The Audiophoolery Thread.

[Radio Wrangler]

Piezo-electric material loaded paint... resonance effects....

It looks like you've struck a whole new seam of audiophoolia. Bet the paint's directional too, and each brush stroke has to be carefully oriented. Audiophile wallpaper might give more certain results. It can have alignment marks and the occasional "This side up"

David

[GrimJosef]

Originally Posted by Radio Wrangler

... and so you get no sound at all.

I think it was someone at Quad, possibly Peter Walker, who said that different speaker leads certainly make a difference. The ones that are long enough to reach between the amplifier and the speaker are much better than the others.

Cheers,

GJ

[Dickie]

Originally Posted by Radio Wrangler

Piezo-electric material loaded paint... resonance effects....

It looks like you've struck a whole new seam of audiophoolia. Bet the paint's directional too, and each brush stroke has to be carefully oriented. Audiophile wallpaper might give more certain results. It can have alignment marks and the occasional "This side up"

David

Indeed. "warm", "neutral", and "cold" on a paint colour chart takes on a whole new meaning. And wallpaper will need a "this side out" label for audiophiles.

[elanman99]

I could not spot any reference to BS1362 on the futureshop website and I thought that is legal requirement for the 13A ones.

Ian

[duncanlowe]

Originally Posted by elanman99

I could not spot any reference to BS1362 on the futureshop website and I thought that is legal requirement for the 13A ones.

Ian

The BS1362 marking is probably underneath tha stuck on paper label that makes them cost so much. Has to be said, though, there's a good chance that the BS marking is fake.

[G.Castle]

Originally Posted by duncanlowe

The BS1362 marking is probably underneath tha stuck on paper label that makes them cost so much. Has to be said, though, there's a good chance that the BS marking is fake.

Actually I'm pretty sure its not, it certainly sounds like BS to me.

[mark_in_manc]

Originally Posted by ajgriff

"In fact, UEF Tech is so powerful even an electrical chain several miles long is fundimentally improved with nothing more than a single fuse engineered with Synergistic Research's patented UEF Technology."

Now that's a clever trick. Shame they can't spell fundamental but I guess that's being picky.

Alan

I missed that, which is a worry - this might be like the 'Nigerian prince' email scams. The idea of the poorly-constructed initial approach is to pull-in gullible marks who might fall for the next (expensive, needs real people on the end of real phones) part of the scam, whilst dissuading the more discerning from ringing up and consuming real resources with little hope of falling for the final fraud.

It looks like I might be scammable. Shoot me now

[mark_in_manc]

Originally Posted by Dickie

Searching for "UEF technology" patents, this paints a new picture on things---

https://patents.google.com/patent/US9732234B2/en

...and this one is interesting, in that (unusually for this fine thread) it suggests a serious topic of discussion.

And that is - if I can sell sh*te to plonkers and make real money at it, is it possible to patent the sh*te even though it doesn't do anything, the idea being to protect the revenues resulting from my heavily-promoted (costs real money) not-doing-anything from anyone else's version of the thing which doesn't do anything?

I suspect someone who knows more about the beauty (or perhaps even food and wine) industry than I do will be able to answer this question, which I am asking seriously. As it happens, I am named on a couple of (acoustic) patents, but since there the idea was to do something, I am unable to bring this experience to bear.

[Radio Wrangler]

The symmetry of the universe would be improved if these peddlers of fakery could be only paid in equally fake money.

The idea of immaterial beliefs attached to products being patentable, like the Cinzano and cigarette lifestyle adverts of days gone by. Shudder! Cigarettes, no thanks and not near me please, but a Riva Aquarama might be nice.

David

[Red to black]

Stop giving me ideas, I could do with a few megabucks!

[Craig Sawyers]

There is a guy on a (fairly) serious audio forum I'm on who swears by expensive fuses. The Synergistic one that is £190 a pop. He says that they take 200 hours of listening to "burn in". So UEF and the 1MV treatment actually hasn't resulted in a fuse that works right off in improving the sound quality (as he perceives it)

No logic so far has swayed him from his belief. Or done the experiment, after "break-in" of a megabuck fuse, of swapping to a 50p fuse and seeing if he can hear a difference.

A lot of the lesser audiophile fuses say with a tantara that they have a ceramic body, are silica filled, and a silver alloy fuse wire. They say that ceramic is less "resonant" than glass, the silica acts as an acoustic damper, and that the silver alloy fuse wire is something special.

In other words a standard Littlefuse HRC fuse that can interrupt 1.5kA without exploding, and that costs a quid.

