Is the snake oil slowly retreating from the Hi-Fi industry?

[Tired9]

What is funny is you fell for what I said.

Audio is subjective as is each individuals hearing, we all hear differently, we all have a preference for what sound we like too.

So yeah my setup actually not only kills off 1500 quid setups, but all of them.
It is sheer perfection.

For my ears.

Because you folks are first to be defensive and lack intelligence you will find yourselves in arguments you can't see out of.

I would never pay 1500, heck it would be hard for me to pay 500 when you can get 99% the audio quality for way less for what I want.

So yes audio is snake oil and yes people use numbers which you can't even tell a difference with to claim victories, whilst they are stuck in their ego, you are telling it how it is.. it's awesome, because your ears enjoy it.

Do you put the stats for your wife on display? yet you love her smell, the way she does things and her personality and those certain quirks?

God forbid you actually come across someone as shallow, yet you treat audio this way because it is an object, although everything is heard subjectively, just as you love your wife subjectively.

 

[JasonM]

The Russ Andrews power cables do make a difference, I started with the cheap Yellow Power cables from ebay, I own 9 RA power cables now all purchased second hand. There is differences between different RA cables, let alone the cheap (free) IEC cables.

I'm going to do an RMAA test using two Asus Essence cards (one output and one input), i'll be testing mains conditioners, power cables and interconnects. I'll be comparing to the cheap free cables and posting the results on here. The people who believe these things can't make a difference will be surprised when they see the data.

 

[Armageus]

The people who believe these things can't make a difference will be surprised when they see the data.

Can't wait

 

[theone8181]

The Russ Andrews power cables do make a difference, I started with the cheap Yellow Power cables from ebay, I own 9 RA power cables now all purchased second hand. There is differences between different RA cables, let alone the cheap (free) IEC cables.

I'm going to do an RMAA test using two Asus Essence cards (one output and one input), i'll be testing mains conditioners, power cables and interconnects. I'll be comparing to the cheap free cables and posting the results on here. The people who believe these things can't make a difference will be surprised when they see the data.

You missed /s.

 

[willhub]

Have to say, my Wharfedale bookshelves are connected to my amp with cheap speaker wire, but I've then joined pieces of speaker wire together to make a longer cable then just stuck some insulation tape round, the bits going into the amp are pretty shoddy. That's only the rears though the front have annoying stiff coiled stuff. But to be honest, I can't notice any difference in sound with this horrific cheap stuff.

 

[mid_gen]

Have to say, my Wharfedale bookshelves are connected to my amp with cheap speaker wire, but I've then joined pieces of speaker wire together to make a longer cable then just stuck some insulation tape round, the bits going into the amp are pretty shoddy. That's only the rears though the front have annoying stiff coiled stuff. But to be honest, I can't notice any difference in sound with this horrific cheap stuff.

I've done similar tests in the past. RCA interconnects, yes, I can hear a difference.

Speaker cable on the other hand, I've never been able to tell. Power cables is obviously a joke.

Ultimately, as pointed out, what matters is how it sounds to your ears, because there ain't nobody with the same ears and processing as you.

I have a fondness for the sound of Quad 11L bookshelves which are on paper not up to the 'standard' of the rest of my gear, but meh.

 

[Ormy1]

Yep, the hundreds of miles of ALUMINIUM between your house and the generating station doesn't affect the audio, but the last 6ft of copper wire between the wall and the hardware does affect it? How strange!

So yeah, the snake oil industry is doing better than ever it seems.

 

[Nemiyen]

Yep, the hundreds of miles of ALUMINIUM between your house and the generating station doesn't affect the audio, but the last 6ft of copper wire between the wall and the hardware does affect it? How strange!

So yeah, the snake oil industry is doing better than ever it seems.

I know where you're coming from with this statement and I agree with the principal of what you're saying but the last 6 ft of copper can make a massive difference, in certain cases. E. G. The last 6 ft of copper for me is now DC so that is a difference to the miles of aluminium that came to me as AC. One allows me to use my laptop and one allows me to have an expensive fire!

I'm not an electronics expert but things like this do interest me:

https://youtu.be/bHIhgxav9LY

I'm not even sure if this proves the cables make a difference or even goes against it but when I obtain my PhD (joke) in electrical engineering then I will weigh in on the subject!

 

[NickK]

Only thing 230Vac has on it is noise - be it EMI, misshaped AC sine waves, nature induced transients or harmonics. Mostly from your own white goods such as freezers and also your myriad of SMPS sending noise back through the power connection.

Sorry to say but a power cord means nothing without filtering out the noise.

