A novel way to massively improve the SQ of computer audio streaming

[sandyk]

2 hours ago, Em2016 said:

 

The 360 method is a community tweak but regarding John’s original DIY method there’s no strict requirement to have the shield floating. You can have the shield connected to ground. So when you say “by design” I’m not sure where this was mentioned to be a requirement.

 

Again, I’m only talking about John’s method, not the 360 community tweak.

 

My understanding was that the shield was meant to be left floating, NOT earthed, with (originally) a single strand of a reasonable gauge wire connecting both ends of the braid.

A length of enamelled copper wire would have been ideal for this purpose.

[Bricki]

10 hours ago, austinpop said:

 

Many thanks to Blake for sending me his Ghent Gotham JSSG 360 cable. It arrived yesterday, and I let it settle in to my system for a few hours, between my LPS-1.2 and TLS OCXCO switch.

 

I did some quick comparisons last night between it and my reference - JSSG 360'd Audio Sensibility 7N UPOCC silver cable. Please note - since this was on my switch, I used Tidal streamed music to do the comparison.

 

Bottom line - to my ears, the Audio Sensibility was still a fair bit better. The Gotham cable is very nice, but the richness, density, and image size with the Audio Sensibility is something else.

 

There are 2 other factors that could be affecting this. First, Blake's Ghent cable is 1m long, while my AS cable is only 0.3m. Second, I don't know if the Gotham has had any burn in at all. @Blake?

 

I'll let the Ghent Gotham cable burn in for the next couple days, and retry the test. Stay tuned.

Thanks for this comparison Rajiv

 

Do you know if anyone has done a comparison between the audio sensibility and other high end dc cables? (such as zenwave or others) 

 

I'm just trying to figure out some rankings as I'm considering having a dabble in the high end dc cable market as it may well yield better results than my feeble DIY attempts??

[asdf1000]

44 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

My understanding was that the shield was meant to be left floating, NOT earthed, with (originally) a single strand of a reasonable gauge wire connecting both ends of the braid.

A length of enamelled copper wire would have been ideal for this purpose.

 

Not that it's a big deal but see the later discussion, including John's post.

 

I've seen people on other forums saying it must explicitly be floating but that's not true if you read John's actual post.

 

I think both floating and signal grounded can be effective if you read John's words.

 

These things can be like the fun game of Chinese whispers, with the method changing from person to person, but I like to go to the original source.

 

 

 

[sandyk]

4 minutes ago, Em2016 said:

Not that it's a big deal but see the later discussion, including John's post.

 I was talking about John's original posts in this area.

 Some of you guys are fabricating cables that may be a whisker better, but at the expense of flexibility.

 You are also in many cases ignoring other well known technical methods that will pay even greater dividends, such as trying to eliminate as many cables as possible and avoid daisy chaining components, especially where the initial PSU has a VERY low Output impedance, and any additional lead lengths will substantially increase that output impedance. The lower the EARTH reference is for example, the better the results normally are.

[asdf1000]

1 minute ago, sandyk said:

I was talking about John's original posts in this area.

 

Yes and I quoted and linked to it..

 

Anyway it's there just a few posts above, for people to read and interpret their own way. No gains in arguing too much about it.

 

[sandyk]

7 minutes ago, Em2016 said:

 

Yes and I quoted and linked to it..

 

Anyway it's there just a few posts above, for people to read and interpret their own way. No gains in arguing too much about it.

 

 

The fact remains that the shield is not normally earthed in these applications, it is normally left floating and the shield ends kept well clear of the outers of the plugs at both ends.

 

Quote

I guess I read "leaving the shield completely disconnected from the rest of the circuit is the best way to go" as the best way to go. - Lmitchie

 

[agladstone]

22 hours ago, Cornan said:

 

Considering how slow I am with a soldering iron and how my experimental cables looks I would’nt sell many! I would end up broke with burnt finger tips! ?

Broke, second degree burns on your fingers, and  happy!!! ? 

[agladstone]

12 hours ago, austinpop said:

 

Many thanks to Blake for sending me his Ghent Gotham JSSG 360 cable. It arrived yesterday, and I let it settle in to my system for a few hours, between my LPS-1.2 and TLS OCXCO switch.

 

I did some quick comparisons last night between it and my reference - JSSG 360'd Audio Sensibility 7N UPOCC silver cable. Please note - since this was on my switch, I used Tidal streamed music to do the comparison.

 

Bottom line - to my ears, the Audio Sensibility was still a fair bit better. The Gotham cable is very nice, but the richness, density, and image size with the Audio Sensibility is something else.

 

There are 2 other factors that could be affecting this. First, Blake's Ghent cable is 1m long, while my AS cable is only 0.3m. Second, I don't know if the Gotham has had any burn in at all. @Blake?

