AC Filtering, Grounding Boxes, Linear PSU and Balanced Power.

[YashN]

This looks a little more like what Sam Lord was describing:

 

Patent US8658892 - Ferroelectric field coupling device for improved noise reduction in AC power ... - Google Patents

 

This is exactly it actually.

[lmitche]

You could use one of these to increase surface area! http://www.nofancomputer.com/eng/products/CR-80EH.php#

[Speedskater]

The equipment design of the recent gravity wave experiment did not require the engineers to delve into Quantum Physics. Nor does the design of any AC power equipment or audio equipment.

[YashN]

The equipment design of the recent gravity wave experiment

 

There are a few outstanding questions for you earlier in this thread.

[Jud]

The equipment design of the recent gravity wave experiment did not require the engineers to delve into Quantum Physics. Nor does the design of any AC power equipment or audio equipment.

 

Gravitation and quantum physics are fundamentally separated in today's physics, and will be until someone comes up with the Grand Unified Theory.

 

Digital chip design, including audio chips, does have to take account of quantum effects because of the tiny distances now involved.

[Speedskater]

There are a few outstanding questions for you earlier in this thread.

Whatever they are, the answers will have to wait a week.

[Sam Lord]

Thanks a lot for these good words, Sam and for the anecdotes and additional info.

 

You're welcome.

 

A couple of questions come to mind here: how would the massive increases in instantaneous current be brought about? Quite intriguing. Secondly, to prevent the piezo effect in the other direction, one would need to isolate from vibrations quite well, isn't it?

 

Yes a piezoelectric material can send and receive. But having a large quantity of it around a conductor will act as a sink. The different sizes and masses of each piece, along with noncrystalline distribution, mean that lots of RF radiation is converted to kinetic energy then dissipated in the mix as heat. But some through various means gets reflected back to the conductor, I'm not sure in what proportion (I assume tiny). Hysol potting compound is mechanically quite lossy so that works well, but for an adequately flexible cable filled with loose FeSi pellets, the friction and piezoelectric absorption between the pellets dies a good job. I don't know whether current Shunyata NICs are potted or have loose pellets.

 

I just read that he incorporated a new design in his Denali products, stemming from the very good results he had in the medical industry.

 

Wow, I didn't see that line, brand new. Denali was the last speaker ($65k/pair) we used when we showed with Shunyata at CES 2002. I haven't spoken with my former partner Dale Pitcher in many years, so I don't know if Caelin just liked the name or what. Anyone remember the million-dollar-system room? Speakers were Wisdom Audio, dunno about electronics, and Ted Denny of Synergistic was in charge. Some of their team, I don't know who, heard the effect of the Shunyata Hydras (6-outlet AC power units), so Caelin let them use some number in the room. Denny went ballistic when he saw them, and ordered people to hide the damn things as they weren't his creations. They did a job, but I was told by many that the system sucked anyway.

 

The term "FeSi-100" is a bit of marketing ... it sounds like a chemical but of course can't be. Rather, seems to be a combination of Rochelle salts and Silica beads aka Silica Gel. Rochelle salts (Potassium Sodium Tartrate) are indeed quite piezoelectric and in fact can easily be synthesized at home. What you can do is either use the combination as a shield or as the dielectric in a cable.

 

Now this nonsense about some special knowledge gained via NSA is just that. Firstly the NSA is the largest employer of mathematicians in the country as well as electrical engineers and their expertise with signals analysis is well documented. There are declassified accounts from the late 1950s which are worth reading. The NSA and other government agencies have long worked with commercial firms to develop hardware e.g. https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol47no1/article08.html. Edwin Land, the founder of Polaroid, was a member of Eisenhower's science advisory group which lead to the development of the U2 as well as the first reconnaissance satellites. In any case Caelin Gabriel is one of many many thousands of military who have worked with the NSA. There are also several multibillion dollar corporations that develop technologies for the military etc. e.g. SAIC/E-Systems. Needless to say the number of engineers so involved is truly vast and many many of them have gone on to found technology companies. So nothing particularly special ... but at least our tax dollars are doing something good for the economy.

 

I'd cut the malarky about quantum effects, though, because in fact our knowledge about the quantum properties of electrical circuits is not, in fact, vastly better than it was 15 years ago, particularly for home audio circuits. Indeed at my house, Maxwell's equations still apply with extreme accuracy.

