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

[YashN]

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.

 

I have found another very interesting software in OpenModelica today:

 

OPENMODELICA is an open-source Modelica-based modeling and simulation environment intended for industrial and academic usage.

[jabbr]

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.

 

I certainly don't mean to falsely accuse you nor Caelin of anything, and you have revised what you initially said, fair enough. This is what you originally wrote:

On the size of the plates, which were at first rectangles of very pure copper, Caelin professed that he didn't understand quite why they worked so effectively, but believed that quantum effects were at play. He understood the piezo action completely, but his simulations didn't show the noise attenuation or massive increases in instantaneous current he found. (I never saw them nor asked to.) You clearly needed a large, symmetrical, ultra-low-impedance surface. Now this was a fellow extremely versed in quantum theory and practice, and he thought there were quantum effects involved. I expect now that phonons and quantum phenomena are vastly better understood than they were 15 years ago, Caelin probably has a very good understanding of the action inside the NICs ("Noise Isolation Chambers") in Shunyata's power products.

 

You've corrected this statement and that's fine but I just want to emphasize that regardless of the quantum behavior of electrons including which ultimately provide a deep understanding of what constitutes resistance, the concepts of resistance itself, Ohm's law and in particular the complex impedance extension of Ohm's law as part of Maxwell's equation set have survived remarkably well into the modern quantum era, and more than Newton's equations which really have not faired nearly as well. What this means, is that entirely regardless of any new quantum insights that humanity has gained in the last century, that to this day Ohm's law (and replacing resistance with impedance in the case of AC circuits) remains entirely accurate. This is to say:

 

1) When you use the term "massive increases in instantaneous current", this means a corresponding massive decrease in output impedance (entirely measurable)

2) Noise attenuation is similarly measurable.

 

What I am saying, and really the only point that I am trying to make is that any claim to increased instantaneous current, or decreased noise must be measurable. I am not taking the use of the term "must" lightly. This is intended to be a strong statement. You cannot explain any inability to measurably confirm these statements as "quantum effects". Of course I am not requiring Caelin or anyone else to be able to model these effects in LTSpice for example, but such claims must be measurable because http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/electric/acohml.html remains our current understanding even in the modern quantum era.

[jabbr]

I'd like to expand on the issue of devices that claim to increase instantaneous current (and emphasize that this is not directed at any one individual but at the discussion in general):

Thevenin circuit analysis demonstrate that the minimum impedance of a power distribution network is determined by the point of maximal series impedance (the exact definition http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/electric/acthev.html#c2) and so the only way to reduce impedance is to place a parallel capacitance. This is to say that according to extremely well accepted physics, the way to increase maximal instantaneous current is with capacitance. An excellent and classic description: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0521370957/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awd_40KbxbNGM6XNG

[jabbr]

There are different types of power supplies each with different advantages. When reducing power supply output impedance is a primary concern, a capacitance multiplier circuit is a consideration eg: http://sound.westhost.com/project15.htm, and http://www.edn.com/Pdf/ViewPdf?contentItemId=4422750

[YashN]

1) When you use the term "massive increases in instantaneous current", this means a corresponding massive decrease in output impedance (entirely measurable)

2) Noise attenuation is similarly measurable.

 

These are the symptoms. What's being talked about here are the root causes and measurements of the modeling and real implementations thereof (of the root cause, not the symptoms).

[YashN]

Thevenin circuit analysis demonstrate that the minimum impedance of a power distribution network is determined by the point of maximal series impedance (the exact definition http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/electric/acthev.html#c2) and so the only way to reduce impedance is to place a parallel capacitance. This is to say that according to extremely well accepted physics, the way to increase maximal instantaneous current is with capacitance. An excellent and classic description: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0521370957/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awd_40KbxbNGM6XNG

 

Now this could be interesting to really understand what's going on.

[YashN]

There are different types of power supplies each with different advantages. When reducing power supply output impedance is a primary concern, a capacitance multiplier circuit is a consideration eg: Capacitance Multiplier Power Supply Filter, and http://www.edn.com/Pdf/ViewPdf?contentItemId=4422750

 

Very interesting stuff as I am reading a lot about power supplies and toying with some circuits with the view of making my own low-noise Linear Power Supply.

