hifi Delusion at it's greatest?

[Bear]

But his demo was crap!!!! And I don't get your Fox reference.

To you it was crap, to him it was sufficient to make the purchase. His demo was no different to me buying a valve amp the other day. I listened/auditioned liked and then bought it on the strength of that, no double blind/abx testing was done. Am I supposed to do this testing first before you will validate a purchase ?

 

[hurfdurf]

Just a quick update on the offer.
Hurf had asked to pop around this evening. I've not heard anything, so I guess that he wasn't that bothered after all.

Sorry! Was visiting London via work and it all got on top of me and I completely forgot all about it.

 

[daz]

Surely any amp costing upwards of £100 will have some pretty robust power regulation electronics inside it anyway, rendering a large part of the issue completely moot anyway?

This is very true, most decent power supplies can cope fine with a spiky mains. That said, if you ever get "random" crashes (e.g. BSOD) on your computer, don't be surprised if it's been caused by dodgy mains. If that is the kind of effect it can have on digital components, I have no doubt that a poor quality mains supply can effect in some way the sound coming out of your hi-fi.

Get yourself a nice APC UPS if you want to clean up your power.

 

[Yamahahahahaha]

There is nothing magical happening in that last 2 metres of cable assuming it's properly terminated and of sufficient gauge.

If you can hear a difference, there is obviously something wrong with one of the cables.

It would make a difference to have a seperate ring main run into the house just for your hifi, since lots of consumer electronics are badly designed and will feed noise into the ring.

Overall: Power cable 'upgrades' are only 'upgrades' if you're currently using bell wire to run a 500w amplifier.

 

[Bear]

This is very true, most decent power supplies can cope fine with a spiky mains. That said, if you ever get "random" crashes (e.g. BSOD) on your computer, don't be surprised if it's been caused by dodgy mains. If that is the kind of effect it can have on digital components, I have no doubt that a poor quality mains supply can effect in some way the sound coming out of your hi-fi.

Get yourself a nice APC UPS if you want to clean up your power.

Definately, there are lots of instances of people that hear a pop through their speakers when listening to their hifi when their fridge compressor starts up. Also if you have someone running an angle grinder/circular saw in the house, the motor puts a hell of a lot of noise on the mains which can be heard.

A UPS might clean up the noise from the mains but it could introduce problems of its own. Ive never had a look at the output of a UPS on a scope but considering it has to convert mains AC to DC to charge the battery and convert it back to AC again, the UPS manufacturer might scrimp on the inverter circiut and not put out a clean supply.

 

[Mr_Sukebe]

Geez, I thought we'd put this thread to bed.
My offer is still open to anyone on this thread who fancies a listen.

 

[Sirrel Squirrel]

What an utter joke, I work in post production where we do a lot of feature film and television mastering amongst other things and we use standard power cables, even our Dolby approved studio has standard power cables.

 

[inogen]

No No - that's nothing. Anyone know about Peter Belt?

See this site for comedy gold:

http://www.belt.demon.co.uk/index.html

Examples include:

Pinning back one corner of a curtain in your listening room
Freezing your CD before playing it
Aligning the slots in all the screw heads in your room (light switch panels etc.)

This guy has been around for years with this stuff. Back in the 80s he was selling a 'special' foil that you cut up into little triangles and stuck on your plugs, CDs etc..

Believe it or not this stuff used to get serious coverage in the big name hifi mags at the time.

That is true genius. The sort of genius that should be celebrated.

But probably from a safe distance.

 

[jamief]

I agree with your sentiments. I studied electrical engineering at college and have no idea how a change to a power cable could make the slightest difference. However, I ran a dem myself, and felt that the improvement was big enough to justify the cost.

So I'm simply making you the offer. If you wish to come and have a listen to see if there are any differences, as against simply assuming that there will be none based upon what you know, then you're welcome to pop down.

Why on earth would you spend good money on a power cord when the wiring in your walls, under your floor, outside your house, all the way back to the substation is of dubious quality? Are you going to replace all that too? Maybe you could invest in a small nuclear reactor, bury it in your back garden and run pure silver wiring from it to your HiFi so that the electricity is "pure" and "clean"?

