5th Apr 2019, 7:47 pm | #621 | |
Nonode
Join Date: Jan 2016
Location: Stafford, Staffs. UK.
Posts: 2,529
|
Re: Audiophoolery?
Quote:
|
|
5th Apr 2019, 8:34 pm | #622 |
Dekatron
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: London, UK.
Posts: 3,496
|
Re: Audiophoolery?
Hi Duncan,
Great point! I’m on the hoof so can’t use the quoting system, but thanks for posting!
__________________
Al |
5th Apr 2019, 8:56 pm | #623 | |
Dekatron
Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: Rugeley, Staffordshire, UK.
Posts: 8,809
|
Re: Audiophoolery?
Quote:
The bottom line is, if people want to follow the audiophool route in the name of happiness or pleasure, then as far as I am concerned the attainment of happiness is what it is all about. Now, saying that, being happy with one's hifi system (no matter how much it cost) and whether or not it's accurate is a different matter. And that's where many audiophools trip up, they simply don't have the technical knowledge or background, but they sure as hell are able to quote all the audiophool buzz phrases that makes them 'appear' to be knowledgeable to other audiophools. And there the disease is passed on, swallowed, digested and regurgitated as if the word of god.
__________________
A digital radio is the latest thing, but a vintage wireless is forever.. |
|
5th Apr 2019, 9:38 pm | #624 |
Dekatron
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Oxford, UK.
Posts: 4,942
|
Re: Audiophoolery?
The whole stereo thing is just an acoustic illusion. Two loudspeakers cannot possibly reproduce a live concert experience, whether that is rock or classical.
I have often closed my eyes at an orchestral concert or opera, and tried to pin down the equivalent of imaging. Where are the violins, violas, woodwind etc. It is damned nearly impossible. Yet we expect that attribute in reproduced music. So - stereo is just an illusion. Siegfried Linkwitz (RIP) had it right - his term was "phantom image", and it requires a particular set of loudspeaker attributes, and particular their interaction with the listening room, to create a credible phantom image from two loudspeakers. Craig |
6th Apr 2019, 8:56 am | #625 |
Hexode
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: Royal Berkshire, UK.
Posts: 470
|
Re: Audiophoolery?
Parting with large sums of cash to buy a high-end/prestige car doesn't just buy an expensive car. Sure, it'll likely be fast, very quiet, very comfortable, be a real 'looker' and have all the signs of true craftsmanship, but also, the high-end safety aspect too. You know in the event of an incident, you and your occupants have a better chance of survival. You'll be thankful you spent that money, plus intrinsic value when you sell-on, since a good example will likely be an investment.
Spending the same on audio? You very quickly hit the ceiling at a price-point, where no real audio gains can be had, but perhaps bragging rights with no substance or proof as backup, except the packaging says 'x'. These days, it's all down to very clever marketing, and moving a problem onto you, though the people who spend huge sums on audio, for example, have no shame or guilt of debt, should it come to that. The times I've been to events, truly astonished by what I've seen and heard, it's when you're on this forum or meeting forum members face to face you realise, the smile/laughter you had at 'that' event was for all the wrong reasons! Though fortunate enough to own a prestige car, when it was new it cost more than two average houses. That said, I bought it 4 years ago and cost less than a week away. My HiFi, not worth anything in real terms today, didn't cost much in the first place and it's still hugely enjoyable, just like my 35 year-old car. Presumably, those who do spend vast amounts on snake-oil fuelled audio have had their hearing scientifically tested with calibrated equipment, whose specification exceeds all known knowns, naturally using cables supplied from the previous links on this thread(?) Mark
__________________
Slowly turning the 'to-do', into 'ta-dah' Last edited by mark2collection; 6th Apr 2019 at 9:09 am. |
6th Apr 2019, 9:17 am | #626 |
Octode
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: Bristol, UK.
Posts: 1,030
|
Re: Audiophoolery?
As Slartibartfast* said 'I'd far rather be happy than right anyway'. So it seems that audiophools are following in his footsteps and being happy rather than right.
Malcolm *Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy |
6th Apr 2019, 9:38 am | #627 |
Hexode
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: Royal Berkshire, UK.
Posts: 470
|
Re: Audiophoolery?
Here's a link to audio grade fuses:- https://www.analogueseduction.net/fu...a-uk-fuse.html
What are your thoughts on the write-up? Curiously, no reviews have been submitted. Mark
__________________
Slowly turning the 'to-do', into 'ta-dah' |
6th Apr 2019, 10:00 am | #628 |
Moderator
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: Fife, Scotland, UK.
Posts: 22,803
|
Re: Audiophoolery?
They do UK mains plugs AND socket, but they aren't gold plated. Don't they need to be? They carry the same current as the fuse. Where do you stop?
