Power cables (for amp)

[996owner]

Jam creative Productions make jingles and ads for many UK and world wide stations. The BBC, and many stations ive worked for.

Heres a little behind the scenes video https://www.facebook.com/jamcreativeproductions/vi...


I'm sure some will be shocked at the untidy wiring !


https://www.jingles.com/

Edited by 996owner on Wednesday 19th February 17:15

[Crackie]

Gary C said:

Crackie said:

This in bold...….listening is what matters. The human ear is capable of detecting errors and flaws that the very best test gear cannot.

And the human mind is capable of convincing itself to believe anything.

Psychoacoustics is an interesting subject and yes the mind is a powerful organ.

The human ear and mind is capable detecting flaws that the best MLSSA, Clio, Arta, Bruel & Kjaer and various other end of line production test gear cannot. That is why manufacturers use humans, usually women, to carry out distortion and rub and buzz tests. Do you think testers are imagining faults that don't exist when rejecting a faulty production?

[Crackie]

TonyRPH said:

Crackie said:

<snip>..…..human testing identifies flaws the measurement gear does not.

No, human testing identifies the changes required in order to make the sound more suited to the listener(s).

It's nothing to do with measuring equipment not being able to identify flaws.

If only we could program our measuring equipment to "hear" the sound we like to hear it eh?

Is this the 5 minutes or the full half hour

Pro measurement gear improves every year and a few manufacturers do use a completely automated objective test procedure for their finished products...…………...BUT...…....... Most supplement their suite of measurements with a human being carrying out a rub n buzz distortion check. They add this extra time and cost to their production process for a reason; for in order to prevent sub standard product getting out of the door, product that would otherwise have made it through without the subjective test. Do you think this is a waste of their time?

Dr Floyd Toole and Dr Sean Olive's extensive research into the correlation between measurements and listener preferences are at the leading edge. https://www.pearl-hifi.com/06_Lit_Archive/15_Mfrs_...

When developing a speaker the designer will 'voice' the product to achieve a certain balance or design goal. The sound balance will be engineered to suit the rest of the model range or target set by sales / marketing. The designer will have their own favoured development methods but they will typically use a combination of the Impulse response, Step response, Impedance, On-axis amplitude, time alignment, Polar response, Cumulative spectral decay and distortion measurements.

imho the best speaker designer who ever lived, John Dunlavy, was correct when he said "If it measures well and sounds bad, you're measuring the wrong things" I have a pair of large Dunlavy designs hooked up to my TV, they are the most accurate speakers I've ever measured and they sound fantastic......I also have a pair of Impulse H2 horn speakers, they use exactly the same model of Seas woofer and mid driver as the Dunlavy design, and they measure like a bag of spanners relative to the Duntechs. Most people who've heard both prefer the Impulse H2.

Measurements do not and cannot tell you everything...…….human ears, particularly female ones, are better than electronics & software for production line quality control testing.

Edited by Crackie on Wednesday 19th February 19:54

[urquattroGus]

The best speakers I have heard are always the ones where the designers put listening first and foremost, no doubt after a lot of experimentation and measuring.

I'm more keen on brands like Totem, Neat Acoustics etc than perhaps KEF, B&W, ATC, PMC etc etc.

In the cases of Totem and Neat they have certain things they strive for and I just happen to enjoy the way the voice their speakers, engaging and emotive, fun to listen to etc. They also often have a small team and or owner/founder input in the speaker voicing.

Some others I just find too dull or too excessively revealing and harsh.

I'm pleased that probably like most of us I've moved on to trusting my ears and not rave reviews. Bought some PMC speakers about 15 years ago and it was a huge mistake. Still don't like the latest range either.....

[TonyRPH]

Crackie said:

Is this the 5 minutes or the full half hour

????

Crackie said:

Pro measurement gear improves every year and a few manufacturers do use a completely automated objective test procedure for their finished products...…………...BUT...…....... Most supplement their suite of measurements with a human being carrying out a rub n buzz distortion check.
<snip>

I would have thought buzz would be detected with a simple distortion measurement.

Having measured a few speakers myself (and achieved a lovely flat response but yet lousy sound) I'm completely aware that [speaker] measurements don't always tell the full story, although the Klippel Near-field Scanner (NFS) might be set to change that.

[S6PNJ]

TonyRPH said:

Crackie said:

Is this the 5 minutes or the full half hour

????

Monty Python

[TonyRPH]

S6PNJ said:

Monty Python

Ah, thanks.

Not a Monty Python fan so that went right over my head.

[LimSlip]

urquattroGus said:

The best speakers I have heard are always the ones where the designers put listening first and foremost, no doubt after a lot of experimentation and measuring.

Speakers are in a whole different ball park to mains cables though. They are by far the least linear part of the entire system, and have a significant audible and measurable impact on sound.