 

First of all, I need to correct an earlier statement. I said, "Caelin professed that he didn't understand quite why they worked so effectively, but believed that quantum effects were at play."

 

What he actually said, at a *private* meeting, was that quantum effects *might* be involved. He has never, to my knowledge, made any claim of quantum effects in his products. Your use of the term "malarky" is rude and uninformed.

 

Furthermore, in our partnership Caelin never mentioned the NSA. Had he performed almost any work for the NSA, he would be legally prohibited from claiming that for many years after service. Nevertheless, others have said it, and in such cases he is not obligated to deny it.

 

He did tell us at the start, and I believe in some public interviews, that he specialized in fiber optics and that he performed very challenging work in the field. As you know, tapping signals from fiber optic cables is extremely difficult to accomplish without detection, especially in undersea environments and without access to transceiving circuitry. I don't know exactly what Caelin did or where he did it, but he worked with extremely faint and sensitive signals.

 

I don't think anyone specifically mentioned that but Caelin would know if what he worked on applied in his later work. Not that he would tell I think.

Yes, from what I read, the material is as you described.

As for Quantum effects, at very small-scales we can't ever get away from these, but here again, just as saying 'stardust', mentioning them for a product can conjure aromas of marketing rather than substance.

 

My thought about stardust had nothing to do with quantum mechanics, it was simply a marketing idea. You can hear and feel FeSi in the Shunyata power cords that use it, so I thought it would be useful to note that the stuff is an important part of the product. It is not expensive, we bought barrels of it: looks like a sea of tiny pearls. For the Hydras we potted the FeSi with Hysol, I don't remember which one. I mention this now because the FeSi information has been public for quite a while now.

 

Funny, I have this exact Shunyata balanced cable connecting my DAC to Amp. I always wondered what was in the hoses. Thanks!

 

No, FeSi is only used in or near power products, it will change (degrade) the performance of an audio circuit in close proximity.

[lmitche]

Sam, the first Caelin patent that Jud posted shows an interconnect cable surrounded by two concentric tubes with FeSi material in the outer ring. I have a pair of Shunyata Antares cables constructed in the same fashion.

 

Perhaps the material degrades the signal, but they sound pretty good to me.

[Sam Lord]

Sam, the first Caelin patent that Jud posted shows an interconnect cable surrounded by two concentric tubes with FeSi material in the outer ring. I have a pair of Shunyata Antares cables constructed in the same fashion.

 

Perhaps the material degrades the signal, but they sound pretty good to me.

 

Hi Imitche,

 

I'm trying to find which patent. Descriptions of Antares don't mention the FeSi shields but everything else....could you show it to me? Please accept that I'm not saying this to doubt you, because there are lots of variables involved. There are many sizes if FeSi crystals with piezoelectric action at selectable frequency ranges, so the idea isn't crazy, it's just that I never saw it. But Antares was developed long after Shunyata parted ways with Essence/Intuitive Audio. Only Caelin warned us not to use certain FeSi close to our audio circuits. And none of the early interconnects or speaker cables used it. Do you hear the sound of sand as you move it?

 

EDIT:

 

Ah, now I found it here, thanks Imitche. Those are the same pellets we used in the Hydras, 1-3mm diameter:

 

-----

 

"The silica gel beads 28 are a colloidal form of silica, synthetically manufactured from sodium silicate. The silica gel beads 28 are glassy, hard, and somewhat irregularly shaped generally spherical granules that are clear to milky in color. They have an amorphous microporous structure providing a large surface area and a large number of micro-crystalline structures and edge boundaries that provide improved performance. This is because the edge boundaries are believed to cause the radiated electromagnetic field to be diffracted, refracted, and reflected within the structures which aids in disrupting and dispersing the high frequency noise components.

 

Depending upon the application, either the rochelle salt 29 or the silica gel beads 28 are used (by themselves) to form the ferro-electric substance 26. For other applications, they may be combined together in any preferred ratio.

 

The formulation that is used affects the audio performance of the audio cable 10. The silica gel beads 28 end to improve the lower and mid audio frequencies (below 1 Khz) while the rochelle salts 29 are especially effective at the higher audio frequencies (above 1 Khz).