Now there is nothing to say that the power core manufacturer has added filtering (chokes), active filters or has designed a haphazard passive filter using the capacitance and resistance in the cord - which would vay on the length cut. Additionally power supply cords need to be low resistance or they could heat up and catch fire. This leaves capacitance. Most cables will have capacitance - even oscilloscope leads do (iirc mine are 15pF). The net effect is smoothing squarewaves and very high frequency (and low amplitude) noise. However only empirical measurement would show that.. but highly likely to be drowned out by the household noise.

The last option is the powercord doesn’t connect the earth - or uses a powered earth trip to only connect if voltage is connected. I’m not sure how legal that is in the UK and is likely to invalidate your house insurance not to mention making your hand on a metal chassis the fastest route to earth killing you in the meantime.

this brings me to the point - it’s better to have a better noise filter than a swanky power cable.

Extension and power cables are rated. I buy 13A 3KW+ certified to ensure they can carry a full 13A load for drills etc. Amps should be suppled with power cords capable of handling both inrush and full power which removes the current argument.

Youd be better off
A) buying/building a professional AC filter module
B) buying components that don’t have cheap-assed AC-DC power supplies.

 

[Nemiyen]

Some good stuff there NickK!

I'm always of the opinion that analogue cables DO make a difference. So better scart cables and better RCA cables do make a difference.

Power is analogue so....

BUT if the device at the other end is decent quality and has filters and separate amp boards etc etc then it should make little to no difference.

Will a tube amp be affected more than a solid state digital amp? I guess so! If the power filtering or separation in the device is poor etc.

The issue I have is I can listen to some headphones at work (cheaper ones) and then I start to like the sound they produce. Then I come home and hate my better headphones as I've listened to the cheap ones all week. Come Monday ill put my cheap headphones back on and hate the music as I got used to my sennheiser headphones over the weekend!

I don't think that's anything to do with the power side of things but just my rubbish memory forgetting what I prefer the sound of!

 

[NickK]

Some good stuff there NickK!

I'm always of the opinion that analogue cables DO make a difference. So better scart cables and better RCA cables do make a difference.

Power is analogue so....

BUT if the device at the other end is decent quality and has filters and separate amp boards etc etc then it should make little to no difference.

Will a tube amp be affected more than a solid state digital amp? I guess so! If the power filtering or separation in the device is poor etc.

The issue I have is I can listen to some headphones at work (cheaper ones) and then I start to like the sound they produce. Then I come home and hate my better headphones as I've listened to the cheap ones all week. Come Monday ill put my cheap headphones back on and hate the music as I got used to my sennheiser headphones over the weekend!

I don't think that's anything to do with the power side of things but just my rubbish memory forgetting what I prefer the sound of!

for analogue there’s a play between the output, cable and input impedance/capacities. It creates a natural lowpass filter. If the cable sticks to the standard then it’s not worth worrying about. Shielding is a big contributor to AV quality. However AC already has more noise than you want to shake a stick at.. shielding the past 6foot may help the local EMI such as Wifi or phones. However the wall power will act like a large antenna anyway.. and that’s not shielded..

Most video and audio signals now are digital. If the cable doesn’t comply to the standard (say impedance 50ohm) the. You’ll get drop outs and for audio that means clicks etc as the digital signal is degraded the high/low or multibit/quadrature encoded level values are not correctly picked up.
Digital signals can be error corrected to a degree but there are still limits.

On the amps it depends. This is where active vs passive filtering comes in - regardless of solid state or tube.
Unregulated power supplies will follow the fluctuations and noise on the AC line. It will still remove some noise.
Regulated power supples will not follow the fluctuations and can reduce noise to below the capability of your hearing.
Regulated supplies act as an active filter and the noise rejecting performace is better than unregulated.

Solid state amps need current, so there is plenty of space from a rectified 240Vac for the designer to reduce noise.

a tube amp with a tube rectifier has limit of ~50-70uF for capacitance ripple cancellation/noise filtering. This lead tube amp designers to inject the noise of the power rails into the amps’s signal lines resulting in the amp cancelling out the noise. However this relies on the tube amp architecture and the tube being able to amplify the frequencies of the noise. Tubes have a frequency limit due to the low pass filter effect of input resistance interacting with the grid capacitance. This allows designers to reduce the impact of high frequency noise on amp (oscillations). Modern smps noise etc wasn’t part of the designs back then, hence their susceptibility. (ignoring EMI through the tube glass envelope itself)

Tube amps with solid state power have just as good regulation as solid state amps. In fact once LDO regulated they can surpass the solid state amp except the noise of the tubes themselves is higher than solid state (thermal, shot noise, microphonics, EMI). They have a faster slew rate in the whole but with a higher noise floor.