Craig

[PJL]

Are 13A fuses suitable for hi-fi gear? I always thought you were not supposed to use a fuse with a higher rating than the cable? Putting a 13A fuse on a bit of kit that takes 0.5A is about as useful as a faulty fuse wrapped in aluminium foil.

[Lucien Nunes]

With modern equipment made to recognised standards, the internal fusing is sufficient to protect the equipment itself. No plug fuse, not even a 3A one, will protect (e.g.) a 100VA transformer against burnout; only the internal slow-blow and thermal trip in the windings can do that.

So the fuse is mainly to protect the flex, which if captive doesn't need protection against overload because the equipment can't overload it; only against short-circuit due to damage. A 13A fuse will protect any flex of 0.75mm² against S/C and all modern equipment has this size as a minimum for European compatibility (so that it is also safe in the rest of the world that does not use fused plugs and instead protects everything at 16A or so in the distribution board.)

The only applications still recognised as requiring a plug fuse lower than 13A are flexes less than 0.75mm² (0.5mm² should be protected at 3A) and those with a non-fixed load, such as 1.0mm² extension leads rated at 10A that might otherwise be used for a 13A load.

IEC leads that might be used for unusually heavy loads up to the connector's 10A maximum ought to be suitably fused - 10A for 1.0mm² and 5A for 0.75mm², but only to avoid misuse. If the lead is used with its original appliance alone, either size could be fused at 13A because the application can't overload it.

[Craig Sawyers]

Originally Posted by PJL

Are 13A fuses suitable for hi-fi gear? I always thought you were not supposed to use a fuse with a higher rating than the cable? Putting a 13A fuse on a bit of kit that takes 0.5A is about as useful as a faulty fuse wrapped in aluminium foil.

The 13A ones are supposed to replace the plug fuse. Except cost you 700 times as much, and have no approvals.

[Beobloke]

Originally Posted by Radio Wrangler

I think that if you try to plug the IEC end into the wall and the BS1363 end into the amplifier, they don't fit and so you get no sound at all.

David

Originally Posted by Dickie

Erm... Mains leads have a 13A plug( male) on one end and an IEC connector (female) on the other. Hard to get it wrong?

Erm 2..... Crossed with David. Great pedants think alike.

You're both spot on!

[Radio Wrangler]

Maybe there should be special audiophile home fire insurance for the use of unapproved fuses?

Mind you, it will affect the sound by taking away a certain edginess.

David

[mark_in_manc]

Originally Posted by Lucien Nunes

With modern equipment made to recognised standards, the internal fusing is sufficient to protect the equipment itself. No plug fuse, not even a 3A one, will protect (e.g.) a 100VA transformer against burnout; only the internal slow-blow and thermal trip in the windings can do that.

So the fuse is mainly to protect the flex, which if captive doesn't need protection against overload because the equipment can't overload it; only against short-circuit due to damage. A 13A fuse will protect any flex of 0.75mm² against S/C and all modern equipment has this size as a minimum for European compatibility (so that it is also safe in the rest of the world that does not use fused plugs and instead protects everything at 16A or so in the distribution board.)

The only applications still recognised as requiring a plug fuse lower than 13A are flexes less than 0.75mm² (0.5mm² should be protected at 3A) and those with a non-fixed load, such as 1.0mm² extension leads rated at 10A that might otherwise be used for a 13A load.

IEC leads that might be used for unusually heavy loads up to the connector's 10A maximum ought to be suitably fused - 10A for 1.0mm² and 5A for 0.75mm², but only to avoid misuse. If the lead is used with its original appliance alone, either size could be fused at 13A because the application can't overload it.

That's helpful, thanks. Electric tools don't tend to be internally fused, and I am glad that BS mains fuses are still available in smaller sizes as this seems to be the only way to prevent my colleagues from regularly melting motor windings.

[Lucien Nunes]

That is true. In the context of audiophoolery I was thinking specifically about electronic equipment, but I suppose in the context of musique concrète there might be some involvement of drills, rotary hammers, breakers etc.

Having to reposition my 'speakers after many years and deciding that the original cables are well beyond their burn out (let alone burn in) period new ones were sought. After much experimentation* I found a superb cable that sounds the same both ways round, no directional characteristics at all. It also didn't seem to matter which way I put the cores round, no polarity issues either. My lovely Tannoy DC4's have bi-wiring terminals, this cable worked wonderfully with only one! It must be magic stuff.

What is it I hear you ask, nothing but https://www.toolstation.com/pitacs-p...e-2192y/p51067 I had half a roll left over from fixing a vacuum cleaner.

*Seriously, not any at all, just wired them up.

[Radio Wrangler]

Originally Posted by Lucien Nunes

musique concrète

To BS8500?

No phoolery at all, quite the opposite. Good solid British engineering and well-specified performance!

David