[Gary C]

Crackie said:

Gary C said:

Crackie said:

This in bold...….listening is what matters. The human ear is capable of detecting errors and flaws that the very best test gear cannot.

And the human mind is capable of convincing itself to believe anything.

Psychoacoustics is an interesting subject and yes the mind is a powerful organ.

The human ear and mind is capable detecting flaws that the best MLSSA, Clio, Arta, Bruel & Kjaer and various other end of line production test gear cannot. That is why manufacturers use humans, usually women, to carry out distortion and rub and buzz tests. Do you think testers are imagining faults that don't exist when rejecting a faulty production?

I do find it very difficult to believe test equipment cant detect a 'flaw' given that they can be far more sensitive than any human ear, however I can believe the human operating said test equipment may not be able to use it to detect a 'flaw'.

But what is a flaw. We all know that some equipment 'colours' the sound in ways that some like and others don't, but it seems from the thread that we must be either talking noise pickup on the mains lead, or an affect on dV during transient load on the PSU ?

And I really struggle to understand that both are significantly affected by a £200 plug & cable given the huge variation in the quality of cable on the route from us to your amp.

But I do know people can easily fool themselves. Remember the 'paint the inside of your CD player or the disks themselves with green marker pen and make the sound better' even though it was easily demonstrated that the error rate did not change. Yet still people claimed that they could hear the difference.

Me, I'm partially deaf

[tonyvid]

thebraketester said:

[Crackie]

TonyRPH said:

Crackie said:

Is this the 5 minutes or the full half hour

????

Crackie said:

Pro measurement gear improves every year and a few manufacturers do use a completely automated objective test procedure for their finished products...…………...BUT...…....... Most supplement their suite of measurements with a human being carrying out a rub n buzz distortion check.
<snip>

I would have thought buzz would be detected with a simple distortion measurement.

Having measured a few speakers myself (and achieved a lovely flat response but yet lousy sound) I'm completely aware that [speaker] measurements don't always tell the full story, although the Klippel Near-field Scanner (NFS) might be set to change that.

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohDB5gbtaEQ

I used to work for a company which was, during the mid to late 90's, the largest speaker cabinet maker and OEM speaker maker in Europe. When I started there I was surprised that none of the major manufacturers relied on electrical testing alone. This was true for the entry level ranges which the company I worked for ( R.E Ingham Ltd ) produced complete at our factory and was also the case for the higher end and reference ranges which the larger speaker companies ( B&W, KEF, Mission etc etc ) built and tested at their own factories. B&W's test equipment was always leading edge and developed in house, their test routines were capable of fully auto testing inc distortion during the late 2000s iirc. When I was a designer at Amina technologies between 2012 and 2015 we wrote our own software to carry out auto testing. We introduced it because we had two testers, both ladies, who were particularly adept at picking up resonances and spurious noises than most staff and the measurement equipment could not.

We've gone off onto a slight tangent regarding speaker testing but my point in bringing up the subject of subjective listening was to explain I have 20 years of experience working with some of the best speaker companies on the planet, using state of the art measurement test equipment and have a catalogue of anecdotal evidence of occasions where humans were used for QC testing in preference to electronic measurements.

I'm familiar with Klippel, the last three commercial speakers I designed used drivers from suppliers who used Klippel. The nearfield scanner is an amazing tool but it is a development weapon; in my experience it would not be suited for volume testing and isn't suitable for the production line.

Edited by Crackie on Thursday 20th February 16:11

[TonyRPH]

Crackie said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohDB5gbtaEQ

I get it - funny that.

Crackie said:

I used to work for a company which was, during the mid to late 90's, the largest speaker cabinet maker and OEM speaker maker in Europe. When I started there I was surprised that none of the major manufacturers relied on electrical testing alone.

I've seen some of the tools used back in that era and they're not exactly advanced are they! In fairness some of it was quite cutting edge for the time though.

Crackie said:

When I was a designer at Amina technologies between 2012 and 2015 we wrote our own software to carry out auto testing. We introduced it because we had two testers, both ladies, who were particularly adept at picking up resonances and spurious noises than most staff and the measurement equipment could not.

I'm surprised that the equipment available then wasn't capable of picking up distortion from rubbing cones etc.

Crackie said:

We've gone off onto a slight tangent regarding speaker testing but my point in bringing up the subject of subjective listening was to explain I have 20 years of experience working with some of the best speaker companies on the planet, using state of the art measurement test equipment and have a catalogue of anecdotal evidence of occasions where humans were used for QC testing in preference to electronic measurements.

I certainly don't question your authority on the topic, you have raised some points of interest.

Just leave off the mains regen and cables though.

Crackie said:

I'm familiar with Klippel, the last three commercial speakers I designed used drivers from suppliers who used Klippel. The nearfield scanner is an amazing tool but it is a development weapon; in my experience it would not be suited for volume testing and isn't suitable for the production line.