Solid state amps with bad supplies are just as bad as a tube amp with an unregulated supply. They are also just as susceptible to noise unless they spend budget on noise filtering and supply stabilisation.

I’ve designed my own tube amps and smps boost converters. So although i’m not an expert i had to learn a lot around power and tubes

hehe i have a pair of akgs and switching to plantronics for zoom if i had the money i’d run tube mic and electrostats powered by a tube amp for zoom calls

 

[theone8181]

Only thing 230Vac has on it is noise - be it EMI, misshaped AC sine waves, nature induced transients or harmonics. Mostly from your own white goods such as freezers and also your myriad of SMPS sending noise back through the power connection.

Sorry to say but a power cord means nothing without filtering out the noise.

Now there is nothing to say that the power core manufacturer has added filtering (chokes), active filters or has designed a haphazard passive filter using the capacitance and resistance in the cord - which would vay on the length cut. Additionally power supply cords need to be low resistance or they could heat up and catch fire. This leaves capacitance. Most cables will have capacitance - even oscilloscope leads do (iirc mine are 15pF). The net effect is smoothing squarewaves and very high frequency (and low amplitude) noise. However only empirical measurement would show that.. but highly likely to be drowned out by the household noise.

The last option is the powercord doesn’t connect the earth - or uses a powered earth trip to only connect if voltage is connected. I’m not sure how legal that is in the UK and is likely to invalidate your house insurance not to mention making your hand on a metal chassis the fastest route to earth killing you in the meantime.

this brings me to the point - it’s better to have a better noise filter than a swanky power cable.

Extension and power cables are rated. I buy 13A 3KW+ certified to ensure they can carry a full 13A load for drills etc. Amps should be suppled with power cords capable of handling both inrush and full power which removes the current argument.

Youd be better off
A) buying/building a professional AC filter module
B) buying components that don’t have cheap-assed AC-DC power supplies.

I know what you're saying, but if you've got a 13 amp drill that's 240v you could start mining copper.
I do think a lot if devices that use the c13 lead don't actually have a pin for the earth, which as you say in a metal box does seem odd, at least on consoles they're in a plastic box.

 

[JasonM]

The power cable is the first part of the cable. The Kimber cables (Russ Andrews) cables use a weave (crossing of the wires) cancels EMI. This EMI eventually gets into an analog section of sound hardware that causes distortion. Even good quality PSU's can't prevent all the EMI, the following is a Russ Andrews 8TC connected to a Seasonic Titanium PSU.

As mentioned i'm going to do a RMAA testing showing power cables, mains conditioning and better interconnects do effect even PC audio. Those who claim these things don't work, yet never tested don't be to confident. I have the advantage as have tested for myself and the RMAA data will show i'm correct.

That cable improved an Asus Essence STX II card. I purchased the cable pre-owned for £50 from it's modern equivalent price of over £350, I don't buy any of the Russ Andrews cables new.

 

[NickK]

SMPS are the worst for passing noise and for creating it.

i see - so you’re saying the weave is a common mode choke spread along the cable. Which wont remove non-common noise. It would be interesting to see if it removes harmonics crated by the SMPS switching back out onto the power lines - when then hits the other components.
It looks more like the cable has an armoured shield. Back to my point about local noise.

it would be interesting to see the results of capacitance and impedance across 1Hz to 1GHz.

You’ve also got it plugged into a SMPS. Theres no datasheet on that other than +/-3% regulation but nothing about max mVpp noise for example. It would be interesting to see the measured results.

RMAA seems like it’s audio based, up to the low kHz range. Have a look at the ~400-500kHz range

 

[JasonM]

The shield is semi rigid plastic, there is 17 cables in the lead, 8 neutral, 8 live plus earth that's thicker than a typical mains lead earth. I also own some of the cheaper 4TC Russ Andrews with less individual cables, these benefit but the benefit is not as pronounced as the 8TC ones.

As said i'm going to do an RMAA using 2 Asus Essence sound cards (one output one input) testing Russ Andrews power cable, mains conditioning and Van Damme interconnects - i'm going to show a comparison to Dell IEC power cables and the cheap typically free interconnects.

People can spend ages on forums talking about the technical details, but improved audio results are all that matters, and this is what I will show.

 

[NickK]

The shield is semi rigid plastic, there is 17 cables in the lead, 8 neutral, 8 live plus earth that's thicker than a typical mains lead earth. I also own some of the cheaper 4TC Russ Andrews with less individual cables, these benefit but the benefit is not as pronounced as the 8TC ones.

