Just put in some mains cable upgrades

[CnoEvil]

Somewhat reluctant to join these cable debates but having a few moments to let my lunch go down .... Shielded cable (obviously) has its uses and IMO may be of benefit in some situations. However, very expensive shielded cables?? A 'standard' shielded cable should be little more expensivemaybe. Meanwhile. Back in my shed ....

This was the only point I was trying to make....in the face of outright rejection.

 

[steve_1979]

...Shielded cable (obviously) has its uses and IMO may be of benefit in some situations. However, very expensive shielded cables?? A 'standard' shielded cable should be little more expensivemaybe...

There is absolutely no reason for shielded cables to be expensive. They usually cost a couple of quid per meter extra because they have a layer of metal foil and an extra layer of insulation.

But these audiophile 'bling' cables which cost hundreds of pounds are just a pure rip off. There's no need for them to be so expensive.

 

[matt49]

There is absolutely no reason for shielded cables to be expensive. They usually cost a couple of quid per meter extra because they have a layer of metal foil and an extra layer of insulation.

I'd pay for this though

 

[cheeseboy]

always worth going back to the head fi forums incident when somebody had their audiophile power cable destroyed by their cat and basically found out that his couple of hundred bucks worth of cable was in fact about 15 dollars worth of cable... http://www.head-fi.org/t/293165/my-cat-tore-up-my-virtual-dynamics-power-3

 

[hammill]

always worth going back to the head fi forums incident when somebody had their audiophile power cable destroyed by their cat and basically found out that his couple of hundred bucks worth of cable was in fact about 15 dollars worth of cable... http://www.head-fi.org/t/293165/my-cat-tore-up-my-virtual-dynamics-power-3

Very funny. There was a thread on here a while back where a custom installation company had taken a $500 oppo, put it into an aluminium (if I recall correctly) box and was selling it on for $3000 (approx)

 

[bigboss]

always worth going back to the head fi forums incident when somebody had their audiophile power cable destroyed by their cat and basically found out that his couple of hundred bucks worth of cable was in fact about 15 dollars worth of cable... http://www.head-fi.org/t/293165/my-cat-tore-up-my-virtual-dynamics-power-3

Very funny. There was a thread on here a while back where a custom installation company had taken a $500 oppo, put it into an aluminium (if I recall correctly) box and was selling it on for $3000 (approx)

Yup, it was Lexicon.

http://www.audioholics.com/reviews/transports/high-definition-dvd-players-hd-dvd-blu-ray/lexicon-bd-30-blu-ray-oppo-clone/oppo-inside-lexicon-outside-1

Just a week prior to this article, a review of the player said this:

"I went out and bought an Oppo BD-83 SE in order to fairly compare the two. First off, there is no comparison between the build quality of the two players. The Oppo is lighter and the buttons have a far less solid feel to them. The Lexicon is a taller, much heftier unit. Black levels were close, but the Lexicon had a more natural contrast and color palette than the Oppo."

 

[TrevC]

always worth going back to the head fi forums incident when somebody had their audiophile power cable destroyed by their cat and basically found out that his couple of hundred bucks worth of cable was in fact about 15 dollars worth of cable... http://www.head-fi.org/t/293165/my-cat-tore-up-my-virtual-dynamics-power-3

Very funny. There was a thread on here a while back where a custom installation company had taken a $500 oppo, put it into an aluminium (if I recall correctly) box and was selling it on for $3000 (approx)

Review here, LOL. http://www.head-fi.org/t/286475/virtual-dynamics-power-3-an-initial-honest-review

 

[BigH]

always worth going back to the head fi forums incident when somebody had their audiophile power cable destroyed by their cat and basically found out that his couple of hundred bucks worth of cable was in fact about 15 dollars worth of cable... http://www.head-fi.org/t/293165/my-cat-tore-up-my-virtual-dynamics-power-3

Very funny. There was a thread on here a while back where a custom installation company had taken a $500 oppo, put it into an aluminium (if I recall correctly) box and was selling it on for $3000 (approx)

Thats not quite right. Oppo make them in China and Lexicon assemble them in the USA and charge considerable more. Note the Cambridge Audio version is almost the same also.

 

[Covenanter]

Many years ago Isaac Asimov (who was an eminent chemist as well as a science fiction writer) wrote a book about science and scientific fallacies. In it he explained that he often got plans from people who had invented perpetual motion machines but he never bothered to look at them in detail because he knew that they didn't work because such a thing would contradict a basic scientific law. Now I'm not a scientist, eminent or otherwise, but I do have a scientific education and know which things are possible and which things aren't.

