Why!? Please Tell Me Why!

[fas42]

https://sites.google.com/site/venomousdangerous/snakes/australia-s-most-venomous-snakes ...

[Rexp]

13 hours ago, gmgraves said:

Enemy? You see audiophiles who don't agree with your opinions as THE ENEMY? Wow, You need help my friend. This is a hobby, not national security! Perhaps you should step back from audio for a bit and gain some proper perspective!

As somone once said- audio is not life and death, it is more important than that..

[Rexp]

8 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

Face it George - you have too much knowledge, experience, and common sense to be an audiophool.

 

rexP = gutb ??

 

 

I'll take that as a compliment.

[gmgraves]

3 hours ago, elcorso said:

At least Rattle Snake warns you with the sound when you are going to be attacked. Here the most common and poisonous is the Terciopelo (Velvet ) Snake (Fer-de-lance) and has no rattle to warn you.

 

Well I startled this fellow by stepping on him and he just struck. He rattled after the fact to let me know that he was ready to do it again!

 

3 hours ago, elcorso said:

Many years ago the father of a friend who collected snakes to take them to a large institute here, who prepares antiophidic serum and exports to the whole world, parked his car, where locked with a key he carried a large sack full of living snakes for the institute. Some thief opened his car and took the sack. Just imagine the thief when he opened it ...!

 

I am very careful when I walk in our thick bush and jungle !

I hear you there. I think if I lived somewhere where there were a number of very poisonous snakes, that I would wear those old fashioned leather boots that laced-up to just below the knee to go walking in the woods/jungle. Where I grew-up, Northern Virginia, USA, there were only two poisonous snakes: the rattler and the copperhead (sometimes called a cottonmouth or a water moccasin). While both can be deadly, neither is very aggressive and both are reclusive. I spent most of my childhood in the woods and only saw the one rattler (the one that bit me) and one water moccasin (I was in a boat fishing in the James river and I saw the snake slither into the water from the nearest bank and swim off out of sight). Further south there is the coral snake, one of the world's most deadly. Lucky for us humans, coral snakes have such tiny mouths that the only way they could get you is if you were barefoot and the snake could get hold of your small toe!

[vmartell22]

On 4/16/2018 at 4:23 PM, Nordkapp said:

So this image was posted earlier in another thread. I believe it was from AXPONA 2018. Regardless, can someone please comment on what in the hell the purpose of these "cables" could possibly be. I'm no E.E, but I have plenty of ideas of what one could use them for, other than electrical signals. These damned things just make me sad for our entire hobby.

 

 

HAHA

 

Before  clicking for zooming I thought that was a constrictor... or a log..  - yeah, well... 

 

v

 

[gmgraves]

54 minutes ago, Rexp said:

As somone once said- audio is not life and death, it is more important than that..

Anyone who thinks like that is in need of professional help.

[gmgraves]

3 minutes ago, vmartell22 said:

 

HAHA

 

Before  clicking for zooming I thought that was a constrictor... or a log..  - yeah, well... 

 

v

 

I suspect it would be more valuable as a constrictor, or a log than it would be a speaker cable. I'll still like to know what it costs and at least it doesn't seem to have have filter components in it like MIT's $10,000+ speaker "cables" do!

[vmartell22]

On 4/16/2018 at 5:31 PM, GUTB said:

I bet those use multiple bundles of conductors with large air dielectrics. Probably very nice sounding. 

 

How do we go from "conductors with large air dielectrics" ->  "Probably very nice sounding"?

The thing is the most of the time the explanation includes very detailed and very arcane knowledge of conducting materials, the physics of it etc - and well,  I am not one to knock anyone that knows lots more than I do - that said the crucial jump from  "this is how that constrictor-like cable works" to better sound is either never explained or goes straight to "therefore there is a  difference" or "therefore it sounds better"... and without true scientific testing of those conclusions, well, there will always be a controversy...

 

I am sure that if you measure and/or observe, the signal can be shown to be a little different going thru that contraption than thru the best cables in the market at any price, BlueJeans cables...   BUT the statement that the difference is audible has not been proved to survive truly rigorous scientific testing, no matter if  a 50+ year old audiophile able to afford those things  tell us that she/he (and is probably a he) can hear the difference...

 

v

 

 

 

[mansr]

6 hours ago, vmartell22 said:

How do we go from "conductors with large air dielectrics" ->  "Probably very nice sounding"?

The thing is the most of the time the explanation includes very detailed and very arcane knowledge of conducting materials, the physics of it etc - and well,  I am not one to knock anyone that knows lots more than I do - that said the crucial jump from  "this is how that constrictor-like cable works" to better sound is either never explained or goes straight to "therefore there is a  difference" or "therefore it sounds better"... and without true scientific testing of those conclusions, well, there will always be a controversy...

