The Great Cable and Interconnect Swindle: An Etiology

[gmgraves]

18 minutes ago, jabbr said:

 

You need to think of this as a ground loop -- and this is exactly what causes ground loops. Common mode noise travels forward across an input and the ground forms the return loop. What I've talked about isn't EMI coming from outside. Surely you've encountered ground loops? (aka leakage currents)

 

There aren't always ground loops but just because you don't have a ground loop in a particular setup doesn't mean that you or someone else doesn't ...

 

https://web.mit.edu/jhawk/tmp/p/EST016_Ground_Loops_handout.pdf

Sure, of course I’ve encountered ground loops. I’m not saying that EMI doesn’t exist, or that it can’t influence the sound of a cable. But I am saying that it’s not present in every system. Which seems to be exactly what you are saying as well. 
Also, I don’t have a ‘scope camera and so I didn’t take any screen shots. I have tried to take ‘scope shots with my iPhone before, but that doesn’t really work very well. The iPhone won’t focus close enough to get a decent photo. Perhaps if I made a cardboard “tunnel” for a light shield, but it would have to be a long one.

Anyway, there’s really not much to see. It’s just a fuzzy, slightly wavy line. The fuzz is not resolvable because the time-base on the scope is limited to 100 MHz, and this fuzz is obviously much higher in frequency. It’s also (near as I can figure) about 0.0003 vpp. IOW, inconsequential background noise. I would like to see it’s composition, though.😉

[gmgraves]

1 hour ago, sandyk said:

 George

Does the Tektronix have a higher sensitivity than most older CRT CRO's ?

 With my Preamp I had to use a battery powered low noise 10 x preamp as well to highlight stuff such as SMPS from the nearby TV to much more than a thick centre trace. Many have reported that even this level is audible on a resolving system.

 

Regards

Alex

That’s a good question Alex. I have to say that I really don’t know. Frankly, until you asked the question, I never even thought about it!
The ‘scope is a Tektronix 465. It’s a 2 channel, 100 MHz, solid-state CRT-based scope I bought on E-bay. back in January. I had an older Tek scope before that, and I gave that away. I recently bought a battery powered hand-held scope that has a color LCD screen, and I find myself using that more and more. It’s just much easier to set-up and use!

[gmgraves]

51 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 I disagree.

 I have seen measurements taken of a front end modified good quality amplifier, where DIY Audio members have verified hearing differences in the -130dB area.

We’re gonna have to agree to disagree here. -130 dB is so far below the threshold of human hearing, that anyone who says that they can hear something so low that it’s below the thermal noise on any active device operating at audio frequencies has a great imagination.

[gmgraves]

17 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

Au contraire ... 🙂.

 

I would quite happy to say that "every single audio system suffers from RFI/EMI noise" - I have always found it trivially easy to introduce some source of interference into the environment of a system, and hear the SQ degrade as a result ... if someone says a vehicle has fabulous suspension, just bring it to the right sort of road surface, or pothole - and feel the car fail to handle it. There are always limits; the important thing is not to pretend they don't exist - but to explore them, and have a full understanding of where they may have a bearing - crossing one's fingers is not the best engineering approach ... 😉.

Frank, a car with a fabulous suspension is SUPPOSED to feel every change in road surface and should feel even tiny potholes. That’s what a “fabulous suspension” is designed to do. “Smooth ride” is absolutely diametrically opposed to a “fabulous suspension”.

[gmgraves]

13 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

Au contraire ... 🙂.

 

I would quite happy to say that "every single audio system suffers from RFI/EMI noise" - I have always found it trivially easy to introduce some source of interference into the environment of a system, and hear the SQ degrade as a result ... if someone says a vehicle has fabulous suspension, just bring it to the right sort of road surface, or pothole - and feel the car fail to handle it. There are always limits; the important thing is not to pretend they don't exist - but to explore them, and have a full understanding of where they may have a bearing - crossing one's fingers is not the best engineering approach ... 😉.

Maybe in Oz. Maybe in some systems. Not in mine. You know, you can see RFI/EMI. If you can’t see it or hear it, it isn’t there.