 

I'll let the Ghent Gotham cable burn in for the next couple days, and retry the test. Stay tuned.

I think Ghent is also now offering a Silver starquad cable with JSSG 360, would that potentially be a better choice vs. the Ghent Gotham JSSG 360? I’m thinking of ordering a few of one of these types from Ghent. Also my current “batch” of Ghent Canare 4S6 / Oyiade JSSG (not 360) I have are all between 1 meter and 3 meters in length, when I ordered all of these last year, I wasn’t aware of the benefits of shorter DC Cable length, so I’m assuming regardless of which type I buy I should also focus on shortest lengths possible for all DC Cables? 

[look&listen]

1 hour ago, Em2016 said:

I think both floating and signal grounded can be effective if you read John's words.

Sorry, think distinction is distraction  

Grounding can bring noise & drain it. Bigger antenna for noise? Drain impedance?

Floating shield smaller antenna(s). Maybe sink RF in capacitance between shield layers?

Only questioning thoughts, but audio system RFI mechanisms not addressed with who said what, when.

[asdf1000]

47 minutes ago, look&listen said:

Grounding can bring noise & drain it. Bigger antenna for noise? Drain impedance?

 

If this were true then John would be explicit and would say don't connect the shield and loop wire to ground. He says you can connect both ends to ground, you can even connect a single end to ground or you can float, for the shielding to work.

 

The key is the loop wire of course, not just the shield alone.

 

I really don't want to make a big deal of this so will leave it for now. But my only point was it's not correct to say that you absolutely must use a floating shield for it to follow John's shielding guideline.

[austinpop]

3 hours ago, Bricki said:

Thanks for this comparison Rajiv

 

Do you know if anyone has done a comparison between the audio sensibility and other high end dc cables? (such as zenwave or others) 

 

Not really. Maybe Audio Bacon has reviewed some, but can’t remember.

 

I think I tried Audio Sensibility based on the recommendation of trusted CAers @mozes and @auricgoldfinger. That’s my approach, to go with recommendations from folks I trust.

 

1 hour ago, agladstone said:

I think Ghent is also now offering a Silver starquad cable with JSSG 360, would that potentially be a better choice vs. the Ghent Gotham JSSG 360? I’m thinking of ordering a few of one of these types from Ghent. Also my current “batch” of Ghent Canare 4S6 / Oyiade JSSG (not 360) I have are all between 1 meter and 3 meters in length, when I ordered all of these last year, I wasn’t aware of the benefits of shorter DC Cable length, so I’m assuming regardless of which type I buy I should also focus on shortest lengths possible for all DC Cables? 

 

Definitely agree on shortest possible length. As to Ghent’s silver star quad JSSG 360... intriguing. But the only way we’ll know is if someone tries them.

[Superdad]

9 hours ago, look&listen said:

But JSSS & JSSS-360 shielded cables not grounded (by design). Any theories why they so effective?

 

Please remember gents: The JSSG technique is so audibly effective not because of high frequency EMI/EMF shielding, rather it is because it is VERY effective at shielding from low frequency fields—especially from the AC leakage that is running around all our systems and coming from various sources.

 

On our call today—where I was informing him of the great results and enthusiasm for JSSG— @JohnSwenson bemoaned that despite his explaining several times, the above seems to be overlooked or misunderstood.

 

He is sorry that he has not been too active in posting this past month, but please excuse him as he is heads down on several important development projects.  BTW, his LitePlacer pick-and-place machine is fully up and running.  I’ll post a portion of a video he made of it in action once he takes some full-view stills of the set-up.  It is VERY cool! (And a bit noisy.  I think it sounds like a goat when the vacuum pump picks up the parts. )

[flkin]

19 hours ago, beautiful music said:

Looking expectantly for the comparison between Lush and Habst USB cables.

 

Just done in the Habst thread. Not much more to add apart from the Habst has even more body than the Lush (if that is possible!) while maintaining real sized shapes and a lot of detail that jumps out. It finishes off the sound well, making it elegant. 

 

[Solstice380]

12 hours ago, look&listen said:

 Any theories why they so effective?

 

No, I don’t have any.  ?   I’m not a designer and anything I’ve worked with has had grounded shielding.  

[d_elm]

18 hours ago, Johnseye said:

 

Do you have a good source for the Oyaides or did you get them from eBay?

I have purchased Oyaide DC connectors from eBay member kamkam0770.  He is in Hong Kong, ships immediately with tracking and I had them in a few days to Canada. Shipping charge was included in the unit price.

