More 'Audiophile' bullsh*t

[Tony1963]

So you think.

And then one day you hear it, with cynical ears, and you think to yourself “Bugger. I was wrong.”

But, it matters not. I can’t afford a fraction of the cost of these mains leads, and I doubt anyone will let me have a home demo. My friends who have the £500+ a pop mains leads in their Naim systems don’t lend them to anyone, so I stick with what I have, and I’m happy.

[98elise]

Tony1963 said:

So you think.

And then one day you hear it, with cynical ears, and you think to yourself “Bugger. I was wrong.”

But, it matters not. I can’t afford a fraction of the cost of these mains leads, and I doubt anyone will let me have a home demo. My friends who have the £500+ a pop mains leads in their Naim systems don’t lend them to anyone, so I stick with what I have, and I’m happy.

I wouldn't hear it because it's not real.

Nothing worng spending money on placebos, and marketing bks trying to sound like science, but when you try to convince others it's no better than religion.

Same goes for expensive network cables. It's simply not how it works.

[Tony1963]

You are, of course, talking out of your blinkered arse.

[Teddy Lop]

anonymoususer said:

Tony1963 said:

Toltec said:

If you want to spend a chunk of money why not run your amp of a nice big battery pack? Complete isolation from that nasty mains supply. To get really fancy have apair so one set can be charged while running off the other.

Not original at all, but, do the maths on how long a sensible battery will last while playing it loud.

And I’ve read that batteries don’t necessarily produce clean power. It’s a shame!

r e Battery power
Surely it would depend on which batteries you use. I have often found that if I use Duracell batteries in my portable radio in the bathroom it sounds clearer with a better base response than if I am using Wilko's own brand.
I suppose that being in the bath instead of the shower may have a small part to play in this but even so

Seem to recall that technics did make an amp that run on internal batteries to isolate it from the mains.

And, maybe you jest, but when I used a personal device I'm sure it sounded clearer using alkaline batteries than ni-cad (rechargeable), perhaps something to do with the higher voltage (1.5 Vs 1.2)

[anonymous-user]

Tony1963 said:

You are, of course, talking out of your blinkered arse.

Well that's won the argument for me!

[Jinx]

Teddy Lop said:

Seem to recall that technics did make an amp that run on internal batteries to isolate it from the mains.

And, maybe you jest, but when I used a personal device I'm sure it sounded clearer using alkaline batteries than ni-cad (rechargeable), perhaps something to do with the higher voltage (1.5 Vs 1.2)

The lower voltage from ni-cads was definitely a problem in old Walkmans - I gave up on rechargeable batteries because of this very reason (playing time was diminished and other quirks made using them a chore) . The memory effect meant they rarely actually saved much money in the long term (instead of buying normal alkaline batteries in bulk) - as you frequently had to purchase a fresh set of batteries if you were out an about as the damn ni-cads lost their charge too quickly.

[conkerman]

The only potential issue that a spanky mains cable can solve from my take on it is that it MAY be better shielded, and if the back of your system has a lot of EM noise then shielding would be beneficial.

Or wrap tin foil around the wire and earth at each end.

At the end of the day it comes down to physics.

[98elise]

Tony1963 said:

You are, of course, talking out of your blinkered arse.

I'm talking as an engineer, and someone who believes in empirical evidence over faith/belief.

The hypothesis that a short section of special mains cable will noticeably change sound is nonsensical, however if someone has done some proper blind testing then I'll change my opinion.

You have to wonder why manufacturers have to use pseudo scientific words to sell something though. If they are such great engineers why not explain it in proper scientific terms? It's almost as if they don't believe it themselves, or have no actual evidence.

[Teddy Lop]

98elise said:

I'm talking as an engineer, and someone who believes in empirical evidence over faith/belief.

The hypothesis that a short section of special mains cable will noticeably change sound is nonsensical, however if someone has done some proper blind testing then I'll change my opinion.

