds in the US are provided single phase, 110/120 per leg, and the neutral and ground are generally bonded. What i'm asking is FROM this balancing filter box, home.comcast.net/~thomasw_2/CheapskateBP4.html the idea that the 120 hot is being split 60/60 with one being 180 degrees from the other, sent over the hot/neutral to your audio device, the ground now designated the 0 return to the box, will cancel noise, or will it not? and if it does, how is that not purposeful in a recording environment? |
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Post by tonycamphd on Aug 19, 2013 11:31:20 GMT -6
Hi MJB, i think the problem i have with the whole "expensive cable" thing, preceded by a quality receptacle, is explained by this analogy,
you can hook an expensive fire hose to the end of a garden hose, but in the end, you get nothing more than an expensive garden hose.
the garden hose is the 14gauge romex extension cord in you walls, if that makes sense?
jmo
T
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Post by Martin John Butler on Aug 19, 2013 11:45:58 GMT -6
Totally get it Tony, and I felt exactly the same way for decades. That's when you just gotta try it. Whatever difference can be had by what I consider a decent power cord, for whatever reason, is obvious to your ears, even if it's counter intuitive. If the difference I got when switching from the stock cord to the $2,000 power cord my friend gave me could be had for $50, everyone would be on it like flies on garbage. What I think is cool, is that for $50, you can get a highly engineered outlet that helps everything, and for around $100, some power cords I've tried made clearly noticeable, if not huge improvements in the noise floor, bass note pitch and tightness, and glare in the highs. When previously unintelligible words become clear, you don't need to read a scientific paper to know something just got better.
After having the unique luxury of trying dozens of $100- $10,000 cable systems around ten years ago, I can honestly say they make an important difference. But I can also say, you can get a very welcome improvement at a very modest price, and it's worth a try. It's one of those "nothing ventured, nothing gained" things. Maybe you can borrow a nice power cord from someone and try it. You also gotta leave it on and run it in. Sometimes "break in" is a fantasy, but sometimes, and I know this too is another whole can o' worms, sometimes break in matters.
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Post by svart on Aug 19, 2013 12:06:57 GMT -6
Tony, my bad. I misunderstood your statement "I'm not doubting you, but my understanding is a120v leg is split over the hot and neutral at 60v/180 degree's out of phase, and serves as noise canceling". I thought you were applying that to standard AC, but I reread that now and understand that you were explaining your thoughts on balanced AC. My apologies!
On to your question. Matching transformers are used when you have some kind of coupling between the power system and your product going on. I've used them in systems that needed large amounts of DC offsets decoupled from AC line power in situations that using coupling caps would not work and such. They are also handy for filtering, for reasons I mentioned in the earlier posting. Beyond these utilitarian needs, I've never seen a need for "balancing" AC power.
From the pages I've read about this, most are regurgitation of other pages based on pseudoscience. They falsely attribute any difference in perception to the "balancing" while ignoring that they've just built a very expensive reactive low pass filter. This also doesn't take into account the "confirmation bias" that one gets from hearing small changes after after spending tons of money on device that you hope will work.
The page you mention does a few things that *would* make a difference though.
They add ~1mFd caps to the AC inputs.. This acts like any other decoupling cap and creates a LPF that shorts noise above the cutoff point. They already do this in computer power supplies and devices that tend to make a lot of noise.
They add the Schurter AC line filters, just like I linked to above. However, the caps they added across the input AC connectors are already included in the line filters.. Adding a second set won't double your loss.
At this point, I would have stopped unless there was some real need to decouple neutral from ground.
EDIT: I actually remembered a time that I went back and added an isolation/matching transformer to something. I was working on building a power system in a truck. It was a portable generator AND a sinewave inverter (Most inverters are NOT sine output..). While the equipment in the truck worked well on the inverter, once the generator was kicked on, things started acting very strange. There were monitors on the truck and they went haywire. Noise all over the screens, etc. It turned out that the generator was outputting a semi-sine wave. Computers and stuff with switching power supplies didn't seem to care, but anything with an analog signal was going nuts. The semi-sine was causing horrific transient noise on neutral throughout the truck and since ground was tied to neutral, the noise was getting back up into the system through ground. The solution was to isolate certain sections of equipment by using large power isolation transformers to break the neutral/ground link and allow ground to be clean for those devices. The isolation transformers smoothed out the semi-sine into a mostly-sine wave by LPFiltering the upper harmonics off the AC. The rest was done with inline AC filters like those mentioned above.