Interesting times ahead with this I think, especially once it becomes more mainstream.

[Crackie]

TonyRPH said:

Crackie said:

I used to work for a company which was, during the mid to late 90's, the largest speaker cabinet maker and OEM speaker maker in Europe. When I started there I was surprised that none of the major manufacturers relied on electrical testing alone.

I've seen some of the tools used back in that era and they're not exactly advanced are they! In fairness some of it was quite cutting edge for the time though.

Crackie said:

We've gone off onto a slight tangent regarding speaker testing but my point in bringing up the subject of subjective listening was to explain I have 20 years of experience working with some of the best speaker companies on the planet, using state of the art measurement test equipment and have a catalogue of anecdotal evidence of occasions where humans were used for QC testing in preference to electronic measurements.

I certainly don't question your authority on the topic, you have raised some points of interest.

Just leave off the mains regen and cables though.

Crackie said:

I'm familiar with Klippel, the last three commercial speakers I designed used drivers from suppliers who used Klippel. The nearfield scanner is an amazing tool but it is a development weapon; in my experience it would not be suited for volume testing and isn't suitable for the production line.

Interesting times ahead with this I think, especially once it becomes more mainstream.

The best R&D development tool in the mid to late 90's was MLSSA. I was extremely lucky to have access to it, along with £40K worth of Bruel & Kjaer gear and an anechoic chamber in a dedicated building. 25 years later, MLSSA it's still up with the best MLS measurement systems available. Production line testing was far less sophisticated back in the 90s though...…….

Regarding mains cables and regen. Fair play I've not yet heard a speaker cable, interconnect cable or mains cable that has made a worthwhile improvement in any system I've tried them in. For me, the jury's still out on regeneration though...…..will just have to check it out with my own ears. I know how much better my system sounds in the early hours of the morning than during the day...….I plan to find out why. The improvements aren't subtle.

That Klippel NFS is certainly interesting...…...it could be a while before it becomes mainstream though. Cost is astronomical...….approx. 55k Euros + taxes + duty + shipping + tech support for the basic setup. A fully featured unit, with all the addons, could easily set you back more than £100k

Edited by Crackie on Thursday 20th February 17:45

[TonyRPH]

Crackie said:

The best R&D development tool in the mid to late 90's was MLSSA.

I've never used it, although I've read up on it when researching tools to use. Not something I could have afforded back then!

Crackie said:

Regarding mains cables and regen. Fair play. I've not yet heard a speaker cable, interconnect cable or mains cable that has made a worthwhile improvement in any system I've tried them in. For me, the jury's still out on regeneration though...…..will just have to check it out with my own ears. I know how much better my system sounds in the early hours of the morning than during the day...….I plan to find out why.

I reckon it's a silence thing more than quieter mains. I've noticed during holiday time the ambient levels fall quite noticeably (not measured, just noticed the environment was quieter).

I also can't see how mains regen will help with Class D amps for example - those powered by an SMPS where the incoming mains is rectified and then 'chopped' by a 300kHz or so square wave.

Any distortion on the mains is not going to make a shred of difference there (or anywhere else IMHO) as the SMPS will simply not care....

Think about it, when last did you see any noise artefacts on your TV picture caused by mains noise or distortion.

So if the TV isn't affected, why then should an amplifier be any different? An amplifier with far more PSU smoothing (think: HUGE capacitors) than the TV.

And yes, I know I'm referring to a Class D amp, but the same theory applies to an amp with a conventional PSU.

[underwhelmist]

TonyRPH said:

Ah, thanks.

Not a Monty Python fan so that went right over my head.

No it didn’t.

[TonyRPH]

underwhelmist said:

TonyRPH said:

Ah, thanks.

Not a Monty Python fan so that went right over my head.

No it didn’t.

Yes it did!

[Gary C]

TonyRPH said:

underwhelmist said:

TonyRPH said:

Ah, thanks.

Not a Monty Python fan so that went right over my head.

No it didn’t.

Yes it did!

Oh look, this isn't an argument! It's just contradiction!

[Tony1963]

A few posts back I raised the point a while ago about the physical construction of the cable at the plugs, but nobody seemed to see it.

Main and a few others seem to take it seriously, and it makes sense. Microphony is real!

[TonyRPH]

Tony1963 said:

A few posts back I raised the point a while ago about the physical construction of the cable at the plugs, but nobody seemed to see it.

Main and a few others seem to take it seriously, and it makes sense. Microphony is real!

Microphony? In a mains cable? Are you serious????!!

[Tony1963]

TonyRPH said:

Microphony? In a mains cable? Are you serious????!!

Don’t ask me, I’m not a scientist, acoustic engineer, or hifi salesman!

However, too many people who are healthily cynical about all this cable bumf have said that, despite everything they ‘know’, once they’ve put the cable/s in their system, there was an improvement. And that’s the proof of the pudding, every single time.