 

The diameter of the silica gel beads 28 that are used varies depending upon the size of the audio cable 10. Their size is commonly referred to as a “mesh” grade. A 1-3 mesh is often preferred and it includes the silica gel beads 28 having a diameter from 1-3 mm. For small interconnect cables a custom made size, of 16 mesh is preferred and it includes the silica gel beads 28 with a diameter that is less than 1 mm."

 

-----

 

Well that corresponds well to my recollection. It looks like Antares was not continued. I asked Caelin about trying FeSi shields around audio cables, but he was convinced back then that they wouldn't work.

 

That was a pattern. Right from the start of designing the Hydra, I said that the pellets must be piezoelectric material to covert electric field noise into kinetic energy and from there, heat. But they said no, don't talk about this, there's more to it, etc. Well there was a bit more, I didn't know nearly as much about B fields then, but I had the basic idea. The purity of copper was an intense concentration, it cots a lot. My suspicion is that any magnetic impurities like iron must have a compounding effect, not exactly predicted by simulation, on overall transfer function of the devices...it's not an obsession, but rather observation from his earlier work.

 

Current descriptions of Antares don't mention any ferroelectric materials, but do mention the patent, so that's it. Interesting that Shunyata didn't trumpet the feature. I don't think they are found in any current audio cables. Now, the new Ztron patent copy describes the use of shields surrounding each conductor and connected to an inverted voltage, AFAIK, supposedly to stabilize the behavior of the dielectric. A very elaborate type of balanced cable, as if on steroids, clever. I imagine this would work best with very-low-Z sources. Anyway people like it.

 

Thanks for the correction.

[YashN]

First of all, I need to correct an earlier statement. I said, "Caelin professed that he didn't understand quite why they worked so effectively, but believed that quantum effects were at play."

 

What he actually said, at a *private* meeting, was that quantum effects *might* be involved. He has never, to my knowledge, made any claim of quantum effects in his products. Your use of the term "malarky" is rude and uninformed.

 

Furthermore, in our partnership Caelin never mentioned the NSA. Had he performed almost any work for the NSA, he would be legally prohibited from claiming that for many years after service. Nevertheless, others have said it, and in such cases he is not obligated to deny it.

 

My thought about stardust had nothing to do with quantum mechanics, it was simply a marketing idea.

 

It was pretty clear to me that neither Gabriel's prior work at the NSA nor Quantum Theory are mentioned in their marketing, and it was additionally quite clear what you meant by the anectode on FeSi, so no worries. Maybe Jabbr misunderstood as he's in a lot of simultaneously and interesting projects these days

 

Thanks for the additional info, it does look like in the patent he focuses on the electrical field and how losses are induced from there.

 

I was also thinking of the magnetic field component and the impedance to high frequency content. Maybe the missing explanation can be found there.

[jabbr]

First of all, I need to correct an earlier statement. I said, "Caelin professed that he didn't understand quite why they worked so effectively, but believed that quantum effects were at play."

 

What he actually said, at a *private* meeting, was that quantum effects *might* be involved. He has never, to my knowledge, made any claim of quantum effects in his products. Your use of the term "malarky" is rude and uninformed.

 

From: Malarky | Define Malarky at Dictionary.com

malarkey

 

 

or malarky

 

 

[muh-lahr-kee]

Spell Syllables

 

• Word Origin
  

 

See more synonyms on Thesaurus.com

noun, Informal.1.speech or writing designed to obscure, mislead, or impress; bunkum:The claims were just a lot of malarkey.

 

 

 

 

Dictionary.com Unabridged

Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2016.

 

I am sorry if you are offended but I stand by my description of the effects of, as you describe "stardust" on cables as being possibly a "quantum effect" as such. No personal offense, honestly. Its just that no actual scientist would describe anything this way, as there is no generic "quantum effect", rather I get the impression this term is being used to impress that there is some type of magic that is not understandable by mere civilians.

 

Furthermore, in our partnership Caelin never mentioned the NSA. Had he performed almost any work for the NSA, he would be legally prohibited from claiming that for many years after service. Nevertheless, others have said it, and in such cases he is not obligated to deny it.