 

These circuits though look quite different from what Gabriel does - his 'circuit' or rather chamber isn't connected between GND and + or GND and -, but just in parallel with GND only so I'm not sure how it applies directly.

 

Maybe there are some capacitance considerations within his chamber arrangement that could relate to the Thevenin circuit you mentioned above.

[Jud]

These are the symptoms. What's being talked about here are the root causes and measurements of the modeling and real implementations thereof (of the root cause, not the symptoms).

 

As jabbr's pointed out, whether one goes all the way to quantum mechanics for the root cause or sticks with previous theory, Maxwell's equations model the behavior very nicely, which allows what must occur to cause a "massive increase[] in instantaneous current" to be predicted with exactitude. The questions then would be (1) what if anything there might be in the conditions described by the patent that would fulfill the necessary requirements; and (2) if someone has one of the patented boxen and can measure this massive increase.

[jabbr]

As jabbr's pointed out, whether one goes all the way to quantum mechanics for the root cause or sticks with previous theory, Maxwell's equations model the behavior very nicely, which allows what must occur to cause a "massive increase[] in instantaneous current" to be predicted with exactitude. The questions then would be (1) what if anything there might be in the conditions described by the patent that would fulfill the necessary requirements; and (2) if someone has one of the patented boxen and can measure this massive increase.

 

Yes

[Sam Lord]

I certainly don't mean to falsely accuse you nor Caelin of anything, and you have revised what you initially said, fair enough... ...the concepts of resistance itself, Ohm's law and in particular the complex impedance extension of Ohm's law as part of Maxwell's equation set have survived remarkably well into the modern quantum era, and more than Newton's equations which really have not faired nearly as well. What this means, is that entirely regardless of any new quantum insights that humanity has gained in the last century, that to this day Ohm's law (and replacing resistance with impedance in the case of AC circuits) remains entirely accurate. This is to say:

 

1) When you use the term "massive increases in instantaneous current", this means a corresponding massive decrease in output impedance (entirely measurable)

2) Noise attenuation is similarly measurable.

 

What I am saying, and really the only point that I am trying to make is that any claim to increased instantaneous current, or decreased noise must be measurable. I am not taking the use of the term "must" lightly. This is intended to be a strong statement. You cannot explain any inability to measurably confirm these statements as "quantum effects"...

 

Thanks jabbr, we're good and I fully agree with your statements. On instantaneous current, well actually very-short-term current, compared with no inserted DUT, indeed you can't do other than increase capacitance. And in a real-world circuit with nonzero output impedance, that introduces a voltage lag. But Shunyata only compares their power distribution gear to other distribution gear. All of these devices constitute filters of some kind. The goal has always been to reduce noise while minimizing the reduction in current delivery through the filter. They maintain that typical wall outlets can deliver well above a relay's rated current over very short intervals, which is a sensible idea, but that accurate measurements of this are quite rare. They provide a number of measurements on their website of both short-term current performance and noise attenuation.

 

It is refreshing to note that early on they urge that you replace any typical outlets which feed your audio system with better ones for the greatest bang-per buck.

measurement comparisons

 

Cheers

[YashN]

As jabbr's pointed out, whether one goes all the way to quantum mechanics for the root cause or sticks with previous theory, Maxwell's equations model the behavior very nicely, which allows what must occur to cause a "massive increase[] in instantaneous current" to be predicted with exactitude. The questions then would be (1) what if anything there might be in the conditions described by the patent that would fulfill the necessary requirements; and (2) if someone has one of the patented boxen and can measure this massive increase.

 

And as I have mentioned previously, not necessarily Maxwell, but there could be explanations in the micromagnetics domain too. And perhaps closer to the macro domain, any losses related to the magnetic field and a radical increase in impedance there and not just the electric field as mentioned in the patent. Not many people know about this effect as it's quite new, and personally, I can visualise it within the context of a DC field and a single alloy connector, but so far find it hard to visualise clearly within the context of the NIC.