You have to wonder why manufacturers have to use pseudo scientific words to sell something though. If they are such great engineers why not explain it in proper scientific terms? It's almost as if they don't believe it themselves, or have no actual evidence.

I did post years ago on the online forum of a UK publication a question of whether they'd be curious to test a clean mains supply vs a dirty ring circuit, there's all sorts of things such as shielded cables, clean earth's, seperate switchgear etc. No reply.... but I guess I'm not paying for advert space am I?;)

[Bacon Is Proof]

98elise said:

You are hearing what you want to hear.

The placebo effect is very real.

Bingo.
It wasn't for the purpose of dispelling any of this audiophile silliness, but I've had people quite happily sing along to a component of a track that I had removed, yet they could swear that they could hear it.
The human brain is very good at filling in gaps; just ask anyone who has ever had to take multiple witness statements. You'll get people with totally conflicting accounts all convinced that there version is 100% correct with zero doubt.

[Toltec]

Tony1963 said:

Not original at all, but, do the maths on how long a sensible battery will last while playing it loud.

And I’ve read that batteries don’t necessarily produce clean power. It’s a shame!

Depends what you mean by clean, transient load response based on internal resistance? Depends on the battery chemistry, the load vs capacity and level of discharge. If you used a lithium battery, only used it between about 40% and 90% charge, and were drawing 0.1C or less the voltage output should be quite stable. You could throw in a supercap stage to help handle higher load transients of course.

A 10kWh pack feeding an amp with a 200Wrms output would probably be good for 10 hours.

[Lucid_AV]

conkerman said:

The only potential issue that a spanky mains cable can solve from my take on it is that it MAY be better shielded, and if the back of your system has a lot of EM noise then shielding would be beneficial.


Or wrap tin foil around the wire and earth at each end.

At the end of the day it comes down to physics.

It's a minor point, but seeing as you're talking physics, then tin foil wouldn't be effective. The physics for it tells us so.

Foil shields only start to become effective at frequencies in the MHz and GHz range. Also, metal foil is a lousy conductor, and metalised plastic (Mylar) is even worse; it has a very small cross-sectional area and so is a high-resistance conductor. That's not what you want when you're trying to dump energy.

Mains cable can have a foil shield, of course. It would make it a hell of a stiff cable, but still, it can be foil covered if required. However, if we're more interested in electro-mechanical interference at audible frequencies then a braid shield is far more effective. This is both as a shield but also as a conduit to ground.

Blue Jeans cables did some interesting testing on unbalanced shielded cables: http://www.bluejeanscable.com/articles/humrejection.htm

Foil-only shielded cables need a grounding wire running along with the foil shield. Shielded CAT cables are a good example of this.

The 'tin foil' comment was probably a throw-away remark, but it does highlight a potential explanation why real physics isn't used to explain this stuff to the average buyer. Setting aside whether there's any credible physics involved in some of the more esoteric products, the average Joe doesn't understand enough to make any sense of a scientific explanation even if it was offered.

I build unbalanced audio subwoofer leads and sell them online. Long ones, for installations where they need to be hidden. One of my top sellers is the 10m at £34. The cable is double-braid shielded and yet very thin (3.5mm), so it's perfect for running around the edge of a carpeted room next to the gripper rod or hiding behind skirting.

No audio claims are made for the product other than if EMI is an issue it will be reduced, and a customer will probably find that their sub's Auto-On signal sensing works more reliably. Despite this, I've had customers send feedback how they think their subs sound better. I put that down mostly to placebo and a little because the noise floor is lowered.

I have had customers ask how thick the central core is. It's obvious they're equating speaker cable thickness as a measure of performance to sub cables. That tells me something about the average person's grasp of basic physics. How on earth then would we expect any scientific explanation about why say the sound stage is bigger with a mains cable to be understood, even if it were possible to come up with something?

[Gary C]

98elise said:

Tony1963 said:

You are, of course, talking out of your blinkered arse.

I'm talking as an engineer, and someone who believes in empirical evidence over faith/belief.