But even with the wonder fuse, you don't get a smooth flow of power. It's Altrnating current after all. the waveform is a sinusoid and the power flowing is the square of a sinusoid if the load has good power factor. More often it's even spikier. The mains is going between zero and full power and back again 100 times per second. It doesn't get any unsmoother than that. I also thought BS1363 fuses had to have ceramic tubes and sand filling to handle high rupture currents without shattering. Are glass fuses in plugs even legal? It's a good laugh, but their reasoning is inconsistent if not self-contradictory. David If any of this gets through to the speakers, the listener is going to notice.
__________________
Can't afford the volcanic island yet, but the plans for my monorail and the goons' uniforms are done |
6th Apr 2019, 10:02 am | #629 |
Dekatron
Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: Oxfordshire, UK.
Posts: 4,310
|
Re: Audiophoolery?
The corollary to the Slartibartfast line is a quote originally, it seems, used in the context of addiction to alcohol:
"The truth will set you free, but first it will p*** you off" I've seen it referenced by a few 'cable believers' whose own blind tests eventually convinced them that all cables actually sound the same. Cheers, GJ
__________________
http://www.ampregen.com |
6th Apr 2019, 10:23 am | #630 |
Dekatron
Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: Rugeley, Staffordshire, UK.
Posts: 8,809
|
Re: Audiophoolery?
Most 'cable believers' are afraid, nay terrified of exposing themselves to the dreaded ABX test. They come up with all kinds of pseudo phycological based reasons such as the 'stress' of the test etc etc ad infinitum, as to why it 'doesn't work'. Quiet simply, it doesn't work for them because they are unable to identify what cable is being listened to! And remember, a 50/50 result is the same as flipping a coin. If you pass an ABX test you should be getting results at or near to 100% accuracy. If not then each time you get the answer wrong, clearly you were unable to identify the cable in use. But like I say, if people are happy to live in an imaginary world for the sake of happiness, then that's up to them, they've got more money than sense bless em, but I do feel anger towards the people making and supplying snake oil products and the many in the hifi media who review them and propagate audiophoolery. Because the next generation of people entering the world of hifi read the mags and forums and not being any wiser, take on board what is being said as gospel. And so on and so forth until the whole hifi industry is swamped with misbeliefs, as it is now.
__________________
A digital radio is the latest thing, but a vintage wireless is forever.. |
6th Apr 2019, 11:16 am | #631 |
Dekatron
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Brentwood, Essex, UK.
Posts: 5,316
|
Re: Audiophoolery?
I note that they do not say that the fuse complies with British Standards. Having experienced first hand the effect of a short circuited electric iron on a non-BS fuse, they do appear to be a fire risk.
The unbranded fuse in the iron plug, bought by mum in a street market in the 1960's, did not break the current, but resulted in arcs both at the short circuit in the cable and within the plug itself. The arc resistance limited the current, so the 30A ring main wire fuze didn't blow. I guess things might be different with a modern circuit breaker installation, but hey, that will have a finite resistance too! Perhaps the true audiphool should install a cooker point for his gear, fitted with a high tripping current mcb to minimised circuit resistance. Last edited by emeritus; 6th Apr 2019 at 11:24 am. |
6th Apr 2019, 11:21 am | #632 |
Dekatron
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Oxford, UK.
Posts: 4,942
|
Re: Audiophoolery?
Suppose we take a sine wave current. The electrons move in one direction during the first half cycle. The area under the first current half cycle of a sine wave is the charge that has been moved in that time
Q = I(root 2)/(pi x f) The root 2 gets from RMS current to peak, which is what you need for the equation. Lets take 10A flowing at 50Hz. The charge transferred in the first half cycle is 9 x 10^-2 C from the equation. The charge on the electron is 1.6 x 10^-19 C and so the number of electrons for this charge is 9 x 10-2/1.6 x 10^-19 = 5.6 x 10^17. That sounds like a lot, but there are 8.5 x 10^22 electrons per cc in a copper conductor! Lets take a 1mm^2 cross section wire (that would be under rated for 10A, but this is a though experiment which will scale for different values). 1mm^2 = 0.01cm^2. So there are 8.5 x 10^22 x 0.01 = 8.5 x 10^20 conduction electrons per cm of 1mm^2 section wire. So in the first half cycle of the mains waveform, the electrons move 5.6 x 10^17 / 8.5 x 10^20 = 6.6 x 10^-4 cm = 66 microns. Then in the next half cycle they move back again. So the electrons shuffle back and forth by 66um peak to peak - or about the thickness of a human hair. Now let's scale it. Let's take a typical audio mains cable of 12AWG, which is 3.31 mm^2. And the current might typically be 1A for a really chunky class A amplifier (so 240W of standing dissipation). That means that the peak to peak electron movement in the wire is 1/10 x 1/3.31 x 66 = 2 microns. So about four times the wavelength of green light. For lower currents of more typical power amps, and certainly preamps the current will be <<1A, so the amplitude of electron motion is down in the wavelength of light territory. Of course the same calculation holds for signal cables and loudspeaker cables. SO - if for the moment one accepts that there is an audible difference between cables, the mechanism is definitely not related to the tiny AC amplitude of electron motion. Craig Last edited by Craig Sawyers; 6th Apr 2019 at 11:30 am. |
6th Apr 2019, 11:44 am | #633 |
Dekatron
Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: Worksop, Nottinghamshire, UK.
