Double Blind Testing Prices All Power Cords Have An Effect On Audio!!!!!

[Paul R]

I don't know about an Entech, but the PL noise test instruments I have used usually measure noise from about 10khz to oh - about 10mhz. And the absolute volume of the noise is almost always pretty low, like below -80db. I kind of think there is some hokum involved there, especially at $350 for what is essentially a simple RC filter circuit.  I could easily be wrong however.

 

-Paul 

 

 

[Paul R]

20 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

Quite true, I didn’t mention it because I thought it muddied the waters to my main point, which is that these huge and hugely expensive boutique power cords cannot possibly have any effect on the sound.

 

If all the other arguments fail to convince one of this simple fact, doubters and true believers alike should ponder this final and indisputable fact: Since the Romex* cable in one’s walls is not shielded, why would a shielded 6ft. long mains cable from the wall socket to the IEC socket on the back of a component do anything to keep out RFI? If there is RFI, it was already picked up by the wall wiring, of which there is likely hundreds of feet before the mains power ever reaches the wall outlet into which the boutique power cable has been plugged. In other words, the notion that these expensive IEC cables do anything that the cable which came with the component in question can’t or doesn’t do, is just that... a notion.

 

*Romex is the heavy-gauge sheathed, solid copper cable that carries your mains (in the USA) from your fuse/breaker box to your various outlets throughout your house.

 

Hi George - for once, you and I completely agree. You are 100% right.  

 

However (you knew there was going to be one of those right?) people do hear differences between power cables. In fact, I can clean the prongs on a power cable and hear a difference myself. You probably can too.  Which is weird, but AC is a strange beast.

 

I am sure there are simple and explanations for that, as I can think of several myself. Those explanation range from expectation bias on to contact crud buildup increasing resistance over time. 

 

What burns my chops is some crew out there hawking thousand dollar 1 meter power cables as the answer to all your audio woes.That's about as untrue as it is possible to get, and yet, the buggers get away with it. The truth lies somewhere in the middle, or actually, much closer to the clean-the-contacts end, IMHO. 

[Paul R]

36 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

 If cleaning the prongs on a properly functioning A.C. mains cable results in a small improvement due to slightly lower resistance, then it stands to reason that a beefier power cable with lower resistance copper wire, and less flimsy plug contacts should also make a minor difference, especially in the USA and other countries where you need to draw around double the current from your lower mains voltage system compared with a nominal 230VAC 50HZ system. This is even more important with the high powered amplifiers many in the USA favour, compared with the generally lower power amplifiers favoured in many European countries where you often also have to consider the nearby neighbours  more.

 

It is a thought worth thinking, but it doesn't necessarily lead to the conclusion. A "beefier" power cord, beyond certain limits, is just not going to make any difference. Geometry in a power cord plays a significantly less important role than in a signal cable, so it is basically an insignificant factor. 

 

The "certain limits" I referred to above can and routinely are met in power cords costing about $10 - $20 meter. Beyond that, it really does get into a grey area. And beyond whatever limit you set, $100/meter is probably a hard to argue with limit, power cable stuff just turns into trickery and flim flam. If you can get the same improvement with a piece of fine sandpaper you can from a $100 cable, or from two $3.50 caps soldered in the line, then something is dodgy there... 

 

-Paul 

 

[Paul R]

5 hours ago, sandyk said:

 

We are in general  agreement, however, where a high powered amplifier uses a very large amount of Filter capacitance this may come into play at sustained high power levels. With some amplifiers, even switching them on may cause a nearby table lamp to dim briefly.

 

Well, Ramapo Triplex 2-2-2 is only about $1.02/foot. That will surely handle any power need for an amp.

 

Yeah, I am being a little facetious, becuase who would want that stuff visible in their house? But in any case, even with 2-2-2 from the wall to the device, the rest of the house is probably just Romex, and the lights may still I'm for a second or so. They will just I'm a little faster!

 

Seriously, cable shenanigans are atrocious, and right up there with the snake oil salesmen selling electrocream or whatnot. 