The only effect that is happening is called placebo.

 

[Mr_Sukebe]

Why on earth would you spend good money on a power cord when the wiring in your walls, under your floor, outside your house, all the way back to the substation is of dubious quality? Are you going to replace all that too? Maybe you could invest in a small nuclear reactor, bury it in your back garden and run pure silver wiring from it to your HiFi so that the electricity is "pure" and "clean"?

The only effect that is happening is called placebo.

I'm confused.
You bothered to write that post when you were quoting my own words on why I'd bought the cable.

Who's sanity should we be questioning here?

 

[DreXeL]

He makes a very good point though. Ok, you are convinced that the cable is making a difference, and that's fine. But seriously, how do you think it's possible? Some sort of voodoo?

 

[Mr_Sukebe]

He makes a very good point though. Ok, you are convinced that the cable is making a difference, and that's fine. But seriously, how do you think it's possible? Some sort of voodoo?

Again, I agree with the sentiments of anyone who considers it impossible. I was incredibly skeptical when someone suggested that it could make the slightest difference.
I see absolutely no logical reason how it could be so. As someone above has stated, the mains has to go through probably 20m of normal wire to even get to my plug socket, how on earth can the last 1m make a difference? I haven't got the foggiest.

All I know is that I ran a side by side comparison against a stock cable, and thought that there was a significant enough difference to justify the cost with my own system.

Regarding placebo. If I expect there to be no difference, surely I should hear no difference?

Regarding "blind tests". Just where do you stop on these? How many people make a decision to buy a TV, washing machine, toaster or their cornflakes based upon blind testing? Surely if I'm satisfied with my own method of testing, then I'm happy with the process.

And after all of the above, I'll state it again, I myself felt that there was a difference. I'm not trying to claim that by default others will. Go make up your own minds.
What bugs me is people who have the audacity to become keyboard warriors and tell me that I must be wrong, despite making zero effort to actually try it themselves.

If someone had actually bothered to go to a dealer and try some bits, then voice an opinion, that's cool. But don't you think that it's a bit out of order?

 

[thebeagle]

That said, if you ever get "random" crashes (e.g. BSOD) on your computer, don't be surprised if it's been caused by dodgy mains

I have never heard anything like it! a dodgy mains causing a BSOD, I have worked in IT for over 12 years and never in my life have seen or heard a dodgy mains cause this! where on earth did you dig up this! LOL, sorry but that's the most far fetched statement I have ever heard!

 

[marscay]

It's not necessary to do extensive testing to know that an expensive power cable will make no difference, in the same way that I can say with authority that the world is spherical despite the fact that I have not carried out extensive toplogical testing on it.

I think there's a fair chance you have an underappreciated/inferiority complex personality.

Just like you're threads in the car forum indicate you think you're a better class of person because you drive a Golf instead of a Focus - it's quite funny.

And you still didn't answer my question (big surprise) because it sounds like you have absolutely zero experience with high quality kit.

 

[nikebee]

the reviews on there are soo funny - "solves global warming", "cures cancer"

- seriously check out the reviews they're SOOOO FUNNY

After I took delivery of my $500 Denon AKDL1 Cat-5 uber-cable, Al Gore was mysteriously drawn to my home, where he pronounced that Global Warming had been suspended in my vicinity.

Yes, I had perfect weather: no flooding, no tornadoes, the exact amount of rain necessary, and he pronounced sea levels exactly right and that they were not going to rise within five miles of my house.

Additionally, my cars began achieving 200 mpg and I didn't even need gasoline. I was able to put three grams of cat litter into the tank and drive forever.

What's more, the atmosphere inside my home became 93% oxygen and virtually no carbon dioxide. In fact, I now exhale oxygen.

One heck of a cable.

Didn't notice any improvement in audio quality though.

LMFAO

 

[divuk83]

I can't belive how many of this kind of theads start up on here, there should be a sticky fo people to argue in about this. I'm purposely not going to express my opinion one way or the other, however I do think its interesting that a forum with so many people who play mp3's on an ipod through their AV amp know so much about hifi.