 

What exists in the patent is the following:

- the chamber,

- the parallel connection,

- the material,

- the induced fields therein,

- the E appears to be catered for in terms of explanation

 

but no details about the B given.

 

If the explanation can then inform a design, then that would be awesome. I'm not too concerned about it though because in this thread and quite early, I did a very, very rudimentary form of signal 'grounding' which added to the other enhancements (AC Filter box + Chassis Grounding) gave us the very best sound we ever have heard here.

 

So, in the end, I'd sooner just build a couple of NICs or just two grounding planes (or any combination thereof) rather than forever try to find explanations and measure them (I have no reason to doubt the 'massive increase in instantaneous current' nor will I let any measurement here distract me) because if I got results with my very rudimentary solution, then it means that just the impedance matching or 'external grounding' was a worthy goal at least in my modest system (YYMV).

 

For info (already somewhere in a past post in this thread), the rudimentary solution was just using flat braided cables to a small hollow copper tube: I had the plan of building a proper NIC with it, but this time all I did as a first test was just connect the braided cables (one to my amp, one to my DAC).

 

Now, you can imagine just what a proper Shunyata (or similar) solution or a proper NIC or two could do (here again in my system).

 

In other words, I view this arrangement as the following:

[impedance Matching] + [Cleanup due to E field] + [Cleanup due to B field, potentially]

 

with each adding incremental (but not necessarily small) gains.

[YashN]

Yes

 

Just build this and then you can measure to your heart's content:

 

 

NB: even after building this, you'll only be measuring the symptoms (ah wait, no actually, you could even make some input-output correlations with this).

[jabbr]

Thanks jabbr, we're good and I fully agree with your statements. On instantaneous current, well actually very-short-term current, compared with no inserted DUT, indeed you can't do other than increase capacitance. And in a real-world circuit with nonzero output impedance, that introduces a voltage lag. But Shunyata only compares their power distribution gear to other distribution gear. All of these devices constitute filters of some kind. The goal has always been to reduce noise while minimizing the reduction in current delivery through the filter. They maintain that typical wall outlets can deliver well above a relay's rated current over very short intervals, which is a sensible idea, but that accurate measurements of this are quite rare. They provide a number of measurements on their website of both short-term current performance and noise attenuation.

 

It is refreshing to note that early on they urge that you replace any typical outlets which feed your audio system with better ones for the greatest bang-per buck.

measurement comparisons

 

Cheers

 

Good and my apologies if I was too crabby -- was probably working too late at night on a project that is making my head spin ... in any case if we describe a grounding box as a type of capacitor in parallel with the ground ... with low internal impedance ... and with a particular type of dielectric then I can better understand what is being talked about.

 

Yes circuit breakers can handle much higher peak current levels as can, by design, slow blow fuses. I know that many amps place current limiters in line eg http://www.mouser.com/ds/2/18/AAS-920-325D-Thermometrics-NTC-Inrush-031814-web-850596.pdf, so might be acting at cross purposes as do power supply input inductors? -- with the idea that the power supply capacitance follows. Again, the instantaneous power will be limited by the impedance.

[YashN]

It would have been very interesting to access the Shunyata white paper and articles about DTCD. IIRC there was a block diagram of the DTCD Analyzer.

 

I am not sure I ever read the whitepaper. The whitepapers have since been removed from the site and in the meantime the 'coming soon' for whitepapers on the site have been there for a good while now.

[Sam Lord]

Good and my apologies if I was too crabby --

Not at all. I love bitching at people here when they say something dumb, it brings me inner peace. Crabby would be Hawthorne from Sherman's Lagoon.... Umm no, he was more of a delinquent.

 

...I know that many amps place current limiters in line... ..., so might be acting at cross purposes as do power supply input inductors? -- with the idea that the power supply capacitance follows. Again, the instantaneous power will be limited by the impedance.