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Post by Martin John Butler on Aug 19, 2013 12:40:31 GMT -6
I'm glad to be be in the company of guys like the ones participating here. I can learn from you guys and still enjoy the conversation. No one's being condescending at all, and that's a real pleasure.
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Post by svart on Aug 19, 2013 12:53:15 GMT -6
Just trying to filter out some of the nonsense on the internet and save some folks some money.
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Post by Martin John Butler on Aug 19, 2013 14:51:30 GMT -6
Just for giggles... The black one costs around $250, the white on from Synergistic Research, $2,000. Don't laugh too loud, remember, if you had a Porsche race car, upgrades would be pricey, for someone with a $30,000 stereo, such a power cord might be appropriate. I had a great friend who was wealthy, but unpretentious. He had very few luxuries, but really loved music, so he bought two very good stereo systems. One cost $85,000, one $55,000. The $55,000 system sounded better than the more expensive one to me. My system costs ten percent of that, and delivers 95% or more of what those systems delivered. But, if you want that last few percent, you gotta pay. There must be something in those Neve consoles that makes it worth all that coin, no? Attachments:
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Post by svart on Aug 19, 2013 15:41:59 GMT -6
The white one looks like 00ga wire houses use for power from the street transformers!
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Post by tonycamphd on Aug 19, 2013 15:45:25 GMT -6
Man! i wonder how many farads capacitance that white one has? lol! you could plug your house into a telephone pole with that sucker!
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Post by Johnkenn on Aug 19, 2013 17:17:57 GMT -6
Ward is right, everything does matter. Taking that further, cabling matters a lot more than most people wish it did, because they need to spend money on something they paid little attention to before. Ignorance was truly bliss in this scenario, and I've been there, and done that. Around eight years or so back, a few very high end audio cable manufacturers would send me a collection of cables they were developing for a kind of beta testing. I would carefully listen to one cable at a time, and take notes. It would take about a month to really do it properly. What I learned is that some differences in audio quality are not obvious at first listen. It works the same way a small mustard stain on a nice tie would work, once noticed, it's all you can see. So, the takeaway from that is YES, cables do matter, sometimes in a subtle way, and sometimes in a big way. There are thousands and thousands of arguments online between those who can "prove" there's no difference, and those who hear changes, usually improvements. Recently, some new technology has been developed that can measure jitter and other artifacts that previously went undetected. So, for decades, engineers would berate us poor uneducated lay people saying we heard changes, and now there's concrete proof those differences exist, and have always existed. So, trust your ears. Recently, a friend sent me two power cords, I 'd made a few changes to my music system, and needed one. Both looked serious, like small baby anacondas. I switched out the original $5 power cord, and tried the two new ones. I had no idea what they cost, or how they were rated. One sounded good, a little tighter bass than the stock cord, a pinch less grainy on the highs. The other one, just blew the doors down. I mean WTF, a power cord made THAT much difference? Even my wife, the least likely person you'll ever meet to comment on sound quality, mentioned the stereo sounds much better, like the guy was here in the living room. Fast forward, the cord that "lost" cost around $250 originally, the cord that won, originally sold for.... $2,000. OK, I'm not saying a $2,000 power cord makes any sense for us audio engineers, ( and I include myself in that category, even though I'm not qualified officially), I'd much rather have a Burl ! But the point is cables do matter. Anyone says otherwise, fuck em', listen for yourself, and be patient. Now, after all that, here's my advice, from a former cable junkie, (which might change, depending on how much cable you're talking about). For guys with lots of audio engineering knowledge, esoteric converters and gadgets galore, I'm surprised by how much pushback I get when I offer this simple bit of advice, for goodness sake, before you buy any cabling, buy an audiophile outlet for everything you plug into. That alone will probably clear up more digital haze than a dozen new plug ins or higher sample rates. take a look: $49.95 here: www.psaudio.com/shop/power-port-premier/If you need more than one or two, try something like this: www.psaudio.com/shop/dectet-power-center/Now, instead of Radio Shack speaker wire, or the ubiquitous and dreaded Monster Cable", (which is like Bose, to audiophiles, anathema), consider a different brand. Try this, it's a good place to start: www.crutchfield.com/shopsearch/speaker_cable.html* one of my Slutzy buddies, Matt Blue tried the $49.95 outlet and his jaw didn't stop dropping for 24 hours. Just bought the PS Audio Power Port... |
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Post by wiz on Aug 19, 2013 17:34:03 GMT -6
Okay, so power comes through the cord differently into the power supply of the device, using this cord .. .how?
