Mains Power Cord Recommendations For Zenith SE and/or Satement.

[fas42]

Or, another way of looking at the process 😉 ...

 

The equipment, no matter expensive, how superb it is technically, is always an impediment; it's always getting between you and the music that's on the recording ... so what you want to do is to get rid of every last suggestion that you are "listening to your gear" - as soon as there is the slightest whiff of something which is not about the recording, but rather the playback chain, that means it's not "invisible enough".

 

That is, equipment never, ever 'improves' the recording - it can only degrade it - so the goal is to do everything you can think of "to make the rig go away" ... it just turns out that this is close to an endless journey; there is almost always another refinement to make the "cloak of invisibility" more 'perfect', 🙂.

[fas42]

3 hours ago, Blackmorec said:

There really is a remarkable amount of detail in these files and so far I haven’t reached a point where the improvements stop, so it seems that the upstream side is wide open for improvement.  Just to note that the soundstage, 3 dimensionality and cohesiveness are all created in the brain based on the quality of the 2 loudspeaker signals......the cleaner and more pristine the signals, the better the brain can construct the 3 dimensional picture...so I assume that removing noise and jitter allows the system to create a more pure and pristine version of the signal.

 

 

The ear/brain's a funny beast - it can handle some anomalies, things like FR imperfections with ease, or missing bass fundamentals; but other misdemeanors are too much for it - and the detail within are lost to its understanding. The great satisfaction when you do enough 'right' things which eliminate, or attenuate playback misbehaviour is that "unlistenable" recordings emerge like a jack-in-the-box from the squashed, disheveled messes they normally appear to be.

 

"Pristine" recordings will barely move, because the mind has already worked out everything that's happening in the event space; the great delight is unveiling the musical treasures within the "reject" albums or tracks; their complexity which was formerly indecipherable is now fully formed, and becomes a subjectively satisfying experience.

[fas42]

3 hours ago, Blackmorec said:

Hi-fi is improving all the time. Devices are becoming more sophisticated, more customised, more refined and better sounding. As you improve things like room, speaker positioning, cabling, vibration control, power and networking the sound quality continues to improve.......if we allow people who post about this progress to be attacked and shut down then i think its a real pity. And that is already going on.  I’m not saying that people can’t disagree. What I am talking about is the derision, cynicism and respectlessness they receive as part of posting something new, controversial or whatever. 

Debate and disagreement    Fine

Derision, aggression and absence of respect    Not fine.  Not fine at all 

 

Indeed hi-fi is improving ... 35 years ago the standard was pretty awful, it was basically a waste of time listening to some fancy gear in  a dealer's shop, because the number of obvious shortcomings just overwhelmed any chance of getting any sort of decent picture of what the rig, or component was capable of. An ultra high-end show about 15 years ago showed that indeed the very, very best, and expensive, could put up a good show - things were getting better. And the last audio show I went to had about half a dozen rooms where key elements of competent SQ were "in the air"

 

Specs and measurements are still completely useless, of course. It is impossible to assemble a system just using published information, etc, with the guarantee that it "will sound special!" ... in this sense, we are still living in Model T Ford times - you always have to suck it and see; which in 2019 is rather pathetic ...

[fas42]

1 minute ago, sandyk said:

 

 No, not completely useless, but often a guide as to what should be a better than average performer.

 

The operative word is "should" - I am still amused at how poor the level of detail is for supposedly high performance gear, these days; compared to that in the user manual of the Perreaux power amp that I picked up 35 years ago - which still didn't tell me that it had a flawed PS, 🤪.

[fas42]

34 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

So what AC power cord would you recommend over the one the manf. supplied, Frank?

 

The answer is, if changing the power cord alters the sound then there is a weakness in the component that the cord is feeding - the mild filtering properties of the cables all vary, which means the lack of robustness of the internal filtering of the component against mains noise, etc, is being shown up. What to do? You could: dive inside and improve the internal filtering; or fool around and  spend lots of money playing with power cables to find the "best fit", or, add some type of filtering as a separate bit of circuitry, external to the component.

 

The goal is to make the component impervious to any sort of typical mains waveforms, or added noise, variations

[fas42]

7 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

will the OP have to solder the power cord on?

 

Personally, that's what I do ... contact noise, and static behaviours are issues that don't go away, just because dealing with them is a nuisance - first rig those 3 decades ago was so tweaked ... why? Because I could hear the difference ...