[Johnseye]

55 minutes ago, d_elm said:

I have purchased Oyaide DC connectors from eBay member kamkam0770.  He is in Hong Kong, ships immediately with tracking and I had them in a few days to Canada. Shipping charge was included in the unit price.

 

Thanks.

How can someone determine whether the connectors are counterfeit or real?

[d_elm]

3 minutes ago, Johnseye said:

 

Thanks.

How can someone determine whether the connectors are counterfeit or real?

Using a miliohm meter I measured Oyaide connectors from kamkam0770 and Uptone and they were in the same range and far lower than cheap connectors.

[rickca]

13 hours ago, Superdad said:

I think it sounds like a goat when the vacuum pump picks up the parts. 

As long as the EtherRegen doesn't suck or sound like a goat, I'm happy.

[Blake]

7 hours ago, Johnseye said:

 

Thanks.

How can someone determine whether the connectors are counterfeit or real?

 

Patrick at Cullen Cable told me in February he was not able to find any Oyaide connectors anywhere for a DC cable he was working on for me.  He said all he could find were knock off's.  I did some searching after hearing that and couldn't find any suppliers.

 

Of course, Ghent seems to be able to get them but perhaps they really stocked up before the shortage hit?

[Cornan]

33 minutes ago, Blake said:

 

Patrick at Cullen Cable told me in February he was not able to find any Oyaide connectors anywhere for a DC cable he was working on for me.  He said all he could find were knock off's.  I did some searching after hearing that and couldn't find any suppliers.

 

Of course, Ghent seems to be able to get them but perhaps they really stocked up before the shortage hit?

 

Sorry, but personally I cannot hear confident differences between Oyiade and screw terminal plugs in terms of SQ. I’ve tried it many times. Cables is another matter all together. Lately I found out that pre LDOs and post LDOs requires different approach in terms of cable configurations.

[Superdad]

7 hours ago, Johnseye said:

How can someone determine whether the connectors are counterfeit or real?

 

I have seen DC barrel plugs similar to the Oyaides (I have samples of the ones the French Audiophonics had made), but have not seen any counterfeits.

 

However, as I posted about 18 months ago, Oyaide did change to a new, smaller style that I find near-impssoble to use for wire of any decent gauge.  Here is a pic of the original (upper-right; it's a used one) and the short and cramped current ones of the past 18 months (lower-left).

 

The metal gauge of the ground-strap/strain-relief is also much thinner on the new ones, but the issue to focus on is just how close the center pin is to where the strap/relief is.  There is near zero room to solder the ve- wires without touching the center.

 

The Belden 9418 shielded star-quad wire we use for the cables we supply with the JS-2 is 4 conductors of #18. Pairing #18 equals about a #15--plus the shield tied at one end.  Now you understand why the new ones are impossible for us.  It is tight enough with larger original ones!

 

I had been buying hundreds (over 1300 actually) of the originals for a couple of years when Oyaide informed of the change and sent me samples of the new ones.  I freaked out, bought the last of the originals and begged them to make more for us.  They agreed--if I bought 1,000 all at once, and they jacked up the price a bit.  And I had to wait 4 months for them.

 

I always promised Oyaide that we would not resell the plugs raw--that we would only sell them on terminated cables.  And mostly the cables are sold only with our high-current JS-2 LPS.  And I have kept that promise. (Okay I let a handful go to Larry, but he also made me a nice cable. )

 

Oyaide has a fine USA master importer--Joe Cohen at The Lotus Group--and when we happened to chat about 6 months ago I mentioned my direct relationship for just the DC plugs.  He was not very happy about it, but then he is to to my knowledge bringing in their DC plugs, and I assured him we were not competing with him in any way.

 

Now I am running low on stock and need to contact Oayide for another expensive 1,000 piece buy.  I just have to hope they can/will do it again--or we are screwed.

 

15 minutes ago, Blake said:

Patrick at Cullen Cable told me in February he was not able to find any Oyaide connectors anywhere for a DC cable he was working on for me.  He said all he could find were knock off's.  I did some searching after hearing that and couldn't find any suppliers.

Of course, Ghent seems to be able to get them but perhaps they really stocked up before the shortage hit?

 

With regards to the current short Oyaide DC-2.5G and DC-2.1G plugs, I do not think there is any shortage.  They are all over eBay for $14.99 each (https://www.ebay.com/itm/Oyaide-DC-2-5G-24K-Gold-Plated-DC-Power-Connector-plug-high-qyality-Japan-/142211490482), and even Oyaide's own Akihabara store still lists them (https://oyaide.com/catalog/catalogsearch/result/?q=DC-2.5G).  Maybe Patrick did not look very hard.

 

That's all I know about the Oyaide plug situation at the moment.  And please, don't anyone ask me to sell them raw plugs! 