I can understand how the ability of wire to transfer energy, could impact sound, if it dropped the voltage and current coming in, to a point where the electronics of the device it is connected to started to operate outside of its specification. A poor example to illustrate this is that the power cord acts as some sort of resistor.
If, the equipment producing the sound, was effected to such a way as to "blow the doors off" then line voltage fluctuations would make it unlistenable I would think.
Hey, I dont doubt the ability of people to hear things I cant hear, I would just love an explanation as to how you think its happening. Your supply voyage, is quite possibly varying far more during the course of the day, I would think, than the power cord is changing it.
The audio portion of the gear you are listening to, fucntions on DC power. The AC coming in from the wall, is recitified and transformed into various DC voltages. Unless, the stability or ability of those DC voltages post power supply rectification is chaning, how can the sound possibly change? The difference a correct size power cord could make to the AC coming into the powersupply, would be wayyyyyy inside the fluctuations of the power supply company, if it werent how come the sound doesnt change all the time.
This is a group for audio engineers and thats what the people here are.
We spend our lives agonising over the most minor of things to do with audio.
I just think, that once you get to a certain diameter and type of wire, its sonically irrelevant.
Also, think of this, how the hell are we going to make and mix records if they are influenced to that extent by the changing of a power cord? Do I mix so it doesnt blow the doors off?
I suggest, you dont bother trying 250 dollar power cords .
cheers
Wiz
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Post by Martin John Butler on Aug 19, 2013 17:34:22 GMT -6
Rockin' ! Can't wait to see how it works for you. Clean the prongs of whatever you're plugging into it too.
That cable is kinda bad ass, the scale in the photo doesn't do the power cord justice, there are 4 wires inside the casing, each one is approx. 1/2 " to 3/4" , so that's one fat mo fo.
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Post by Martin John Butler on Aug 19, 2013 17:41:16 GMT -6
wiz, I suggest you just try one or two before passing judgement, no offense intended.
You've got nothing to lose, and possibly something to gain. Believe me, I felt exactly as you do, until I started trying a few different cables and cords.
Have a little fun with it, use your ears, turn your brain off for a minute, I promise, they will hear something you like. Borrow one from someone, there are dozens of audiophile groups around, and I bet someone would be glad to lend one to you. The science really doesn't matter if the result is positive, although it's of legitimate interest, and of course, no one wants to buy fools gold. But your ears can't be so easily fooled, especially someone sensitive enough to listen for something like minor variations in tone by pushing a compressor.5db harder.
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Post by svart on Aug 20, 2013 7:07:20 GMT -6
Ok, I try not to be judgemental about things, but anytime I read descriptions of some device that use completely unmeasurable and opinionated descriptors like "Cleans the soundstage/ Open, airy, top end/ Improves midrange bloom" I have to put on my skeptic hat.
If you are going to sell a 10$ high-insertion-force medical grade socket for 50$, at least just describe it as such and leave the vague emotional descriptions off of it and just explain why it works better. Or are they afraid that once people understand *why* it works better that they'll go to their local store and pick up something equally as good for 1/4th the cost?
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Post by Martin John Butler on Aug 20, 2013 7:38:10 GMT -6
In PS Audio's description of the Power Port they say "The Power Port is a custom built, AV Grade isolated ground receptacle that will ensure a life-long level of excellence. The Power Port exceeds hospital grade standards for grip strength, contact resistance and current delivery. 15 coats of polished nickel over high-purity copper, with the “grip of Mickey Mantle” and polished nickel plated hardware".