Dave

 

[9designs2]

however I do think its interesting that a forum with so many people who play mp3's on an ipod through their AV amp know so much about hifi.

Dave

Nicely put, the mount of electrical, metallurgists and Hi-Fi experts here amazes me......

People see a cable as just piece of wire, but is it ???? Well truth is all of the experts here don't know what is in side, neither do I..... Unless we buy one and take it apart.... Which of coarse know one has done.
BUT, just suppose said piece of wire was some "special" screening, is woven to suppress RFI, has capacitor or something in side the plug to suppress spikes.... and and and..... Now is just a piece of wire or is it another electronic component ?

People bang on about Placebo effect, but similarly a closed mind as demonstrated here would never be able to hear any effect, as they have decided before such a test...... Oh sorry we have to double blind test everything........
OK off to double blind test the g/f with the weekly shopping, to see if we should choose Heinz bake beans of Tesco's own !!!

 

[ojrules]

Nicely put, the mount of electrical, metallurgists and Hi-Fi experts here amazes me......

People see a cable as just piece of wire, but is it ???? Well truth is all of the experts here don't know what is in side, neither do I..... Unless we buy one and take it apart.... Which of coarse know one has done.
BUT, just suppose said piece of wire was some "special" screening, is woven to suppress RFI, has capacitor or something in side the plug to suppress spikes.... and and and..... Now is just a piece of wire or is it another electronic component ?

People bang on about Placebo effect, but similarly a closed mind as demonstrated here would never be able to hear any effect, as they have decided before such a test...... Oh sorry we have to double blind test everything........
OK off to double blind test the g/f with the weekly shopping, to see if we should choose Heinz bake beans of Tesco's own !!!

wtf are you on about?....

 

[Dr.EM]

Nicely put, the mount of electrical, metallurgists and Hi-Fi experts here amazes me......

People see a cable as just piece of wire, but is it ???? Well truth is all of the experts here don't know what is in side, neither do I..... Unless we buy one and take it apart.... Which of coarse know one has done.
BUT, just suppose said piece of wire was some "special" screening, is woven to suppress RFI, has capacitor or something in side the plug to suppress spikes.... and and and..... Now is just a piece of wire or is it another electronic component ?

All electrical parameters can be measured without dissecting the cable. It'd be easy to tell if any RFI filtering is present in the plug connector. Regardless, effective RFI filtering is often (should be) included at the IEC inlet stage on a piece of audio equipment and is not an expensive item.

To construct a cable with intentionally high capacitance (desireable to attenuate the high frequencies passed by said cable) would require close conductor spacing, a longer cable or very large diameter (ideally flat) conductors, or some mix of these elements. It is clear, even visually, that the cable in question does not include any of these features to an extent which would make it superior to the standard. Ultimately, It'd be a very impractical and crude way to develop a filter stage.

Cable resistance is also quite irrelevant in this case as is inductance, but I can't really be bothered to type any more

 

[JasonM]

Holy thread revival.

So I'm simply making you the offer. If you wish to come and have a listen to see if there are any differences, as against simply assuming that there will be none based upon what you know, then you're welcome to pop down.

I'm running Russ Andrews YelloPower and Classic powerkords, I purchased these pre-owned as there much more affordable this way.

The YelloPower cables are powering active studio monitors, so one cable per studio monitor. The difference is subtle however it's there, certainly enough to unbalance the monitors if only used on one side. My Russ Andrews cables are plugged directly into the wall.

I was open minded on power cables, but glad I took a leap of faith and tried them. I recommend people buying them pre-owned from eBay, 1 meter Russ Andrews YelloPower cables can be purchased around £40 each and easily sold again if someone does not like them.

Here is a photo of the rear of one of my monitors. You can see the Russ Andrews cable, and also a Van Damme Silver interconnect. Both of those cables combined together make quite an improvement to the sound and definitely worth the money I spent on them.

https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipMUfnjDuZG-ieoj35dusc7-ThAcooxD4zNCMb4Y