 

[pkane2001]

11 hours ago, gmgraves said:

Just goes to show what's possible when certain people have more money than sense. Talk about overkill! Like bringing a 50 Caliber machine gun to kill a fly! But I'm not sure that DCCA makes the speaker cables we've been discussing. I tried top go to DCCA's speaker cable web page and it wouldn't load. But another site mentioned that DCCA's speaker cables start at $145, and I don't think It's the same thing. E-Bay was selling a pair of DCCA speaker cables 12 ft long for $550 (auction now closed) but I couldn't lift the picture. Anyway, they aren't as big as the ones in the photo we've been looking at by a long shot!

 

Maybe it's not DCCA, but I really like this offer on the DCCA power cord page:

 

 

Would really love to know how they do this with a power cord! All this time I've been using digital EQ when all I needed was just to swap power cords...

 

[beancounter]

I once hosted a DIY club meeting.  I was putting the drivers in new speaker cabinets, with the crossovers mounted externally, and I finished shortly before folks were to arrive.  BUT - I REALLY screwed up and the crossover wires were about 8 inches to short to reach the drivers (I had neglected to re-measure after a change).  And of course, I had given my spools of good wire to somebody to use for a project.  What to do?  What  good is an audiophile club meeting without the main speakers?

 

Romex and wire nuts to the rescue.

 

Yep, I stripped some romex, used the 12ga solid core wires to span the gap inside the cabinets, did the quick and dirty connection with wire nuts and sealed up the cabs.  Everybody thought they were great.  One guy brought a bunch of exotic speaker cable$,  and did an impromptu cable shootout - all the while extolling the sonic virtues and sins of each, not knowing it went through plain old homely romex at the end of the line.

 

Ever since, I've joked about patenting audiophile wirenuts and making a fortune.

[daverich4]

13 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

I've spent 30 years steadily developing that attitude - I have heard too much atrocious playback from ambitious systems to pay any attention to what others claim their systems are telling them ... and using that belief is a very powerful tool to pushing one forward to get ever better playback. It may please one's ego to think that one's system is "better" than a whole lot of recordings, but believing such shortcircuits a whole world of possibilities in terms of listening pleasure.

 

What on earth does that have to do with your statement that "if playback sounds lousy, it's always the rig, not the recording"? I have numerous recordings that are basically unlistenable no matter what magical process you use to fine tune your stereo. What is that process by the way? You keep mentioning that you use it but the only concrete item that you've mentioned is soldering the interconnects to the equipment instead of plugging them in. And, "paying attention to the details". What details are most important? Are you never going to let the rest of us in on your techniques?

[gmgraves]

2 hours ago, pkane2001 said:

 

Maybe it's not DCCA, but I really like this offer on the DCCA power cord page:

 

 

Would really love to know how they do this with a power cord! All this time I've been using digital EQ when all I needed was just to swap power cords...

 

I have a friend who designs power supplies for a living. I sent him to some of the power cord sites, You know, Furutech, Pangea, Nordost, and several others, and I thought he was going to die laughing. Now, I've never tried one of these "boutique" power cords myself, and I can't imagine what one could possibly do that a standard IEC cable can't, and the physics of electricity says that these huge, expensive power cords cannot possibly have any affect whatsoever on the sound of the component to which they are connected. But again, I haven't tried them, so I cannot say for sure. All I can say is they shouldn't have any influence on sound. 

 

I guess the difference between me and a lot of audiophiles is that my training and experience tells me that a lot of these tweaks and fancy cables have no basis in electrical theory so therefore I'm skeptical, and my skepticism keeps me from putting out either the money or the time to try them. Maybe they do something, Maybe not. For instance I've heard what I thought were differences between interconnects only to have those differences disappear in a DBT. 

[mozes]

3 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

I have a friend who designs power supplies for a living. I sent him to some of the power cord sites, You know, Furutech, Pangea, Nordost, and several others, and I thought he was going to die laughing. Now, I've never tried one of these "boutique" power cords myself, and I can't imagine what one could possibly do that a standard IEC cable can't, and the physics of electricity says that these huge, expensive power cords cannot possibly have any affect whatsoever on the sound of the component to which they are connected. But again, I haven't tried them, so I cannot say for sure. All I can say is they shouldn't have any influence on sound. 

A power cord does impact sound! But it doesn’t mean that expensive is better.

[gmgraves]

2 hours ago, beancounter said:

I once hosted a DIY club meeting.  I was putting the drivers in new speaker cabinets, with the crossovers mounted externally, and I finished shortly before folks were to arrive.  BUT - I REALLY screwed up and the crossover wires were about 8 inches to short to reach the drivers (I had neglected to re-measure after a change).  And of course, I had given my spools of good wire to somebody to use for a project.  What to do?  What  good is an audiophile club meeting without the main speakers?

 

Romex and wire nuts to the rescue.

 

Yep, I stripped some romex, used the 12ga solid core wires to span the gap inside the cabinets, did the quick and dirty connection with wire nuts and sealed up the cabs.  Everybody thought they were great.  One guy brought a bunch of exotic speaker cable$,  and did an impromptu cable shootout - all the while extolling the sonic virtues and sins of each, not knowing it went through plain old homely romex at the end of the line.