I figure if it's custom made, and they use higher quality materials, manufactured to a higher spec than a medical grade socket, it's a fair price. In my experience, quality of the metals used makes a difference in sound quality. I'm not trying to sell anything here. I'm just relaying my experience with a few things that I figured guys who fuss like crazy over every detail of so many things audio production related might want to give try. I'm no expert, and believe me, I've heard the arguments against these things a thousand times. I've also seen arguments and scientific papers explaning why they do work.
People just enjoy debating. Add up how much money you've spent on your music production system, the time you've spent learning about production and engineering, and then tell me it's not worth $50 to try something new? I found it's worth it for the peace of mind alone, just knowing I've done all that I can to get the most from the aspects I can control. Audiophiles have taken
$2 hardware store outlets, $10 hospital grade outlets, $50 upgrade outlets and dozens of much higher cost outlets, and compared them vigorously, and it never stops. Visit audiogon.com, Stereophile, analogue planet, and you could spend a lifetime just trying to keep up with scientific tests, user reviews and debates. I remember how viciously some audiophiles denied the effect of jitter for years, and now, it's common to look at jitter specs.
So, I take the middle road, I don't fall for too much hype, but I'm willing to give a go to a $50-$250 upgrade that might improve everything I listen to, and I'd rather spend my time making music than trying win a debate with anyone who clearly has much more technical knowledge that I do. The one thing I have, is my ears and my experience, which often trumps a lifetime of technical expertise. So, I just wish my fellow slutty gear fanatics all the best, whichever path they find.
A long time ago, I too was highly skeptical of cabling, not just wary. The difference in my situation is I had the unusual opportunity of auditioning and carefully listening to dozens of quite expensive cables and cords, with plenty of time to try them out, and found some simply sounded better to me. At that point, I just accepted that, and happily used the products I liked. Am I fooling myself somehow, maybe, but I don't think so, and I don't care. This will eventually lead to existential questions. I'll just say it with my music. I do look forward to hearing some tracks of some of the posters here, I bet they're good. All of you have lots of great insights and experience.
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Post by Johnkenn on Aug 20, 2013 7:49:57 GMT -6
Ok, I try not to be judgemental about things, but anytime I read descriptions of some device that use completely unmeasurable and opinionated descriptors like "Cleans the soundstage/ Open, airy, top end/ Improves midrange bloom" I have to put on my skeptic hat. If you are going to sell a 10$ high-insertion-force medical grade socket for 50$, at least just describe it as such and leave the vague emotional descriptions off of it and just explain why it works better. Or are they afraid that once people understand *why* it works better that they'll go to their local store and pick up something equally as good for 1/4th the cost? DOH |
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Post by tonycamphd on Aug 20, 2013 11:48:10 GMT -6
I have to say i smell a rat on that receptacle like svart, I am in the midst of trying to bring an article of manufacture to market, the costs of tooling, materials and such fly completely out of control when you deviate from norms, i'd bet the farm, that this thing is absolutely no different than a medical grade receptacle other than the silk screening. I could be wrong though?
JK, maybe once you receive yours, you could do a home depot run and compare it to one of the medical grade outlets?
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Post by svart on Aug 20, 2013 12:01:30 GMT -6
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Post by Martin John Butler on Aug 20, 2013 12:04:15 GMT -6
Man, you guys are a tough crowd. All I know is the thing does what they say it does. Somewhere between 10 and 15 years ago, it was recommended to me by a retired hi-fi audio professional, whose reputation was stellar for 50 years. As a hobby, he tries all sorts of things extensively. The kind of thing few of us have time to bother with. He knows minute details like get the red dot, not the yellow dot version, and tells you why. Anyway, I've had good experiences with PS Audio. There's a lot of scrutiny in the high end hi-fi business, and if they were dressing up some product they got at a medical supply company, it would be common knowledge before the first outlet got installed. In the information age, stuff like that just doesn't stay secret long. Skepticism is normal, but I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything, I'm just relaying my experience, not trying to prove I'm right. Try some new cables, don't try, doesn't matter to me, for those curious, maybe I've opened a door to something they'll enjoy. If I say I've had 30 people express the exact same skeptical sentiments, who later had an "oh my god" experience, I wouldn't be exaggerating. But then, there are some who find the difference is negligible. As I said previously, nothing ventured, nothing gained.