The hypothesis that a short section of special mains cable will noticeably change sound is nonsensical, however if someone has done some proper blind testing then I'll change my opinion.

You have to wonder why manufacturers have to use pseudo scientific words to sell something though. If they are such great engineers why not explain it in proper scientific terms? It's almost as if they don't believe it themselves, or have no actual evidence.

I wouldn't even change my mind with 'blind testing' !

Simply a mains lead will not make any difference, at all, end of unless the original was a fking bootlace.

[Tony1963]

98elise said:

I'm talking as an engineer, and someone who believes in empirical evidence over faith/belief.

The hypothesis that a short section of special mains cable will noticeably change sound is nonsensical, however if someone has done some proper blind testing then I'll change my opinion.

You have to wonder why manufacturers have to use pseudo scientific words to sell something though. If they are such great engineers why not explain it in proper scientific terms? It's almost as if they don't believe it themselves, or have no actual evidence.

And, as I said before, you might just be in the wrong place. The Naim Powerlines feature mechanical decoupling and this is where most of the money has gone.

It’s quite incredible that people aren’t even willing to give things a go, and will quote all sorts of science as a reason not to try. I work with a number of engineers, mechanical and electrical and multidisciplinary, and a couple are into playing music at home. They also swore that once the cable meets certain requirements, and if the connectors are fitted properly, there can be no difference. And then they’ve tried them at home (Naim Powerlines) on free home demos, and they've had to eat their words.

Now you can surround yourself with oscilloscopes and microphones etc if you want, but when someone hands something to me and suggests that I just give it a go, I’m not going to throw it back at them. Especially if I know they’re not an idiot.

[Tony1963]

98elise said:

You have to wonder why manufacturers have to use pseudo scientific words to sell something though. If they are such great engineers why not explain it in proper scientific terms? It's almost as if they don't believe it themselves, or have no actual evidence.

I agree! And that’s the trouble lol. Obviously there are some really funny items sold with all the scientific proof that a K&N filter comes with (zero) and we are all correct to be wary, but if it changes the music for the better, well… any measurements will be expensive and might be looking in the wrong area.

[Gary C]

Tony1963 said:

98elise said:

I'm talking as an engineer, and someone who believes in empirical evidence over faith/belief.

The hypothesis that a short section of special mains cable will noticeably change sound is nonsensical, however if someone has done some proper blind testing then I'll change my opinion.

You have to wonder why manufacturers have to use pseudo scientific words to sell something though. If they are such great engineers why not explain it in proper scientific terms? It's almost as if they don't believe it themselves, or have no actual evidence.

And, as I said before, you might just be in the wrong place. The Naim Powerlines feature mechanical decoupling and this is where most of the money has gone.

It’s quite incredible that people aren’t even willing to give things a go, and will quote all sorts of science as a reason not to try. I work with a number of engineers, mechanical and electrical and multidisciplinary, and a couple are into playing music at home. They also swore that once the cable meets certain requirements, and if the connectors are fitted properly, there can be no difference. And then they’ve tried them at home (Naim Powerlines) on free home demos, and they've had to eat their words.

Now you can surround yourself with oscilloscopes and microphones etc if you want, but when someone hands something to me and suggests that I just give it a go, I’m not going to throw it back at them. Especially if I know they’re not an idiot.

Microphony in a 3ft mains cable ? What about your buildings wiring, what about the 1950's cable under the road ?

I tell you this, the ste we put into the power that comes out of the generator makes that pale into insignificance. Minor generator interturn faults inject more noise than any 3ft of mains cable. Then their are switching transients that are happening all the time producing a whole spectrum of noise.

It’s quite incredible that people aren’t even willing to think that maybe someone selling a mains lead for 10K isn't using bullste to convince weak minded individuals to part with their cash.

[ATG]

Tony1963 said:

98elise said:

I'm talking as an engineer, and someone who believes in empirical evidence over faith/belief.

The hypothesis that a short section of special mains cable will noticeably change sound is nonsensical, however if someone has done some proper blind testing then I'll change my opinion.