[gmgraves]

13 hours ago, sandyk said:

Several members are now routinely hearing differences of a small fraction of 1dB, and I think that you will find that Chris is now hearing extremely low level differences on very well measuring gear when using his RAAL-requisite SR1a headphones.

https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/58443-raal-requisite-sr1a-has-landed/        #348

I think that many audiophiles have a very active imagination. Besides, in my opinion it’s not about fractions of a dB differences. It’s about enjoying the music, not obsessing over minutia. 

[gmgraves]

11 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

Ah, so a fabulous suspension is intrinsically incapable of providing a smooth ride ... ?

 

BTW, pleased to hear you're still happy with recent hand held scope unit - one should be arriving here, very shortly.

Smooth ride and great road holding are pretty much diametrically opposed concepts, Frank (although modern computer modeling has allowed for some compromises between performance and ride for road cars, no such concessions exist on the track). You’ve obviously never driven a race car. Stiff suspension for best road holding (and lowest lap times) is costly and that’s what I consider a “fabulous suspension“.

 

Yes, I think you’ll like that little oscilloscope. I also have a Tektronix 465 scope that now stays in my closet because the little ‘scope is so much more convenient to use. I have been really impressed with it’s performance.

Let us know your thoughts when yours arrives.

[gmgraves]

13 hours ago, jabbr said:

Yes. Really I am suggesting a (testable) possibility. I don’t spend endless amounts of time thinking about USB cables but lots of people seem to hear differences. It’s easy to completely eliminate the possibility of ground loops/leakage currents etc with fiberoptic Ethernet and it’s cheap so I use it. 

 

Well, I don’t like USB for audio, but I must say that the latest Schiit Yiggy has a newly designed USB interface that has greatly improved the performance of USB for audio. When I first connected it to my MacBook Pro, the computer couldn’t see the Yiggy untilI I upgraded the OS from El Capitan to Catalina (it’s not supposed to be possible, but I found an online hack that allowed it.). Then it worked fine. Much better sound with the Yiggy’s new USB protocol. However, I still hear no difference between a $2 “printer“ USB cable and the fancy AudioQuest USB cable that a friend loaned me. The one with with the “battery“. 

[gmgraves]

47 minutes ago, Allan F said:

 

For some time, BMW road cars were considered to have achieved perhaps the best balance between these two competing objectives. Dunno about current models.

The thing about BMW, is that they have different models that have different road manners. A normal 3 Series may have a modicum of road holding while giving a fairly comfortable ride, but on the other hand, a 3 Series “M” models are more hard-core and they eschew the softer ride. They also are much faster on road or track when driven for performance. Porsche does something similar. A 911 S spec is a good handling, fairly comfortable road car, a 911 GT 2, and 3, are not comfortable, they are race cars in various states of tune and cost as much as a Ferrari or Lamborghini,

[gmgraves]

34 minutes ago, PYP said:

 

Let's assume for a moment that I'm a skeptic about power cords, but that I have heard a difference among cords.  Assuming for a moment that I'd rather not spend any funds on fancy power cords and that my reluctance may (or may not) work against what some see as the natural tendency of many audiophiles (or anyone for things outside audio) to fully expect that a more expensive cord has to be better than a stock cord -- what might be the objective reason for the difference that I hear?  

 

By "little faeries" are you referring to conscious electrons?  Just curious.  

Expectation Bias. Let me ask you this. What would a boutique power cord do that a normal power cord couldn’t? Look at what is before and after that mains cord. Before it is many hundreds of feet of 12 or 10 gauge house wiring preceded by perhaps hundreds of miles of transmission line and a circuit breaker box. After the boutique power cord, the size of a baby’s leg and costing a fortune is a single filament of very thin wire called a fuse. After that is some 16 gauge hookup wire leading to a power transformer full of single strand copper wire. Here’s an analogy. The water main coming into your house is, let’s say, a three-inch pipe. But you want to upgrade your water service so you replace the three-inch pipe running from the water meter to your water heater and the rest of the house with a pipe that’s two feet in diameter. At the hot water heater, you transition to a 1-inch pipe because that’s what the water heater takes. Also the rest of your house is plumbed with 1-inch pipe to the faucets, shower heads, etc. What good did that length of 2-foot diameter pipe do when the incoming line from the well or city water Is only 3-inches and the rest of the system after the two-foot diameter pipe is 1-inch? Makes no sense does it? Neither do expensive power cords. They do nothing because the bottlenecks are both before and after the boutique cable! The fancy line cord can’t fix the noise and/or voltage fluctuations that MAY occur before the wall socket, and it certainly can’t correct for any power robbing or noise problems AFTER the boutique cable.