 

-Paul

 

[Paul R]

4 hours ago, sandyk said:

 

BTW,  where I mentioned the lights dimming, the amplifier was on a 15A feed from the Fusebox, and the lamp , IIRC ,was on a separate circuit. A later amplifier had a "soft start" PCB where after a short delay, a relay operated and short circuited a series PW5 resistor.

 

Dang, the new spelling checker went wild there, changing every “dim”  to “I’ll”  - that is definitely a short circuit.

 

You guys have 8amp circuits in your homes these days? I think the smallest I see over here is 10, with 15 being much more usual.

 

Just as a conversation point, why would anyone design or need an amplifier built that way? What does such a design buy in the amplifier? Ain’t never going to put power like that out in a normal kit. Ears bleeding and all that... 

 

[Paul R]

1 hour ago, mav52 said:

 

Just get you some of that pretty Techflex sleeving and you could say you paid $1000 for that power cable.😀

 

LOL! Perhaps we should go into business together!  

 

Have you heard about our new high tech aluminum power and data cables?  They are pretty, if about half the size of a firehose, because we insulate them with hand painted jackets! (Sourced from the North Face of course...)

 

Being so big, they can carry massive loads, and since aluminum is one of the most common things on earth, the electrons that wiggle in the cable feel more at home and pass the signal along faster. 

 

In our premium deluxe edition, the electrons like the material of our cable so well, they actually wriggle faster than light, creating a temporal rift that brings you the music from the exact second it was being played - no dusty old sounds at all! Just fresh music with no metallic edge. Please note, our current version limits the temporally corrected  playback to songs performed no more than 2.93345 milliseconds in the past, otherwise you just hear normal old time playback. Truth in advertising! We care about your sound! 

 

Our premium interconnects eliminate the DAC, grabbing the music right off the digital source without the need for a digital to analog convertor at all. Isn't that cool?!!

 

Pricing starts at $39,157.13 USD per meter. Delivery within the next three years. Bitcoin or wire transfer preferred, but we also take E-Bay gift cards. Buy Now!!! Operators are waiting to take your call! 1-800-BIG-SCAM!!! Call Now!!!

 

 

 

 

[Paul R]

23 minutes ago, jabbr said:

 

The problem with vague meaningless statements is that they don’t take into account physics. None of this has to do with “electrons” per se except for their participation in electromagnetic waves.

 

Are you talking about real physics, or audiophile physics? The two sometimes do not coincide - with each other or with common everyday reality.  

 

-Paul 

[Paul R]

19 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

My light comments about dealing with the weakest link don't take, I see - from my POV, I see most audio rigs as laughable, having very obvious "flimsy back doors" - with the owners believing that the magic of extra bling takes care of that ... to rephrase things, physics is very even handed in its way of dealing with 'obstacles' ...

 

Lighten up a bit Frank, you have certainly built an interesting way to get a wonderful sound system, but there *are* other ways, including just throwing enough money at it to get it right.  And "right" seems to be a very fluid target these days, but at the end of any given day, what makes you happy, what makes you smile, what your wife does not kill you over? All good stuff. 

 

-Paul 

 

 

[Paul R]

5 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

Cultural differences come in - I was being light, actually .

 

Yes, money can do it, and always has been able to; best LP playback I've heard, over 30 years ago, was from a slightly lesser, copy of the famous HP rig of the time.

 

I would beg to differ on "right" being fluid; what a fully competent rig - not something I have right now - delivers is:

 

1) Completely invisible speakers, from anywhere in the space, or room

2) The ability to go to any sane level of SPLs with complete assurance, "effortless" is the word to think of here. This means that it can deliver an orchestral crescendo with absolute authority, no excuses needed; or the correct impact of a drum kit only feet away from one

3) The tonality never wavers from perfectly mimicking real world sounds, "naturalness" is what comes to mind

4) All recordings show of their very best; even the most down trodden reveals remarkable insight into the musical event that was recorded; and can be fully enjoyed, the presentation is completely satisfying

 

Cultural differences perhaps are more important that we credit.

 

There is plenty of recent music I won't play because the bass is soooo overdone. If it was a steak I would nail it to the wall as warning to the other listeners. 

 

You can not make that sound good on any system on the planet. Unless you happen to like that kind of music of course. (I most emphatically do not.)  Well, perhaps a system without speakers or headphone outputs... the best sound from some of that music is quite literally silence. 