Chris

The shielding of cables is not a black art.....how to carry it out, and the reason for doing so, is generally accepted (but not universally so, obviously).

Wikipedia doesn't sell cables, and here is their take: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shielded_cable

I'm beginning to think you are being deliberately obtuse! Nobody said that shielded cables were a black art. Any cable in the signal path should be shielded because whatever is there will be amplified. The most important thing for the shielding to keep out though is relatively low frequency noise and by far the biggest danger there is mains, ie 50Hz, hum because that's really audible and there is lot of it in any modern environment. Shielding a mains cable when the biggest source of potential noise is already inside it is simply pointless. And no shielding will remove noise already in the cable.

And as you want to quote science answer me this - the power supply in your kit will have large capacitors which are used to remove anything other than DC after the rectification process. They are large because 50Hz is a low frequency and the impedance of capacitors is inversely proportional to the frequence of the signal. So unless your equipment hums they are effective at 50Hz and at RF, which starts at around 3kHz, they will be at least 60 times more effective. At FM frequencies, around 90MHz, they are nearly 2 million times more effective! So how does this stuff which your cables purport to remove actually get into the signal path whilst the stuff which is much harder to remove doesn't? You are going to need a lot of woofle dust to explain that methinks.

Chris

 

[bigboss]

always worth going back to the head fi forums incident when somebody had their audiophile power cable destroyed by their cat and basically found out that his couple of hundred bucks worth of cable was in fact about 15 dollars worth of cable... http://www.head-fi.org/t/293165/my-cat-tore-up-my-virtual-dynamics-power-3

Very funny. There was a thread on here a while back where a custom installation company had taken a $500 oppo, put it into an aluminium (if I recall correctly) box and was selling it on for $3000 (approx)

Thats not quite right. Oppo make them in China and Lexicon assemble them in the USA and charge considerable more. Note the Cambridge Audio version is almost the same also.

According to Audioholics article:

"When we received the player the first thing we did was open it up to get a look at the inside. Imagine my surprise when I found that not only did the Lexicon share the same boards and transport as the Oppo - it was in fact AN OPPO BDP-83 PLAYER, CHASSIS AND ALL, SHOVED INSIDE AN ALUMINUM LEXICON WRAPPER. As far as we could determine, Lexicon didn't change a single thing in terms of the hardware. Heck, they didn't even lift the boards out of the chassis, opting instead to cut out the bottom of their own chassis to accommodate the venting locations, and putting a darker blue filter over the Oppo's VFD display to give it a slightly deeper hue."

 

[hammill]

always worth going back to the head fi forums incident when somebody had their audiophile power cable destroyed by their cat and basically found out that his couple of hundred bucks worth of cable was in fact about 15 dollars worth of cable... http://www.head-fi.org/t/293165/my-cat-tore-up-my-virtual-dynamics-power-3

Very funny. There was a thread on here a while back where a custom installation company had taken a $500 oppo, put it into an aluminium (if I recall correctly) box and was selling it on for $3000 (approx)

Thats not quite right. Oppo make them in China and Lexicon assemble them in the USA and charge considerable more. Note the Cambridge Audio version is almost the same also.

According to Audioholics article:

"When we received the player the first thing we did was open it up to get a look at the inside. Imagine my surprise when I found that not only did the Lexicon share the same boards and transport as the Oppo - it was in fact AN OPPO BDP-83 PLAYER, CHASSIS AND ALL, SHOVED INSIDE AN ALUMINUM LEXICON WRAPPER. As far as we could determine, Lexicon didn't change a single thing in terms of the hardware. Heck, they didn't even lift the boards out of the chassis, opting instead to cut out the bottom of their own chassis to accommodate the venting locations, and putting a darker blue filter over the Oppo's VFD display to give it a slightly deeper hue."

Thanks, thought I had remembered it correctly.I remember people trying to defend Lexicon at the time, which I just could not understand.

 

[steve_1979]

...I remember people trying to defend Lexicon at the time, which I just could not understand.

Audiophools and their foo. :roll:

 

[byakuya83]

Do expensive mains cables improve other electronic devices such as my television or DVD player?

The picture on my TV could use some improvement.