I'm looking forward to hearing about John's impressions, once he gets his new receptacle.
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Post by svart on Aug 20, 2013 12:18:04 GMT -6
Actually, I use regular solid copper 2 conductor Romex wire for my stereo speakers. I just soldered on banana jacks. Works great, high power handling. I use 10-12awg stranded copper for the small studio monitors. For the large monitors, I use digital rated RCA cables because I run SPDIF straight to the speakers.  And MJB, I don't mean to be a pessimist. If people have the money and wish to buy stuff that ends up making a difference in how they feel, that's great, but it doesn't mean that it actually made a difference in how it works. Placebos are very powerful things, and confirmation bias is even more powerful. The problem I see is that most audiophile stuff is promoted with a magical aire around it, like it solves problems that nothing else can, but the truth is much harsher. The truth is that most people overlook simple and cheap solutions because they are psychologically more interested in being dazzled and wow'd rather than simply researching and learning the physics behind something and realizing that magic isn't real. The reality is that they probably just didn't think their setup through and forgot some small detail. |
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Post by tonycamphd on Aug 20, 2013 12:19:54 GMT -6
Sorry MJB, you're the best bro, but this site has it for $99!!! and some caught cheating pictures to boot, i'm thinking this is total BS? Repackaged hospital grade? Edit; i'm heading to the home depot right now, i will pick up a hospital grade outlet to see what gives?  |
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Post by Martin John Butler on Aug 20, 2013 12:49:29 GMT -6
PS Audio wrote, ""The Power Port is a custom built, AV Grade isolated ground receptacle that will ensure a life-long level of excellence. The Power Port exceeds hospital grade standards for grip strength, contact resistance and current delivery. 15 coats of polished nickel over high-purity copper and polished nickel plated hardware". Perhaps they're required to label something "hospital grade" by law, or if they begin with a manufactured hospital grade receptacle, and then do all that "15 coats of polished nickel, use high-purity copper", etc, or simply have the manufacturer make them to their specs. Thing is, I don't think it's the same thing as a standard hospital grade outlet, it might be the similar to an audio mod, it's now different. It worked nicely for me.
I think making your own audio cable is kinda cool, but I bet if you had access to 4 or 5 major brands of audio cable, and just tried them, you'd be pleasantly surprised. How can you know if you haven't tried it? That's one way the internet is great. Over time, you get to know someone's tastes, background and experience, and come to trust their thoughts about some things, or at least feel they're credible. Some of the things I disbelieved ages ago were introduced to me by people whose opinions I'd come to trust, and I'm really glad I gave them a try.
* Just remembered, I do have a hospital grade receptacle that looks almost the same as the PS Audio piece, I've switched them out, because I changed my stereo system's position in my room, and the PS one did in fact sound better, but it was a around 8 years ago, so I son't recall much more about it.
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Post by svart on Aug 20, 2013 13:00:49 GMT -6
Knowing the costs associated with bringing up production lines for items like this, I doubt that company has 25 million$ to make their own custom outlet production line. It's probably an OEM part with possibly custom insertion force and some silkscreened lettering on the front.
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Post by Martin John Butler on Aug 20, 2013 13:12:03 GMT -6
I just posted this at Audiogon.com. It takes a few hours before they post it, but someone there will know the inside story, and I'm curious now too.
"Some audio engineer friends of mine are balking at my suggestion regarding trying PS Audio Power Point receptacles. In my experience they do what PS says they do. That said, when the cover is removed from their power point receptacle, it shows "Hospital Grade". So it appears it's a rebadge. That's OK if they actually do all that 15 coats of nickel thing, but perhaps the manufacturer of hospital grade plugs does that too, and PS Audio is just reselling them with some hype.
Anyone know about this? "
Thanks,
MJB
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