 

Agreed, to protect an amp you could use thermistors, but I wouldn't want one on an audio amp for the reason you stated: IMO that's a job for external devices. I wouldn't want any resistance on my main rails. I imagine thermistors (though I haven't examined them) to be too fragile for power amp use, plus they would limit gradually instead of at an exact moment. We used very beefy, parallel-wired, normally-closed, 2-pole breakers.... and even considered contactors at those points. The two devices were staggered at the input with a bank of very beefy resistors between devices to slow inrush current at turnon, then the same (IIRC) resistor bank did protection duty as output drainage for several error conditions. For output DC offset these were triggered by a simple (duh, my design) 8-pole, active DC sensing circuit at the output with an optocoupler to prevent or reduce damage in the case of brownouts, surges, or other poor conditions. Cutoff happened at some large fraction of max voltage after a large fraction of a second; I believe the cutoff freq. was around 0.3Hz. Most good amps do this one way or another. You let it go, let it go,... then Wham you switch out the AC input and bring down the output. That was done by draining the main filter caps into the big power resistors. Of course I found a prebuilt comparator circuit for this very purpose after I finished mine. Was it always thus...

[Sam Lord]

It would have been very interesting to access the Shunyata white paper and articles about DTCD. IIRC there was a block diagram of the DTCD Analyzer.

 

I am not sure I ever read the whitepaper. The whitepapers have since been removed from the site and in the meantime the 'coming soon' for whitepapers on the site have been there for a good while now.

 

Yeah YashN, I don't know where the materials went. Caelin discusses many items, including some we noticed very early. Some might have come from interviews, don't remember:

 

1) The huge apparent volume increase.

2) The phenomenon of tired ear muscles, apparently from such dynamics.

3) Solutions for 2).

 

From 2) you were transfixed by the music even though your ears would get tired. The same thing happens at loud concerts, only this happened at safe (but high) listening levels.

 

I haven't followed your project very closely, curious about what circuit you're working on. I'll look at it when I get time. I have comments on the power treatment you're eyeing, but am too tied up now to really examine it.

[YashN]

I haven't followed your project very closely, curious about what circuit you're working on. I'll look at it when I get time. I have comments on the power treatment you're eyeing, but am too tied up now to really examine it.

 

As the thread is packed with info (still worthwhile to read through, taking care to avoid the crap posted by Daudio and One and a Half, and side-stepping some of the less helpful posts by Speedskater and sticking to his other very helpful resources), here's a quick summary:

 

- Probably Post #1 is good to read as starting point, namely I was looking to just build an AC Filter box, but then along the way, many more questions arose spanning the audio system view.

 

- I started with a Jon Risch Filter design, which is quite simple and using ferrite rods

 

- Then I read about some of Lukasz Ficus's iterations

 

- My own circuit is similar to Lukasz's but I avoid a couple of things he integrated in his

 

- There's also a parallel circuit by Thorsten Loesch in the thread

 

- My own Filter box continuously wants to grow

 

- Researching the matter brought us to discuss Grounding/Chassis Grounding and signal 'grounding', especially in the Tripoint and Entreq devices, as well as Balanced Power, Isolation Transformers, Balanced Interconnects, etc...

 

- I wanted to inform the design of my AC Filter box on a pure Engineering/Science perspective (i.e. no consideration for budget/business/marketing side issues)

 

- Other designs that I looked into: the Steve McCormack device, and Caelin's devices

 

- I want to integrate the Chassis grounding in my AC Filter box (easy), as well as the signal 'grounding' (easy to do but not easy to integrate IMO). Imagine for simplification that we are mainly externalising the ground plane and the signal ground plane of our equipment into that single box: the question becomes how to integrate these two plates in my design geometrically, mechanically and electro-magnetically for the best results.

 

- As for Balanced Power and Isolation Transformers, our friends Zilch0md and lmitche have done a lot of experiments and are far ahead of me in experimenting with them.

[YashN]

Guess who managed to completely troubleshoot and repair his SET Tube Amp today? DSD256 into tubes is something - highly recommended.

 

Me.

 

This means my workshop table has now plenty of space for new projects.

[YashN]

- Then I read about some of Lukasz Ficus's iterations

 

- My own circuit is similar to Lukasz's but I avoid a couple of things he integrated in his

 

Here's Lukasz's schematics for his Silk AC Filter:

 

 

He also added some switches to selectively disconnect GND from some of the outlets for certain devices:

 

My circuit is similar to his, but has no inductor on the common ground line, and has no switches on the individual Ground to socket connections.