Posts: 5,549
|
Re: Audiophoolery?
I like that.
You need to use DC from a battery to burn a cable in. You need a special battery for the job so that the user knows the herrtage of the chemicals the battery was made from so that the correct grade of electrons are used to wash out the ones that were in the cable when it was made. Then you need a special clean charger to charge the battery up again for the next run. |
6th Apr 2019, 12:04 pm | #634 | |
Dekatron
Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: Oxfordshire, UK.
Posts: 4,310
|
Re: Audiophoolery?
Quote:
(For the avoidance of doubt, I'm pretty sure that average differences between mains cables are inconsequential and that any peak transient demands placed on the psu by the music will have to be handled by components on the secondary side of the mains transformer, not the primary.) Cheers, GJ
__________________
http://www.ampregen.com |
|
6th Apr 2019, 1:33 pm | #635 |
Dekatron
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Oxford, UK.
Posts: 4,942
|
Re: Audiophoolery?
I don't think it is down to resistive losses in the cable. If we had 1 metre of 1mm^2 wire, the loop resistance is 0.034 ohms. So even if you had 10A transients that would drop 0.34V in 240, or 0.014%.
By comparison 12AWG would drop about 0.1V or 0.004% Neither of which has any significance whatever as compared with the ring main, or the transformer primary resistance in the amplifier. Craig |
6th Apr 2019, 2:15 pm | #636 |
Dekatron
Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Lynton, N. Devon, UK.
Posts: 7,061
|
Re: Audiophoolery?
Er... I make those 0.14% and 0.04%. Still negligible of course, which is your point.
|
6th Apr 2019, 2:41 pm | #637 | |
No Longer a Member
Join Date: Oct 2016
Location: Maroochydore, Queensland, Australia.
Posts: 2,679
|
Re: Audiophoolery?
Quote:
I was amazed at patents I reviewed for some medical equipment where the data on the graphs in the patent showed conclusively that the invention was ineffective ! In another case, a patent was modified to contain every conceivable variation of a device ,but nearly all of the modifications rendered the device ineffective. When I complained about this the patent Lawyer said : "A patent is a legal document, not a scientific one" So it pays to remember that and just because something has a patent on it neither guarantees it will serve its claimed purpose or is even an original invention for that matter. Also I think somebody managed to patent a new type of gyroscope that had rotational inertia and was suspended from a pleurality of fixing devices placed radially near the center (It was a wheel). Often things get patented merely to bolster up a company's IP portfolio. |
|
6th Apr 2019, 3:08 pm | #638 |
Dekatron
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Oxford, UK.
Posts: 4,942
|
Re: Audiophoolery?
Indeed - I have quite a number of patents in my name (but none in my ownership, alas), so I understand the patenting process quite well.
But a patent absolutely has to demonstrate that it has been "reduced to practice", in other words that one has been made, and contain sufficient information that someone else "skilled in the art" can build one. In addition the patent has to have at least one inventive step and be novel over and above the prior art. Of course many patents are for things of no practical utility, like dog washing machines that resemble an iron lung. You could certainly build one based on that patent, but no dog would get remotely close to the thing. And even if it has been spooned into the device that would absolutely be the last time it got near it. Craig |
6th Apr 2019, 3:10 pm | #639 | |
Dekatron
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Oxford, UK.
Posts: 4,942
|
Re: Audiophoolery?
Quote:
Duur... Craig |
|
6th Apr 2019, 3:28 pm | #640 |
Moderator
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: Fife, Scotland, UK.
Posts: 22,803
|
Re: Audiophoolery?
The movement of an individual electron may be small, and its mean velocity may be very low, but the rate of movement of a wavefront of electron motion can be a large fraction of the speed of light. Like a bicycle chain, you get on and start to pedal slowly and it takes seconds for an individual link to get from the pedal sprocket to the wheel sprocket, but the delay from the pedal moving to the wheel moving is far less.
Rectifiers tend to charge reservoirs in short surges of current on waveform peaks, so the peak currents can be huge, but it doesn't matter the amount of charge provided to the reservoir has to balance that taken, so Craig's calculations come out in the wash. What worries me is he's mentioned green light. If this post gets seen by the wrong people, they'll get their green pens out again! David
__________________
Can't afford the volcanic island yet, but the plans for my monorail and the goons' uniforms are done |