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

[AnotherSpin]

49 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

 

but don't you want to prevent "wanders"?

 

The electrons should go straight thru the "slow pull" oxytocin-free pure "Oh no!" copper 

 

ok, wonders

[jabbr]

11 hours ago, fas42 said:

Unfortunately, electrons are very even handed in their ways of dealing with 'obstacles'.

 

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.

[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 

[bluesman]

11 hours ago, fas42 said:

Unfortunately, electrons are very even handed in their ways of dealing with 'obstacles'.

 

They sure are.  They line up in their red coats and yell "CHARGE!!!" every time they run into a conductor.

[fas42]

2 hours 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.

 

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' ...

[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 

 

 

[fas42]

1 hour ago, Paul R said:

 

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 

 

 

 

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

[sandyk]

2 hours ago, Paul R said:

 

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 

 

 

 

I would be surprised if most wives knew just how much some of these fancy networked systems cost to implement, and whether they believed they were more worthwhile than a nice kitchen upgrade, or a more comfortable living room for the whole family ?

 From my own observations, it appears that many (most?) wives like an unobtrusive system that they can have on while they carry on a normal level conversation !

[fas42]

55 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

 From my own observations, it appears that many (most?) wives like an unobtrusive system that they can have on while they carry on a normal level conversation !

 

Bev gets a real buzz out of what I do - has for 30 years. And she especially likes the rig to have limitless grunt - I have to apologise for the fact that the limits have been reached, because of gain setup and clipping restrictions.

 

It all depends on the compression level of the recordings - modern pop efforts easily make it impossible to converse, because the average SPLs are just too great.

[sandyk]

1 minute ago, fas42 said:

 

Bev gets a real buzz out of what I do - has for 30 years. And she especially likes the rig to have limitless grunt - I have to apologise for the fact that the limits have been reached, because of gain setup and clipping restrictions.

 

It all depends on the compression level of the recordings - modern pop efforts easily make it impossible to converse, because the average SPLs are just too great.

 

She would also need to like the smell of soldering flux as you solder up all your interconnects, speaker cables, mains cables etc. 

[gmgraves]

23 hours ago, opus101 said:

 

Given that you do seem to accept that its CM noise which is the issue and isn't going to be much filtered by the mains trafo its just a small step to envisage a particular design of mains cable to act as a distributed common-mode choke.

I don't know if that works or not, but it is a possibility. Thanks for your input.

[gmgraves]

On 4/16/2019 at 4:20 PM, sandyk said:

 

 George

 Yet once again you plain wrong about possible audible differences between interconnects, Coax SPDIF cables and even some power cables, both for A.C. and DC too.

 I didn't believe in differences between A.C. mains cables either until  expensive Mains cables on loan from a local HiiFi dealer were  substituted between a cheap Bunnings Hardware store power board and a couple of big Nelson Pass Class A monoblocks at one of our then regular listening sessions.

 All 5 present reported hearing small but worthwhile improvements with the very expensive mains cables under NON SIGHTED conditions.

 

Alex

But, I didn't say anything about "possible audible differences between interconnects" in this thread, Alex my friend.

[fas42]

1 hour ago, sandyk said:

 

She would also need to like the smell of soldering flux as you solder up all your interconnects, speaker cables, mains cables etc. 

 

Yes, that's the problem with soldering ... you have to do it every month or so - unlike push on connectors which maintain integrity over indefinite periods of time ...

[Ralf11]

20 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

Yes, that's the problem with soldering ... you have to do it every month or so - unlike push on connectors which maintain integrity over indefinite periods of time ...

 

does the bit rot set in after a month?

 

[AnotherSpin]

5 hours ago, Paul R said:

 

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 

 

 

 

Problem is what seem to be "right" in one particular day may seem to be wrong after certain period of time. Nothing stays and would not. That is why difference brought by any and every upgrade (expensive or not) is only temporary. One may be remarkably happy one day with the sound of the rig, as a result of elegant combination of food, wine, wife and news, the other day the same rig will sound bland and not involving with wrong combination of the same factors.

[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 

 

 

[AnotherSpin]

35 minutes ago, Paul R said:

 

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 

 

 

 

Such recent music would play nicely on small portable or/and mobile systems.

[AnotherSpin]

38 minutes ago, Paul R said:

 

Cultural differences perhaps are more important that we credit.

[...]

 

 

Also, most (if not literally all) of recordings made in India, Africa, Caribbean or Middle East are below quality standards accepted by Western listeners. And it means nothing to the people of those parts of the world. They have lot of joy from their music and they do not depend from sound 'quality' issues.

[marce]

2 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

Yes, that's the problem with soldering ... you have to do it every month or so - unlike push on connectors which maintain integrity over indefinite periods of time ...

What a load of rubbish.

[fas42]

51 minutes ago, marce said:

What a load of rubbish.

 

Tongue planted firmly in my cheek, to tease Alex - and it didn't register ... .

[fas42]

16 hours ago, Paul R said:

 

 

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

 

-Paul 

 

 

 

People bump into rigs getting most things right now and again - I've made it my shtick to try and work out exactly what needs to be done to get any particular setup working to the highest level of its potential; along the way I built up an understanding that all of the factors I mentioned in that post can come together, with no compromises.

 

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

[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

 

[Speedskater]

16 hours ago, fas42 said:

Tongue planted firmly in my cheek, to tease Alex - and it didn't register ...

But it falls in the range of weird things that some audiophiles write and mean.

[jabbr]

On 4/18/2019 at 2:03 AM, AnotherSpin said:

They have lot of joy from their music and they do not depend from sound 'quality' issues.

 

I have worked with a number of classical musicians who judge auditions on their laptops — they can extract & reconstruct the “SQ” from a poor quality recording and played back with terrible speakers!

[AnotherSpin]

6 hours ago, jabbr said:

 

I have worked with a number of classical musicians who judge auditions on their laptops — they can extract & reconstruct the “SQ” from a poor quality recording and played back with terrible speakers!

 

I believe everything works the same way – we extract and reconstruct whatever we want from whatever available in our mind.