You have to wonder why manufacturers have to use pseudo scientific words to sell something though. If they are such great engineers why not explain it in proper scientific terms? It's almost as if they don't believe it themselves, or have no actual evidence.

And, as I said before, you might just be in the wrong place. The Naim Powerlines feature mechanical decoupling and this is where most of the money has gone.

It’s quite incredible that people aren’t even willing to give things a go, and will quote all sorts of science as a reason not to try. I work with a number of engineers, mechanical and electrical and multidisciplinary, and a couple are into playing music at home. They also swore that once the cable meets certain requirements, and if the connectors are fitted properly, there can be no difference. And then they’ve tried them at home (Naim Powerlines) on free home demos, and they've had to eat their words.

Now you can surround yourself with oscilloscopes and microphones etc if you want, but when someone hands something to me and suggests that I just give it a go, I’m not going to throw it back at them. Especially if I know they’re not an idiot.

Unless it's a blind A/B test, your experience means absolutely nothing.

Why do you think people use double-blind trials in medicine?

It's because regardless of how much the experimenters and the participants genuinely try to be impartial and objective, they cannot help but let their expectations and experience bias their reported observations.

Well intentioned, intellectually honest people fool themselves into believing all kinds of baloney; ghosts, telekinesis, cold fusion, homeopathy, etc., etc.

We all susceptible to this stuff because we're human.

It is the height of arrogance to believe one might be above these human shortcomings.

[Tony1963]

And someone resorts to “unless you a/b test” almost straightaway.


Tell me. Let’s say you go to a pub, see a beer tap for a brew you’ve never tried, and you order a pint of it. You take a sip, and a second later your face lights up… you love it… do you order a pint of Carling just to make sure the label on the tap didn’t alter your expectations? I very much doubt it. You’ll just relax and enjoy the thing.

[TonyRPH]

RE The Naim cable - I'm struggling to see how apply "mechanical decoupling" to a mains cable is going to make a shred of difference.

To me, the implication here is not the suppression of electrical interference, but mechanical interference.

However, if the device being powered by said cable is that sensitive to mechanical interference, then it needs redesigning as no equipment should be that sensitive to vibration.

As for screening... There is an abundance of unscreened cable from the mains consumer unit to the socket(s), all of which is quite capable of picking up EMI etc.

Therefore, a 1M length of screened cable is not going to help at all - as it will simply pass the EMI unhindered.

On the other hand - if there was some serious mains filtering between the cable and the device being powered, then I can see that EMI will be supressed to a (small) degree.

However, once the mains cable enters the device being powered, the mains is usually split into two individual cores of cable leading to a mains switch and then on to the power transformer. Both of these pieces of cable are liable to EMI pickup.

Additionally - any EMI will be heavily supressed by the capacitance and inductance of the transformer windings, and the remaining (if any) EMI will be cleaned up by competent (secondary) power supply design which is quite trivial.

There is in fact, a greater risk of EMI injection into an amplifier from the speaker cables, via the feedback loop - however most competent designs will control this to a high degree with filtering (which is usually incidental in the form of the Zobel network and output inductor where present).

Of course, in their early designs, Naim chose to eschew the output inductor...

If EMI was such a huge problem, your amplifier, CD player, DAC etc. would be playing radio stations to you instead of your music, and when last did that happen to you?

Radio pickup via phono stages is excluded here, as that is not power supply borne interference, but directly injected into the phono stage / cartridge.

[Sporky]

Tony1963 said:

The Naim Powerlines feature mechanical decoupling

What is that, exactly?

The biggest problem with the idea that mains cables make an audible difference is that for them to do so would require the power supply designers at hifi component manufacturers to be completely and utterly incompetent. Making smooth DC out of noisy, erratic mains is a trivial task for any half-competent electronic engineer. We've been doing it for many, many decades, and we are good at it. As long as the mains cable can deal with the current needed it cannot have any influence on the sound.