 

In any case, it is a live and let live world. I have got to hear some of your systems some day.  

 

-Paul 

 

 

[Paul R]

18 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

IOW, any half decent combo of gear can be nudged into working to a highly satisfying standard, if the right areas are addressed.

 

But but but... it always seems to be the left channel interfering with the right channel that causes crazy interference patterns, and standing waves, and reinforcement nodes.  

 

Oh wait, you were talking about stereo rigs... 🤭

 

-Paul

 

[Paul R]

42 minutes ago, Allan F said:

 

And, of course, you reject out of hand the possibility that what you "ignore as a figment of my imagination" is, in fact, real. Your bias, IMO, stems from the assumption that any audible differences that can be heard must necessarily be measurable with current knowledge, technology and techniques.

 

I take your meaning,  but I do not think that is what George said. What he said is perfectly true, at least for George. What Alex says is perfectly true, at least for Alex.

 

It appears to be a conundrum! 

 

[Paul R]

5 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

 

It’s all easily explained by science:

Alex and George?  Quantum Entanglement?  Spooky interaction at a distance?!  Oh My... 

 

[Paul R]

25 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

It has NOTHING whatsoever to do with our "individual" universes.  That is complete and utter fanciful bullshit.

 

 

Actually, we are treating it as a funny, but it is also a very serious thing Alex. People live in their own self-contained reality, and interact with other people only so far as their "realities" interact. The constant struggle is to understand what someone else sees, or in this case, hears. Doesn't mean it isn't real, but - well - think of explaining purple to a blind person. It isn't impossible, you can exactly and precisely describe the wavelength range that denotes purple. Even a specific shade of purple. But do you think that the blind person actually sees purple the way a sighted person will? The answer is obviously no, and it is not a "strike against" the blind person either. It just *is*. What that blind person hears will forever be a mystery to you and I, since most blind people enjoy a rich auditory environment that is nigh on impossible to describe to us. 

 

Or the old classic, what makes you think that what I see as purple is the same thing as you see as purple?  My wife and I certainly see purple a bit differently. But then, she can pretty much name every shade of ever color detectable by the human eyeball. Instantly, and without detectable effort. Me?  I struggle with Purple or Pink. 

 

-Paul 

 

[Paul R]

5 hours ago, sandyk said:

 

 Reality, YES, separate UNIVERSES, NO !

LOL!  Relax Alex, if there is a multi-verse out there, there are certainly ones where you win this argument every time. Better a multiverse than blasted Branes I think.  The math is more elegant. 

 

-Paul 

 

[Paul R]

1 hour ago, BrokeLinuxPhile said:

 

I took a class in college called Light and Vision that explored this concept in full.

 

Didn't we all, though for sure the names changed over time.

 

-Paul 

 

[Paul R]

4 hours ago, mansr said:

Why then do you get so offended when we don't believe you?

 

Because you are making it a “we” against “you” issue? 

 

You cannot prove a negative - I.e. that cables do not make a difference. Why not just give those whose experience says cables do make a difference the benefit of the doubt? That is actually good experimental technique. 

 

And in no way does it invalidate a different opinion, if perhaps you believe that they do not make a difference.

 

[Paul R]

2 hours ago, mansr said:

Two files either contain the same bits or they don't. Just where do you imagine these differences to reside.

 

WTF?

 

Two identical files can sound different if played from different media. That’s what I see from Alex’s findings. Other than that, we just tend to agree to disagree. 

 

Photos will look different, sometimes very different, on uncalibrated monitors or TVs. That’s pretty much the whole take. Just like chromatic aberrations need to be corrected before you have a truly accurate photograph. 

 

When reduced to those levels, not much to argue about. 🙃

[Paul R]

Just now, kumakuma said:

 

That isn't what he is claiming.

 

He is claiming that two identical files played from the same media through the same playback chain will sound different on a consistent basis.

 

I know, I was saying what I found to be the case From some testing. Not all right, but not all wrong either. 

[Paul R]

Just now, mansr said:

That has nothing to do with anything Alex has ever said.