[gmgraves]

3 hours ago, Allan F said:

 

O.T. Dunno if you remember the BMW 2002Ti introduced in the late 60's, a remarkable vehicle for its price. Car and Driver rated it the best sports sedan in the world for under $5,000.

Remember it? I had one. After my Jaguar XK-140 threw a rod, I bought a metallic green 2002Ti. Yes it handled well for a sedan. I didn’t keep it long because my example had terrible ongoing electrical problems. Replaced it with an Alfa GTA. (Talk about out of the frying pan, into the fire!). Oddly enough, the GTA gave me no problems the entire 5 years I had it. I credit the fact that electrically, the Alfa was very simple and it was all Bosch electrics (but so was the Beemer!!!????).

[gmgraves]

2 hours ago, John Dyson said:

It is so funny to hear about all kinds of strange beliefs about 'quality' in the audiophile world.  Even audiophile recordings (not even talking about FeralA) have often been made using equipment with off-the-shelf, and sometimes ugly technologies and cables.   Those recordings can sound really good, and be of full audiophile quality.

 

One problem in the audio world, probably other hobby worlds also, that two people with similar misunderstandings will re-enforce an mistaken belief.  Dunning-Kruger is operative here where two people will each not understand the depth of their knowledge, re-enforicing a mistaken belief.  There is a poor risk/reward for technically compteent people to try to explain things to people who do not want to know, who already know 'everything.'   Even now, my ego encourages accepting my own mistakes -- opposite of many people.  My philosophy is to accept a mistake earlier on, rather than to continually compound the folly.

 

Is that the late Arnie Kruger?

2 hours ago, John Dyson said:

Now, I'll give a technically accurate evaluation about cables:  Sometimes there are really bad cables, sometimes the interfaces to/from the cables are not well designed/bad grounding, sometimes the RFI environment is egregiously bad, sometimes experiments are poorly controlled.  Sometimes, people simply want to believe something strange, and will psychologically make that fake-fact true in their own minds.
 

Amen, brother.

2 hours ago, John Dyson said:

 

There are actual, scientific explanations for given observations, but the observation might be in error, the analysis is often very defective, and the conclusions are sometimes absurd.   Until a correspondent understands&accept the possibility of these potential flaws, and looks at a situation with an open mind, it isn't helpful for an actual expert to participate in the discussion.  It is best for the expert to demure even if that true expert REALLY KNOWS what is going on...
 

Everything you say is quite correct!

2 hours ago, John Dyson said:

 

John

 

 

 

 

[gmgraves]

48 minutes ago, PYP said:

Thanks.  This logic is familiar to me and I subscribe to it.  That is why I'm a power cord sceptic.  But I'm also what I consider to be a pragmatist and so tried a few for myself.  Some were quickly returned and others stayed a while until I used them with more transparent (neutral) gear and some are still in my system.  Given that experience, while it makes no sense to me other than the cord acts as a filter, I use cords that sound good to me.  I suppose I was trying to say:  suspend your logic for a bit, assume some folks hear a difference, then propose why that might be.  I see placebo is one proposed reason.  I'm not sure if my inconsistent response to a placebo is a good thing or not.   

Trying a few is a good idea as long as you didn’t have to pay for them. Of course if you are rich then it probably doesn’t matter.

Well, the cord probably does not act as a filter and here’s why. All modern audio equipment (except, maybe some class D amps) have power transformers that are designed for 50-60 Hz mains. Since they are designed for low frequency operation, they are optimized for those frequencies for maximum efficiency. The combination of the iron cores and the primary winding on power transformers makes them effective low-pass filters, which means that above 60 Hz, power transformers’ “frequency response” drops off like a rock thrown out of an airplane! So it’s the power transformer that’s the filter, and I’ve measured a few and most are more than 30 dB down at 500 Hz. Effectively no high frequency noise gets through a power transformer (BTW, equipment with off-line switching transformers don’t have a 60 Hz linear power supply’s relative immunity to HF noise because they up-convert the 50/60 Hz mains frequency to 20 KHz or higher.). That means that any filter action by a mains cable would be largely redundant. If there is any filtering action from a boutique mains cable, it’s going to be above the range of human hearing. Most such cables are only one to two meters long and enough reactance to be a filter in the audio range over such a short distance would require rather large capacitors and inductors to be added to the cable, and even the largest diameter cables don’t have enough space within the cable’s jacket to house the components necessary.