 

The rest of my design have parallels in the Shunyata and Steve McCormack designs.

[YashN]

YashN

Do you keep one hand in your pocket when measuring those nasty HT voltages ? (grin)

 

This time, for troubleshooting, I had to.

 

Fortunately, all measurements went fine, a steady hand helps. Fortunately, the circuit was fine as well, probably was corrected when I replaced the Constant-Current Source, so since Sunday we're listening exclusively to my SET Tune Amp. My SS Amp, despite having much, much more power, can't compete SQ-wise with the nearly the most basic configuration of my SET Tube Amp.

 

I think if I had used SS rectification in the Tube Amp, it could qualify as the most basic configuration. I chose to do a full-tube implementation, so the rectification is also done by a tube.

[One and a half]

Here's Lukasz's schematics for his Silk AC Filter:

 

 

He also added some switches to selectively disconnect GND from some of the outlets for certain devices:

 

My circuit is similar to his, but has no inductor on the common ground line, and has no switches on the individual Ground to socket connections.

 

The rest of my design have parallels in the Shunyata and Steve McCormack designs.

 

Yes, L4 and the switch in the ground/earth line are prohibited activity.

[sandyk]

Yes, L4 and the switch in the ground/earth line are prohibited activity.

 

And deservedly so !

Imagine the consequences in the case of a major fault if there was a dry joint/faulty connection in the Earth return. Some may even use toggle switches for the switch, which are well known for going very high resistance. I have had to replace several that caused intermittent failures in the AC Mains side of power supplies.

[YashN]

Yes, L4 and the switch in the ground/earth line are prohibited activity.

 

We covered that ages ago in this thread.

[YashN]

Considering the audio system, where great benefits can be derived from using a dedicated line (done), balanced power (not yet explored), isolation transformers or other AC filtering, proper grounding, better power supplies and better amps, it sounds like it is a very daft thing to lose all that ability in a common weak link.

 

More and more, in my system, this weak link is nagging at my mind (as these things usually do) and it's the RCA and non balanced interconnect there.

 

Now, I just built my Single-Ended Tube Amp, so I am going to listen to this for a while, so buying a new DAC and a new Amp is not of the order of the day, because that's indeed what I would have to do to get a pure Balanced connection between these two and that would be a hefty price.

 

So, instead, what I thought about is make a pseudo-balanced connection. For this, I would have to put the DAC circuit in a larger chassis, and then use XLR connectors on it and the AMP. Thus the shield of the new balanced cable would actually be a shield, and the small signal return will then be inside that. We'll avoid the Pin 1 problem by architecting this properly as well.

 

Those small signals can be affected very easily (the proportion being big since the signals themselves are small) in the normal and flawed return-as-shield interconnects, as well as having the metal of the RCA connectors exposed to any RFI/EMI. Then we are amplifying these, together with the noise profile.

[YashN]

New way of generating electricity from magnetism:

 

By showing that a phenomenon dubbed the “inverse spin Hall effect” works in several organic semiconductors – including carbon-60 buckyballs – University of Utah physicists changed magnetic “spin current” into electric current. The efficiency of this new power conversion method isn’t yet known, but it might find use in future electronic devices including batteries, solar cells and computers.

 

 

“This paper is the first to demonstrate the inverse spin Hall effect in a range of organic semiconductors with unprecedented sensitivity,” although a 2013 study by other researchers demonstrated it with less sensitivity in one such material, says Christoph Boehme, a senior author of the study published April 18 in the journal Nature Materials.

 

“The inverse spin Hall effect is a remarkable phenomenon that turns so-called spin current into an electric current. The effect is so odd that nobody really knows what this will be used for eventually, but many technical applications are conceivable, including very odd new power-conversion schemes,” says Boehme, a physics professor.

 

 

His fellow senior author, distinguished professor Z. Valy Vardeny, says that by using pulses of microwaves, the inverse spin Hall effect and organic semiconductors to convert spin current into electricity, this new electromotive force generates electrical current in a way different than existing sources.