His bio is available on multiple web sites in essentially the same language which leads me to assume that it has been provided as such. Indeed I would assume that if there were actually some top-secret knowledge imparted, that the source would not be broadcast. As such I assume that the involvement was not classified (and not every association wth the "NSA" is classified). But no matter.

He did tell us at the start, and I believe in some public interviews, that he specialized in fiber optics and that he performed very challenging work in the field. As you know, tapping signals from fiber optic cables is extremely difficult to accomplish without detection, especially in undersea environments and without access to transceiving circuitry. I don't know exactly what Caelin did or where he did it, but he worked with extremely faint and sensitive signals.

 

 

And I would assume that someone with actual experience in dealing with very faint signals would know how to measure them, and publish such measurements.

 

 

My thought about stardust had nothing to do with quantum mechanics, it was simply a marketing idea. You can hear and feel FeSi in the Shunyata power cords that use it, so I thought it would be useful to note that the stuff is an important part of the product. It is not expensive, we bought barrels of it: looks like a sea of tiny pearls. For the Hydras we potted the FeSi with Hysol, I don't remember which one. I mention this now because the FeSi information has been public for quite a while now.

 

 

...

No, FeSi is only used in or near power products, it will change (degrade) the performance of an audio circuit in close proximity.

 

I have suggested a measurement that might demonstrate any real effect. So?

[jabbr]

It was pretty clear to me that neither Gabriel's prior work at the NSA nor Quantum Theory are mentioned in their marketing, and it was additionally quite clear what you meant by the anectode on FeSi, so no worries. Maybe Jabbr misunderstood as he's in a lot of simultaneously and interesting projects these days

 

Thanks for the additional info, it does look like in the patent he focuses on the electrical field and how losses are induced from there.

 

I was also thinking of the magnetic field component and the impedance to high frequency content. Maybe the missing explanation can be found there.

 

If the effect is real, which it certainly might be, I've suggested a way that you could measure. Piezoelectric effects are eminently measurable, as is background noise. This is all conventional electronics.

[jabbr]

Gravitation and quantum physics are fundamentally separated in today's physics, and will be until someone comes up with the Grand Unified Theory.

 

Digital chip design, including audio chips, does have to take account of quantum effects because of the tiny distances now involved.

... and to really understand how Saran wrap works at a fundamental level you need to understand quantum physics nonetheless my leftovers safely made it into the fridge this evening.

 

Digital chip design does not have to take quantum effects into account! There are a small number of companies which actually manufacture the chips, and certainly the latest generation 14nm manufacturing process needs to take quantum effects into account but in most cases there are companies who design the chips and send them to a "foundry" to be made. No quantum mechanics in the design phase. Typically digital chips are designed using a specialized hardware description language. The most popular are VHDL, Verilog and SystemC. You can design a digital chip graphically in Matlab although the HDL package starts at something like $10K.

 

In any case designing stuff like digital filters is surprisingly automated these days and no quantum theory need be used

[Jud]

 

Digital chip design does not have to take quantum effects into account! There are a small number of companies which actually manufacture the chips, and certainly the latest generation 14nm manufacturing process needs to take quantum effects into account but in most cases there are companies who design the chips and send them to a "foundry" to be made. No quantum mechanics in the design phase. Typically digital chips are designed using a specialized hardware description language. The most popular are VHDL, Verilog and SystemC. You can design a digital chip graphically in Matlab although the HDL package starts at something like $10K.

 

You're right, I was thinking of the foundry end of things and should have realized that's quite separate from circuit design.

 

In any case designing stuff like digital filters is surprisingly automated these days....

 

But what about designing really good​ digital filters?

[YashN]

If the effect is real, which it certainly might be, I've suggested a way that you could measure. Piezoelectric effects are eminently measurable, as is background noise. This is all conventional electronics.

 

That part is already known.

 

Sam and I were talking about the unknown part, which Gabriel himself couldn't explain at the time.

[YashN]

I am sorry if you are offended but I stand by my description of the effects of, as you describe "stardust" on cables as being possibly a "quantum effect" as such. No personal offense, honestly. Its just that no actual scientist would describe anything this way, as there is no generic "quantum effect", rather I get the impression this term is being used to impress that there is some type of magic that is not understandable by mere civilians.