[gmgraves]

1 hour ago, sandyk said:

 Nevertheless, a group of 4 people heard differences between normal power cords and expensive dealer supplied cords under non sighted conditions, into big Nelson Pass Class A monoblocks, and they all reported hearing similar differences. A 5th person did the setting up. Audiophile Neuroscience was one of the participants.

Sorry, I can’t buy it, and really, who but someone obsessed with minutia would even care? Show me what the cable is doing and how it overcomes the bottlenecks before and after the cable, and I might agree, but until then the only thing that a mains cable could do is to have enough resistance to lower the mains voltage feeding the component. That would surely change the sound. And with lots of these snake-oil salesmen, I wouldn’t put it past them.

1 hour ago, sandyk said:

 

However, it may be capable of reducing noise induced into the leads of nearby ancillary equipment.

Ok, I might buy that, and I will readily admit that this possibility had not occurred to me.

1 hour ago, sandyk said:

 BTW, ALL of the listening sessions that we performed in Sydney were performed under non sighted conditions, with all equipment left powered up so that we couldn't guess which pieces of equipment were in use at the time.

Well, if “non sighted” does not mean a rigorous double-blind protocol, The results could still be influenced by subtle things like body language, facial expressions, etc.

[gmgraves]

3 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

It will always be there ... what matters is the level of it, and how sensitive the audio system is to it - if you know how to listen to a rig for signs of misbehaviour then it's trivially easy to introduce enough interference into the area, to cause a change in the SQ.

No clue! If it’s below the threshold of hearing, who cares? That was my point.

3 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

Saying that one's environment is clean is not good enough - move to a new place, or a neighbour kicks off a new hobby which produces 'dirt'; you now have a problem ... the only decent solution is to engineer the audio system to be resistant - the word is, robustness ...

I have an Isolating hospital 120 to 120 30 Ampere isolation transformer with pre and post transformer filtering. I’m very robust.😊

[gmgraves]

3 hours ago, sandyk said:

 

 Sorry George, but these attacks on Aussies are getting tiresome.

 The simple fact is, that this is more likely to happen in Trumpdom, where more will also need to take advantage of expensive isolation transformers etc. because your gear needs to draw double the amount of current from the A.C. wall socket  .

I wasn’t attacking Aussies. I was actually chiding Frank for his RFI/EMI paranoia.

[gmgraves]

1 hour ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 

 

maybe because they obsessed at the time about what seemed to be the minutia they redesigned the USB interface to greatly improve the performance of USB for audio

That’s OK for them. They are SELLNG something; they have to stay abreast of the competition, I’m not selling anything. I’m just listening to music and occasionally I record it. So I just have to please myself. I can do that without obsessing over differences so small that many are half heard and half imagined. it seems that’s become the game. Who can detect the more vanishingly small difference? That might be a fun pastime for many, but gee, isn’t this hobby about listening to music? It is for me. I’m not knocking those who like to continually swap cables and obsess over tiny differences in sound. It’s just not for me.

[gmgraves]

14 hours ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 

I totally get it George. I have to say tho it seems a little curious coming from a professional audio reviewer but then again your personal listening habits don't have to reflect your job as a reviewer. As a (trusted) reviewer its good to know what you think is unimportant as well as important - at least as a starting point.

It’s not that I think it’s unimportant, it’s more that I think it’s a futile endeavor. It’s basically the audio equivalent of counting how many angels can set on the head of a pin. Nothing is perfect, and cables, since they can’t add anything to the sound (unless they are defective, then the diode effect can add distortion), so what we end up chasing is different amounts of loss at differing frequencies. Here is how I see it: Chasing losses all around the audio spectrum looking for better sound is like fighting for peace. If one never swaps cables, then one never knows what it’s like to swap the devil to which one is familiar (one’s current cable complement) for the devil one doesn’t know (new cables that merely shift the tonal balance from one part of the spectrum to another). When one goes out and buys new cables, one does not have any idea that they are going to like the change In sound that the new cables afford, so, like I have said before, one is buying a pig in a poke. Since said changes are random, and often are different for different systems (a cable is a synergistic part of a system after all. The system is the source of the signal, the cable, and the load). Audiophiles that I know continually swap cables looking for better sound which seems to be, in their definition of better sound, different sound. I get the impression that instead of enjoying their systems and the music it plays, they sit in front of their speakers and fret continuously that the system could sound better So they figure “Maybe new cables would help.” Now, it might make more sense if the manufacturers actually knew in what way their cables would change the sound of a system, but they don’t. They don’t even know why cables change the sound, much less how they will change it. They’re feeling their way in the dark, fer crissake!