 

[the record spot]

For those of you that might be interested in the properties of shielding...this from the Okonite Cabling Company in New Jersey:-

http://www.okonite.com/engineering/shielding.html

 

[CnoEvil]

I'm beginning to think you are being deliberately obtuse! Nobody said that shielded cables were a black art.

Chris

It is not my intention to be anything of the sort. You keep challanging what I'm saying, so I keep trying to explain what I mean.........which is a pointless excercise, as you've already decided what's what.....and won't try it.

You said that "metal foil shunting the electromagnetic to the ground" was ludicrous"......so I posted the passage I lifted it from.

You then posted something that implied the whole passage was pseudo science and not possible, so I linked to a Wikipedia article that backed up the passage.

Any cable can act like an ariel, and with the amount of airborne noise kicking about from all the wireless devices...there can be a great deal of EMI in the airwaves. It makes sense to shield the cable from this, and the shield needs to be grounded, to let the unwanted noise drain away....otherwise it will transfer (through capacitive coupling) to the internal signal conductor, which is carrying the signal, and so adversly effect the sound.

As for the P/C, how it helps, and why it needs screening, I'll let PS Audio explain,,,,,but I know you won't believe a word of it....Oh well.....I'm now finished arguing for the moment.

"Power cables are the connections between the AC power source and your equipment. Think of these in the same way you might envision a water pipe. If you have a restricted flow water pipe, you will not be able to deliver as much water as may be required. The same is true for AC power. Great care must be taken to make sure the power delivery system to each piece of equipment in your setup is unrestricted at a minimum.

How big a problem is this? Most stock power cables have relatively small wire gauges and can restrict power demands of equipment, in particular instaneous dynamic demands that exceed the ability of the stock power cord to allow the needed power’s passge, especially to power amplifiers and video projection devices.

The quality of the connectors on power cables is yet another big factor in delivering power properly. Most connectors on off-the-shelf stock power cables are made from stamped brass. Brass has a tendency to “barnacle” or build up small protrusions that limit the conducting area of a plug’s connector thus limiting current flow. PS Audio (and other high end manufacturer’s products) take extraordinary care to use polishing and plating of non intrusive materials (such as gold, silver, nickel, rhodium) to their connectors in an effort to improve connectivity. Stay away from any products with unpolished raw brass connectors.

Shielding. Most power cables are either not shielded or are poorly shielded. Shielding is important both from incoming noise and from outgoing noise. Most equipment produces EMI on its own and without a shielded power cable these emissions radiate to other equipment.

Quality of the copper inside the cable. Most stock power cords use the lowest possible copper quality to reduce costs. Use of PCOCC and OFC copper can enhance current flow and improve sound and video.

Active cleaning. Properly engineered, ferrite (an iron based material) can reduce noise levels in the AC powerline by small amounts. PS xStream cables are the only power cables in the world with impregnated active ferrite noise reduction materials in their jacket.
Some power cables use a lump or ‘slug’ of ferrite to reduce noise. While this is effective for noise reduction we have found it restricts the sound when not distributed."

 

[Craig M.]

At the ACME Audiophile Cable Co. board meeting to discuss their latest cables...

 

[CnoEvil]

At the ACME Audiophile Cable Co. board meeting to discuss their latest cables...

YOU.......ARE.......RIGHT

 

[steve_1979]

RFI is quite a common issue with some cables like interconnects or subwoofer cables because they carry pre-amplified low level signals. This means that any RFI effecting these cables will end up getting amplified together with the low level audio signal.

In speaker cables which carry post-amplified high level signals you need a huge amount of RFI before it becomes audiable so in these cases it's very rare that shielded cables are needed here.

 

[Covenanter]

I'm beginning to think you are being deliberately obtuse! Nobody said that shielded cables were a black art.

Chris

It is not my intention to be anything of the sort. You keep challanging what I'm saying, so I keep trying to explain what I mean.........which is a pointless excercise, as you've already decided what's what.....and won't try it.

You said that "metal foil shunting the electromagnetic to the ground" was ludicrous"......so I posted the passage I lifted it from.

You then posted something that implied the whole passage was pseudo science and not possible, so I linked to a Wikipedia article that backed up the passage.

Any cable can act like an ariel, and with the amount of airborne noise kicking about from all the wireless devices...there can be a great deal of EMI in the airwaves. It makes sense to shield the cable from this, and the shield needs to be grounded, to let the unwanted noise drain away....otherwise it will transfer (through capacitive coupling) to the internal signal conductor, which is carrying the signal, and so adversly effect the sound.