As said i'm going to do an RMAA using 2 Asus Essence sound cards (one output one input) from Russ Andrews power cable, mains conditioning and Van Damme interconnects - i'm going to show a comparison to Dell IEC power cables and the cheap typically free interconnects.

People can spend ages on forums talking about the technical details, but improved audio results are all that matters, and this is what I will show.

My point is that a test needs to be empirical to be demonstrate the effect is truly related to that component and it would then answer why. You may have noise you're not measuring impacting, then the device stops creating the noise (elsewhere on the electrical connection). Secondly an SMPS changes it's switching depending on load and state. How are you ensuring & demonstrating that is a known variable?

I have a medical SMPS that states 120mVpp - I can verify that on the scope. However I've dropped by -10dBV, the noise floor by adding a LC filter after it due to the noise. I can measure the noise before the filter and after the filter.

I'm not saying don't test - I'm saying you can't simply state an improvement without demonstrating the noise either side of the component.

I would agree with a professional AC mains filtering and conditioning system - they may cost a arm and a leg but there's a reason that studios use them - demonstrated noise removal on the power lines, and stability.

I have a couple of analogue Chord interconnects - they do make a difference but simply because their impedance matches and doesn't act like a low pass filter vs the input section of the components. Nothing todo with the majik or the look but the match and noise shielding. The reason they have an arrow is nothing more than the shield is connected at one side.. no mystical crystallisation effect on electrons.

Plastic doesn't shield (unless it's been metalled).

 

[JasonM]

Plastic doesn't shield (unless it's been metalled).

I never said it did, the plastic is only there to physically protect the individual cables.

I'm going to show improvements in THD, stereo separation, dynamic range, and how Van Damme Silver interconnects have less high end roll of compared to cheaper typically free interconnects. These are the things any good manufacture of HiFi gear show and I will do the same.

The tests will be valid, as I'll be testing separately against a number of cheap interconnects (Belkin, Amazon Basics) and cheap power cables (Dell, Seasonic supplied). You will see the relative improvement in the data with the better quality cables.

RMAA seems like it’s audio based, up to the low kHz range. Have a look at the ~400-500kHz range

I will show RMAA graphs showing full frequency range, separate tests will be combined on same graph for relative comparison.

 

[NickK]

I never said it did, the plastic is only there to physically protect the individual cables.

I'm going to show improvements in THD, stereo separation, dynamic range, and how Van Damme Silver interconnects have less high end roll of compared to cheaper typically free interconnects. These are the things any good manufacture of HiFi gear show and I will do the same.

The tests will be valid, as I'll be testing separately against a number of cheap interconnects (Belkin, Amazon Basics) and cheap power cables (Dell, Seasonic supplied). You will see the relative improvement in the data with the better quality cables.



I will show RMAA graphs showing full frequency range, separate tests will be combined on same graph for relative comparison.

1. Any correctly matched cable will have a better frequency transmission. That will very between components being connected. Any good manufacturer would use a wave gen on one end and a spectrum analyser on the other and then bode plot the frequency response and any factors.

2. The concern I have seems to be focused on "cheap" to validity the product. In reality any product that is technically correct is better than one that is not. Hence if you showed a modestly priced matched cable - what would be the difference?

Silver is better than copper, however in terms of real effect, you may need a better amp/speaker to actually notice the difference. Most tube amps use silver plated copper simply because it's common with PTFE coating at the silver (with silver solder) prevents the soldering from degrading the silver solder tabs. Perhaps a silver plated copper connection in comparison?

 

[JasonM]

These are the tests i'll be doing.

Test 1)
Russ Andrews 8TC High Power mains cable plus Wattgate W320 IEC.
Tacima Mains conditioner
Van Damme Lo-Cap 55 (3 meters)

Test 2)
Dell IEC cable
Amazon Basic interconnect (3 meters)
No mains conditioner

Test 3)
Seasonic supplied IEC cable
Belkin interconnect (3 meters)
No mains conditioner

Test 4)
Some random old IEC cable
Some random old interconnect (3 meter)
No mains conditioner

The tests will be done using an Asus Essence ST for sound output (DAC) into an Asus Essence STX II (ADC), both cards will of course be in the same computer.

All cables (even the crap old ones) the plugs will be treated with Deoxit Gold before testing.

I will show all the RMAA graphs with tests overlapped and summary of results.

 

[SonicSW20]

Are these tests supposed to be comparative? You're changing multiple components between tests.