It’s such a crap shoot. An acquaintance of mine is very wealthy. He fell for the hype and bought a pair of Nordost Valhalla Two interconnects to go between his Audio Research preamp and his Audio Research power amplifier. Now, you know how much those puppies cost. They day he got them, he called me to tell me how disappointed he was. The Nordost cables sounded really dark, and he hated them.
When he tried to return them, the dealer wouldn’t take them back under the pretext that he could no longer sell them as new, and he couldn’t afford to take that loss on cables that expensive! Now what is there to make a pair of interconnects “used”. Wire isn’t like a car, you know! It’s not like they are going to wear out. After talking to the manufacturer and even threatening legal action (the answer there, of course is Caveat Emptor). He ended-up chalking it up to experience and selling the cables online at a considerable loss. He offered to send the cables to me for evaluation, but I declined the offer. To paraphrase Henry Higgins from Shaw’s (and Lerner and Lowe’s) Pygmalion, “I will never let a Boutique interconnect in my life!”

[gmgraves]

15 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

Where audio minds typically operate, is that they think they've scored a goal if it's 10% better than it needs to be ... my belief is that it needs to be 10x better - to be called robust!

 

If you pulled that transformer out of the chain, when the latter was operating at a high SQ, what changes do you hear, if any - what "gets worse"?

Purely subjective, here, of course. With all the baggage that infers, the system gets a bit “fuzzy“ with the bass getting less well controlled without the transformer. I’ve done the “experiment” at one time or another, for all of my audiophile friends, and all have heard it. It’s not a great change and the system doesn’t sound so much worse that I couldn’t live with it, but I bought the hospital mains isolation transformer for peanuts, so I might as well use it...

[gmgraves]

2 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

So, there is an well established SQ change - where I operate is that that I say, OK, the system is sensitive to the quality of the mains power - and the isolating transformer changes that enough to be quite audible - therefore, how sensitive is the system, and how effective is that transformer in removing every last shred of mains behaviour that impacts the rig? ... I would do a whole series of experiments to create a working understanding of where the system was at, by carefully changing, increasing the filtering; and adding electrical devices onto the mains which generate excessive noise - I'm expanding my awareness of what's going on, and what can possibly be done to improve the situation.

Ok, you do that, Frank. I’m not neurotic enough.

[gmgraves]

4 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

Having used the listening with "the ear next to the tweeter" method of detecting differences for many, many years now, it's very obvious that the driving signal has altered - the headache for the measurists is that this is hard to quantify, as yet. Trouble is, the mind is so excellent at dealing with tiny differences, when subjected to high level sound - but that's what you have to trick, 🤪.

 

 

Ummm, being neurotic about it is what gives me the SQ I've talked about over and over again - the dividing line between what is enough to do to sort a rig out, and what is not, is very poorly defined - you just keep going until you get the results you want. So, for example, I now have two stages of mains filtering on the current, cheap active speakers; and am just organising another stage for the source player - it's immediately obvious on this setup that I have more to gain by doing this ... as a simple guide to what's being gained, I either have some of John Dyson's "feralA" unpleasantness there, or I don't.

Frank, do you teach elementary conclusion jumping? You assume that your system, put together and “tweaked” using your “method” sounds “better” than anyone else’s. You don’t, and you can’t know that. I wish we lived close to each other. I’d love to hear what you’ve done, and even more, I’d love for you to hear my setup. I’d be willing to wager that if you heard my system playing one or more of my own recordings, your jaw would drop at the reality I’ve achieved and have done so without soldering interconnects to components and without using boutique cables.