 

Umm - yeah, it actually does. I did some comparisons with Alex photos, which is where the “unless it is is corrected” comments are coming from. He is seeing real differences, though they they can be explained. 

[Paul R]

1 minute ago, Speedskater said:

That's an audiophile misunderstanding started a long time ago, when good test equipment was very expensive or not yet invented. So the wrong parameters were often measured.

Now it's often repeated by marketing departments, golden ears, reviewers, bloggers and magazines.

 

If you can hear a difference, that difference can be easily measured by a skilled person using the correct modern test equipment.

 

So, you can why two USB cables that measure the same sound different? So far, nobody I know has been able to do that, and the dang things still sound different. 

 

[Paul R]

46 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

I think "measure the same" is a meaningless expression. I would be surprised if there were two different USB cables that are absolutely identical in terms of all measurable electrical parameters.

 

Totally agree. Still don't understand how the cable can make any difference at all in a USB connection, not really. Best guess is leaked electrical noise, but that is incredibly hard to prove, even with a USB analyzer. At least, with any USB analyzer available to me.  

-Paul 

 

[Paul R]

44 minutes ago, Allan F said:

 

Actually, Gordon Rankin of Wavelength Audio did some measurements of USB cables about five years ago and found deviations from the 90 ohm impedance specification. He offered an explanation of why this affected the sound. That even caused George to post this mea culpa as a consequence. Gordon Rankin Says I'm Wrong About USB Cable Sound!

 

I thought that was George saying mea culpa? When Gordon told him -yeah - these USB cables do sound different.  

 

In any case, sound different they do, despite transmitting data perfectly with no errors. Now USB is a totally different category from Ethernet, which I have a very difficult time accepting can make a difference in audio quality. 

 

Everyone has a point where their suspension of disbelief crumbles - some are just further into the wilds than others. 

 

-Paul 

 

[Paul R]

16 minutes ago, mansr said:

The spec allows for a 15% deviation, and cables might also vary in DC resistance. The important thing is that with a conforming source and cable, the eye pattern at the receiver will be within the defined limits, thus allowing correct recovery of the transmitted data. It is perhaps conceivable that a (poorly designed) DAC might be affected by noise carried, one way or another, over the USB cable and that differences in shielding or whatever between cable models might influence this. Even then, however, the descriptions of the effects (radically altered frequency response, etc) are entirely unreasonable. This suggests, to me, that the reported experiences are more likely imagined than the result of any real electrical differences.

 

Have you listened to different USB cables on the same DAC?  Or on a couple different DACs?  The differences, in absolute terms are of course, small. In relative terms, against each other, they can be pretty large. 

 

A USB cable isn't going to make a system unlistenable, and there are DAC / Computer combinations that are pretty well immune to changes in USB cables. But the silly things do make a difference, as unreasonable as it seems. The experiences are not imaginary, at least not all imaginary. Nor, amazingly enough, does the price of the USB cable seem to matter. A $10 Belkin cable seems to be really good, while a $250 Nordost can sound lousy. Go figger... 

[Paul R]

1 hour ago, gmgraves said:

 

Unless, of course, that “difference” is being imagined by the listener as in confirmation or expectational bias. in which case it cannot be measured for the simple reason that said differences do not really exist.

 

Like IMD for example? Everyone heard it but it did not exist? Until of course, it did?

 

There are hundreds of listening tests reported even just in CA George. USB cable differences are about as real as anything can be.  

 

Unfortunately, there are also reports about power cables, and differences in formats, and even differences caused by different RAM in servers. Some of these reports are without a doubt, the result of wishful listening. 

 

But certainly not all of them. Engineering minds tend to want to dismiss the lot, but that would be a mistake. 

[Paul R]

1 hour ago, mansr said:

It's a simple matter of reading the USB spec.

 

Nope. I would suggest that you look up Gordon first before making statements like this. 

 

No insult, but Gordon basically fixed USB for audio, makes some if the best DACs and amps in the world, and has probably forgotten more about USB audio than you and I combined will ever learn. 

 

It is not just a matter of reading the USB audio spec. I will apologize when you build a DAC half as good as a Wavelength DAC and write your own USB software to make it work.