 

Except nobody is trying to impress anybody here: Sam only recounted an anecdote about Gabriel for the part of his device for which the latter didn't have the phenomena explained completely for his simulations and how he (Gabriel) expressed himself about it at the time.

 

So there's no malarky involved in any form whatsoever here.

 

Hence Sam being offended, and he's right to be.

[jabbr]

That part is already known.

 

Sam and I were talking about the unknown part, which Gabriel himself couldn't explain at the time.

 

If 'we' can measure gravity waves, we can measure any real audio signal

 

If something:

a) isn't measurable

b) isn't explainable

c) isn't part of my religion

 

it doesn't exist to me. I have enough work trying to explain measurements and measure explanations

[YashN]

... and to really understand how Saran wrap works at a fundamental level you need to understand quantum physics nonetheless my leftovers safely made it into the fridge this evening.

 

That's correct and it's also true that cellular automata on a computer with one cell representing a tree can model the spread of forest fires.

 

However, that does not mean you couldn't learn an additional thing or two by knowing how air travels for instance.

 

In other words, we have a lot of macroscopic models and equations and they work well, that's fine.

 

On the other hand, there are some microscopic and quantic models which can be interesting too.

 

There is a subject called micromagnetics which is quite interesting (the equations aren't by Maxwell here).

 

Now, for the discussion of this thread, we're not trying to necessarily find Quantum explanations along the way, it is to gain some understanding as expounded in the original post.

 

However, if we do come across some Quantum explanations along the way and if they can explain something, then why not.

 

No such explanations was given anywhere in this thread, so there's no need to get all defensive about anything Quantic.

 

In this particular case, I believe there could be something to explore for greater-than-quantic scale along the lines of large impedance to high frequency content but with the magnetic component. However, it's not too clear to me yet because what I do know necessitates a small direct current field and it appears that it the NIC we have an AC induced field, unless I'm making a basic mistake here.

[YashN]

If 'we' can measure gravity waves, we can measure any real audio signal

 

If something:

a) isn't measurable

b) isn't explainable

c) isn't part of my religion

 

it doesn't exist to me. I have enough work trying to explain measurements and measure explanations

 

Who said it can't be measured?

[YashN]

Over this week-end, seeing how the iPad + VNC to Mathematica running on the Raspi was too slow and impractical, I tried Mathematica directly on the Raspi connected to the HDTV.

 

Well, it appears my efforts were thwarted: the Raspi Model B isn't fast enough to deal with Mathematica evaluations of notebooks.

 

Now, there might have been a way had Mathematica been optimised to use the Raspi's GPU, but until then, we're stuck.

 

It appears I can fall back to using the Mathematica CLI and even pipe the results to a graphing application too.

 

So that seems to be my recourse for now.

 

Another idea would be to use the Raspbian distribution through a virtual machine. It necessitates QEMU so that sorts appears to preclude an easy way of using Mac OS X.

[Sam Lord]

First, thanks to Yashn who has fairly stated what he read!

 

It was pretty clear to me that neither Gabriel's prior work at the NSA nor Quantum Theory are mentioned in their marketing, and it was additionally quite clear what you meant by the anectode on FeSi, so no worries. Maybe Jabbr misunderstood as he's in a lot of simultaneously and interesting projects these days

...Thanks for the additional info, it does look like in the patent he focuses on the electrical field and how losses are induced from there... ...I was also thinking of the magnetic field component and the impedance to high frequency content. Maybe the missing explanation can be found there.

 

Well, the action of the bulk FeSi made sense for both the electrical and magnetic fields, but the behavior of the plates was the challenge. Just very pure, thick, polished copper of a certain shape was necessary, but it exceeded expectations.

 

...malarky...speech or writing designed to obscure, mislead, or impress; bunkum...

 

I am sorry if you are offended but I stand by my description of the effects of, as you describe "stardust" on cables as being possibly a "quantum effect" as such. No personal offense, honestly. Its just that no actual scientist would describe anything this way, as there is no generic "quantum effect", rather I get the impression this term is being used to impress that there is some type of magic that is not understandable by mere civilians.

 

Jabbr, I appreciate that you intended no offense, but you have accused Caelin and me of spreading false information, I won't let that stand. I have already made plain that Caelin never claimed quantum effects for the mechanism of his products. Nor did I make any such association with suggesting the stardust name. So I insist you cease these false assertions.