[gmgraves]

4 hours ago, Digi&Analog Fan said:

Paul McGowan, head of PS Audio, on youtube not that many weeks ago did a nice video on many of the horrid problems of A/B testing, besides its being just plain awkward.. Many decades ago AR (Acoustic Research) did a much publicized A/B experiment, where out of vision real musicians were playing and all of a sudden they would stop playing and a prerecorded tape of the same music seamlessly took over, played through their AR 3 speakers, and the group of people could not distinguish each time (or any time) when the real musicians stopped and the AR speakers kicked in. The ultimate AB experiment. Does this mean that the AR speakers are indistinguishable from live unamplified acoustic instruments? No. It proved peoples ineptitude at distinguishing between (live and real) vs.a tape playback through a speaker. AR3 speakers, If you've ever heard them at length, they are not even capable of fooling a seasoned listener into thinking they are a really good speaker; YET ALONE LIVE MUSIC!  They have a really chopped off high end, they are full of cabinet resonance, and the midrange sounds murky and dark with 1960 vintage tube equipment, which was the only equipment there was in 1960.

I was there at the AR show room on Broadway in NYC one afternoon. The chamber group musicians were behind a scrim. One could see them in silhouette. The speakers were behind the scrim too, so that those listeners assembled couldn’t see the grill cloth flutter when the speakers were active. I might point out that I was 17 at the time. Everyone else in the store were middle aged guys. I could tell the the speakers from the live musicians every time. Not because I could tell the difference between the musicians and the recording of them from the sound, but rather because I could hear the tape hiss when the recording was being played, and the older members of the audience couldn’t. Nevertheless, the demonstration was impressive. AR chose the repertoire VERY carefully so as not to tax the speakers by asking them to do something they couldn’t. I’m sure that the acoustic characteristics of the scrim played a part in the deception as well.

All you say about AR3 speakers is true (BTW when I was there in the spring of 1962, the speakers were AR3ax’s), but keep in mind that in those days, the AR3 was perhaps the best money could buy with the possible exception of doubled-up KLH electrostatics (never heard them, just read about them). My high school music teacher who was a friend of mine who had a pair of AR3s powered by a MacIntosh 275 power amp. At the time I thought his system sounded awesome. I’m sure I wouldn’t be so impressed today.

 

[gmgraves]

12 hours ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 

Nothin' elementary about it, strictly advanced🤣

 

 

I disagree here. Respectfully to Frank, putting aside the good natured humor, Frank is invested in his method. From the bad recordings sound good thread some interesting perspectives came across, in some ways reinforcing Frank's method.

 

I think much of it boils down to sounding less bad, hearing past the flaws, enjoying the music and then calling that "good". And it is except you and I would still identify that bad sound cant be turned into good sound even if colored - maybe enjoyable sound nonetheless.

 

That said, my prediction is that Frank would not like your or my "rig" as it would go against his credo and expectation bias. I have little doubt if we heard Frank's system we would not be in agreement with Frank's assessment of good sound. You might call that expectation bias also but I wager most audiophiles, not knowing about Frank or his method, would have the same view.

You could be right.

[gmgraves]

3 hours ago, PYP said:

 

That the manufacturer allowed this to end as it did, tells me everything I need to know about them.  I've never heard AR or Valhalla, but the usual critique is that they are on the bright side.  Using both and getting a dark sound is surprising (although confirms you point about crap shoot).   Clearly, a free demo is the only way to try cables.  

Well, I think the only way to try cables is to not go down that particular rabbit hole.

[gmgraves]

2 hours ago, PYP said:

 

Understood.  And that is why I would appreciate it if everyone listed their systems.  My interest is not to compare gear/cost/etc, but to see the different system approaches to good sound.  In other threads where this information is posted (or in one's profile), one sees a very wide variety of approaches resulting in excellent sound (the owner's opinion, naturally).  

 

Of course, this is all about personal preferences.  I have heard excellent, musical systems that would not make me happy in the long term.  Seems to me that in an imperfect world with imperfect gear (and all the unknown - unquantifiable? - interactions), we are all "tuning" our systems (some do it with measurements and some not).  That is why I have asked about the total cost of power filtration (isolation transformers and the like + power cords) to ascertain some kind of average outlay.  How one spends those funds (more on cords and less expensive isolation, as one example) would then seem to me to be less relevant than total cost.  Of course I know some will say cords can't do anything, but that seems to be besides the point if one gets great sound (to them) with their particular approach.  

 

Not trying to justify my own approach, since convincing others (of just about anything) isn't my gig.  

Go to my profile for a system rundown of my current equipment.