 

Ciao,

--Alex C.

[look&listen]

23 minutes ago, Superdad said:

However, as I posted about 18 months ago, Oyaide did change to a new, smaller style that I find near-impossible to use for wire of any decent gauge.

 

23 minutes ago, Superdad said:

Belden 9418 shielded star-quad wire we use for the cables we supply with the JS-2 is 4 conductors of #18. Pairing #18 equals about a #15--plus the shield tied at one end.  Now you understand why the new ones are impossible for us.  It is tight enough with larger original ones!

 

Got Oyaide right angle connector from Ghent special order. Looks like new version straight one with shorter sleeve & tab. Used with same Belden quad cable, was tight but possible (but not production). Forgot some heat shrink in too hurried assembly & even with custom tape pieces, tightened sleeve caused intermittent short (nice current limiting in LT304xs  ). Now fixed and sound good.

 

Extra JSSS wire made sleeve assembly difficult but still possible. JSSS-360 have to wait, enough DIY for while.

[sandyk]

Has anybody measured the total resistance of their fabricated D.C. leads from the plug at one end, to the plug at the other end with both inner and outer properly short circuited in that plug?  To do this properly you would need a DMM that can accurately read very low resistance, or use a Milliohm adaptor with a normal DMM.

We need to take into account how the total resistance of the leads markedly increases the output impedance of the voltage regulator, which with a LM317 at a current of 100mA  for example, may be as low as 30 milliohms .

 

 This should show why D.C. connecting leads should be as short as possible, using the heaviest gauge wire that will fit into the plugs.

Using a JSSG can only assist with LF external rubbish getting into the leads.

 

For those into DIY, the attached link may be of interest.

http://www.tnt-audio.com/clinica/regulators2_impedance1_e.html

 

Alex

[kyrill]

Dank je Sandyk

 

That is very good advice

[Johnseye]

14 hours ago, Superdad said:

 

I have seen DC barrel plugs similar to the Oyaides (I have samples of the ones the French Audiophonics had made), but have not seen any counterfeits.

 

However, as I posted about 18 months ago, Oyaide did change to a new, smaller style that I find near-impssoble to use for wire of any decent gauge.  Here is a pic of the original (upper-right; it's a used one) and the short and cramped current ones of the past 18 months (lower-left).

 

The metal gauge of the ground-strap/strain-relief is also much thinner on the new ones, but the issue to focus on is just how close the center pin is to where the strap/relief is.  There is near zero room to solder the ve- wires without touching the center.

 

The Belden 9418 shielded star-quad wire we use for the cables we supply with the JS-2 is 4 conductors of #18. Pairing #18 equals about a #15--plus the shield tied at one end.  Now you understand why the new ones are impossible for us.  It is tight enough with larger original ones!

 

I had been buying hundreds (over 1300 actually) of the originals for a couple of years when Oyaide informed of the change and sent me samples of the new ones.  I freaked out, bought the last of the originals and begged them to make more for us.  They agreed--if I bought 1,000 all at once, and they jacked up the price a bit.  And I had to wait 4 months for them.

 

I always promised Oyaide that we would not resell the plugs raw--that we would only sell them on terminated cables.  And mostly the cables are sold only with our high-current JS-2 LPS.  And I have kept that promise. (Okay I let a handful go to Larry, but he also made me a nice cable. )

 

Oyaide has a fine USA master importer--Joe Cohen at The Lotus Group--and when we happened to chat about 6 months ago I mentioned my direct relationship for just the DC plugs.  He was not very happy about it, but then he is to to my knowledge bringing in their DC plugs, and I assured him we were not competing with him in any way.

 

Now I am running low on stock and need to contact Oayide for another expensive 1,000 piece buy.  I just have to hope they can/will do it again--or we are screwed.

 

 

With regards to the current short Oyaide DC-2.5G and DC-2.1G plugs, I do not think there is any shortage.  They are all over eBay for $14.99 each (https://www.ebay.com/itm/Oyaide-DC-2-5G-24K-Gold-Plated-DC-Power-Connector-plug-high-qyality-Japan-/142211490482), and even Oyaide's own Akihabara store still lists them (https://oyaide.com/catalog/catalogsearch/result/?q=DC-2.5G).  Maybe Patrick did not look very hard.

 

That's all I know about the Oyaide plug situation at the moment.  And please, don't anyone ask me to sell them raw plugs! 

 

Ciao,

--Alex C.

 

 

Thanks Alex.  I'll probably order the shorty Oayide's you linked from eBay and make it fit.  It looks like they ship from Japan, although the other CA member said he tested those from HK and they appear legit.  Too bad there isn't a connector with the same quality as Oayide.