 

His bio is available on multiple web sites in essentially the same language which leads me to assume that it has been provided as such. Indeed I would assume that if there were actually some top-secret knowledge imparted, that the source would not be broadcast. As such I assume that the involvement was not classified (and not every association wth the "NSA" is classified). But no matter.

 

If you presume some honesty to Caelin, there is an a fairer view. He stated his expertise and that he worked for USG in that field, all of which I believe to be lawful activities when one has performed sensitive work. He never admitted to breaking the laws of this country or any other, AFAIK. He might have worked for a private contractor or a service branch instead the NSA in eavesdropping: it all goes to the same place in the end. And I consider him a scientist because he has created groundbreaking instruments using that expertise and much experimentation. The teams creating gravity wave detectors did that, and I know some participants in those efforts. Finally, his mention of possible quantum effects referred not to piezoelectric activity but rather the electron transport in the plates. I don't know what his current thinking is beyond the writing that his company has produced. But I know lot of discovery on electron mobility has occurred in these 16+ years.

 

If the effect is real, which it certainly might be, I've suggested a way that you could measure. Piezoelectric effects are eminently measurable, as is background noise. This is all conventional electronics... ...I have suggested a measurement that might demonstrate any real effect. So?

 

So have I, and one of my failures at Essence was not to heed Caelin's request to use our very good equipment to work to characterize the action of Hydra power distributors. A series of null tests would have given us useful numbers. But other duties had precedence, and I knew he would deal with it when necessary. While the transfer function of a Hydra was not anything you could easily approximate analytically, it was quite drastic. It brought up perceived level by around 2dB and often caused walls to newly shake with no change in the level set. This from a passive device with almost negligible reactance.

[YashN]

It uses Finite Element Modeling. Managed to get it to work through WINE, but only the 32-bit version, which is fine.

 

 

Here you can see some Flux density simulation results for a radial magnet. This is running through WINE on Mac OS X.

[YashN]

First, thanks to Yashn who has fairly stated what he read!

 

Well, the action of the bulk FeSi made sense for both the electrical and magnetic fields, but the behavior of the plates was the challenge. Just very pure, thick, polished copper of a certain shape was necessary, but it exceeded expectations.

 

While the transfer function of a Hydra was not anything you could easily approximate analytically, it was quite drastic. It brought up perceived level by around 2dB and often caused walls to newly shake with no change in the level set. This from a passive device with almost negligible reactance.

 

No prob., Sam. Hope this is all cleared up between you two so that we can go on to the non-personal and interesting stuff.

 

Speaking of plates, here was my thinking initially for my AC Filter box:

 

I would have one single copper plate for the common ground underneath the filter lines as this would be a proper ground plane versus wires connected to a rail.

 

This ground plane would also be used to connect to a set of chassis grounding binding posts in the same box.

 

Now, I was also thinking of integrating the Signal 'grounding' technology in the Entreq within the same box instead of making two boxes. And since the Entreq uses a plate, I was then thinking of using two such plates.

 

Thing is, if I use the two plates in close proximity, there may be some unwanted interaction (or at least that's how I view it) which I would like to avoid, so here I thought that perhaps using sufficiently large distance between these two plates could be helpful.

 

An alternative would be to set up two cylindrical chambers, one for each, and isolate these.

 

In this configuration, I lose the traditional ground planes, so perhaps if I implement them this way, I need to think of a good way to make a hierarchical and symmetrical star-grounding scheme. [On second thought this needs some more thinking as I certainly don't want to make a ground loop available here].

 

What do you think, are these good ideas?

[zilch0md]

You'd better do a great job at vibration isolating those crystals then otherwise you'll have measurable piezoelectric signals on your ground -- at least I prefer to avoid those

 

No wait -- you still need a circuit to measure a voltage

 

My first really good laugh of the day! Thanks!

[Jud]

It uses Finite Element Modeling. Managed to get it to work through WINE, but only the 32-bit version, which is fine.

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]25181[/ATTACH]

 

Here you can see some Flux density simulation results for a radial magnet. This is running through WINE on Mac OS X.

 

I worked on a litigation in the late 80s-early 90s where one of our engineering experts was using the first PC version of FEA (finite element analysis) software.