 

Ever since, I've joked about patenting audiophile wirenuts and making a fortune.

I had a buddy (now deceased) who wired his speakers permanently with 12 ga Romex. Ran the cables under the floor of his house. He always seemed very happy with it. I see no reason, ELECTRICALLY, why it wouldn't work satisfactorily. After all 50/60 Hz are audio frequencies!

 

 

[gmgraves]

7 minutes ago, mozes said:

A power cord does impact sound! But it doesn’t mean that expensive is better.

I just wish somebody could explain why and how, because it shouldn't, you know. 

[jabbr]

13 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

I just wish somebody could explain why and how, because it shouldn't, you know. 

 

 

Well its worse because why would any electrically relevant device — if we place an AC power cable into this category — why would it affect every device it plugs into? Each device has its own power supply and surely if power cables impact sound, it would only be with certain supplies?

 

Using a specific example: do power cables affect the sound when plugged into the UpTone LPS-1 supply? @Superdad knows what I’m getting at ?

[pkane2001]

Just now, jabbr said:

 

 

Well its worse because why would any electrically relevant device — if we place an AC power cable into this category — why would it affect every device it plugs into? Each device has its own power supply and surely if power cables impact sound, it would only be with certain supplies?

 

Using a specific example: do power cables affect the sound when plugged into the UpTone LPS-1 supply? @Superdad knows what I’m getting at ?

 

And more to the point with DCCA power cord: how does their 'sound tuning' using power cord work with every device you plug it into? Or do they tune it specifically for each device it plugs into?

 

[gmgraves]

2 hours ago, daverich4 said:

 

What on earth does that have to do with your statement that "if playback sounds lousy, it's always the rig, not the recording"? I have numerous recordings that are basically unlistenable no matter what magical process you use to fine tune your stereo. What is that process by the way? You keep mentioning that you use it but the only concrete item that you've mentioned is soldering the interconnects to the equipment instead of plugging them in. And, "paying attention to the details". What details are most important? Are you never going to let the rest of us in on your techniques?

You've basically hit the nail on Frank's head! First of all, if soldering the interconnects to the equipment made that big of a difference, then the best systems in the world would be receivers in which everything you need is in one box, and connected internally. But one would think if that were what was needed, there would be a plethora of high-priced  all-in-ones with FM, CD, NAS player, DAC, preamp, and amplifier in them and they'd always get the highest ratings from reviewers. But all-in-ones like this are not that popular and are, in actuality, quite rare. 

 

And I keep wondering what else one could do to a group of boxes to "Pay attention to the details" What details? You can dress your cables if you have a noise problem, but most systems don't. You can solder the connections between boxes, but we've been over that. You can use power conditioners to isolate your system from the rest of the household, but again, that just affects the noise floor as would dedicated mains circuits. Lowering the noise floor will not result in the level of resolution and the miracle of making bad records sound good that Frank asserts in every post he makes. So I can't imagine what else he can do short of altering the circuitry, which he's alluded to several times (he says he's removed stuff from circuits, mostly. Since everything is manufactured in a cost-conscious way (especially the class of equipment that he says he's working with), I can't imagine a component having extraneous parts init that the removal of those parts would improve performance. He also says that his "method" yields SQ from mid-fi components that even the most expensive, high-end components can't match out-of-the-box!!!???? 

[mansr]

26 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

I just wish somebody could explain why and how, because it shouldn't, you know. 

Try getting sound without a power cord.

[gmgraves]

5 minutes ago, jabbr said:

 

 

Well its worse because why would any electrically relevant device — if we place an AC power cable into this category — why would it affect every device it plugs into? Each device has its own power supply and surely if power cables impact sound, it would only be with certain supplies?

 

Using a specific example: do power cables affect the sound when plugged into the UpTone LPS-1 supply? @Superdad knows what I’m getting at ?

I too know what you're getting at. All components ostensibly have a power transformer that the boutique power cord is plugged into. They all have different impedances and different losses and are, essentially an unknown load to any generic power cord. Given that such cords represent the last 6 ft or so of a very long journey from the power station to one's audio component, I simply don't see what one could do. It can't be a low pass filter, the Xc and XL and R are all too small to make even a measurable difference. 

[gmgraves]

7 minutes ago, mansr said:

Try getting sound without a power cord.

Batteries Inside the component? 

[mozes]

1 hour ago, gmgraves said:

I just wish somebody could explain why and how, because it shouldn't, you know. 

I leave that to scientists. I know that it does. Just because it can’t be explained, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

[Ralf11]

how do you know?

 

you listened no doubt... but how do you know the difference was due to the power cord and not some other input to your brain?

[Nordkapp]

27 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

how do you know?

 

you listened no doubt... but how do you know the difference was due to the power cord and not some other input to your brain?

He doesn't know. Like i said-gullible, wealthy, uninformed.......and these people will go to their grave believing this BS.