As for the P/C, how it helps, and why it needs screening, I'll let PS Audio explain,,,,,but I know you won't believe a word of it....Oh well.....I'm now finished arguing for the moment.

"Power cables are the connections between the AC power source and your equipment. Think of these in the same way you might envision a water pipe. If you have a restricted flow water pipe, you will not be able to deliver as much water as may be required. The same is true for AC power. Great care must be taken to make sure the power delivery system to each piece of equipment in your setup is unrestricted at a minimum.

How big a problem is this? Most stock power cables have relatively small wire gauges and can restrict power demands of equipment, in particular instaneous dynamic demands that exceed the ability of the stock power cord to allow the needed power’s passge, especially to power amplifiers and video projection devices.

The quality of the connectors on power cables is yet another big factor in delivering power properly. Most connectors on off-the-shelf stock power cables are made from stamped brass. Brass has a tendency to “barnacle” or build up small protrusions that limit the conducting area of a plug’s connector thus limiting current flow. PS Audio (and other high end manufacturer’s products) take extraordinary care to use polishing and plating of non intrusive materials (such as gold, silver, nickel, rhodium) to their connectors in an effort to improve connectivity. Stay away from any products with unpolished raw brass connectors.

Shielding. Most power cables are either not shielded or are poorly shielded. Shielding is important both from incoming noise and from outgoing noise. Most equipment produces EMI on its own and without a shielded power cable these emissions radiate to other equipment.

Quality of the copper inside the cable. Most stock power cords use the lowest possible copper quality to reduce costs. Use of PCOCC and OFC copper can enhance current flow and improve sound and video.

Active cleaning. Properly engineered, ferrite (an iron based material) can reduce noise levels in the AC powerline by small amounts. PS xStream cables are the only power cables in the world with impregnated active ferrite noise reduction materials in their jacket.
Some power cables use a lump or ‘slug’ of ferrite to reduce noise. While this is effective for noise reduction we have found it restricts the sound when not distributed."

Don't you think people who make stuff might perhaps tend to say that their stuff works! But anyway look at it logically - what about the RFI already in the mains? Mains wiring isn't shielded and there is metres and metres of that pretty close to the equipment. Moreover the equipment itself is sitting in the same environment so that also should pick up the RFI. What's so important about the last metre or two of mains cable that you have to spend a small fortune on it? If you really want to protect your equipment from RFI you should put it in a Faraday cage and run it off batteries!

But as I said before why don't you just say that you think it works because you can hear a difference? That's fine and is evidence that it might work. What I don't understand is why you need to try to justify it! Just say you don't know why it works but that it does for you.

Chris

 

[CnoEvil]

But as I said before why don't you just say that you think it works because you can hear a difference? That's fine and is evidence that it might work. What I don't understand is why you need to try to justify it! Just say you don't know why it works but that it does for you.

Chris

That is precisely all I want to do, but then people keep queuing up and challanging me to explain myself, provide proof and demand ABX tests.....and like an idiot, I try to do it.

I have heard the difference and say so (which I put as an opinion).........all I want, is for people to try it......no more and no less......I am then happy to accept what they find (either way). Simples.

 

[namefail]

They're a passing blip in the day. The best part of £300 on a mains block a tad longer lasting. Masterplug will do for me thanks.

Cheers :cheers: for the tip, just ordered 1 from Argos to replace my 20 year old 4way.

 

[Covenanter]

But as I said before why don't you just say that you think it works because you can hear a difference? That's fine and is evidence that it might work. What I don't understand is why you need to try to justify it! Just say you don't know why it works but that it does for you.

Chris

That is precisely all I want to do, but then people keep queuing up and challanging me to explain myself, provide proof and demand ABX tests.....and like an idiot, I try to do it.

I have heard the difference and say so (which I put as an opinion).........all I want, is for people to try it......no more and no less......I am then happy to accept what they find (either way). Simples.

Then we are as one! You can hear a difference and I can't but in the complete absence of woofle dust.

Chris

 

[namefail]

I’ve learned so much to day, now I know what woofle dust is. Oh, do power blocks have a burn in time? 8)

 

[professorhat]

So close to a respectful disagreement...

 

[Covenanter]

I’ve learned so much to day, now I know what woofle dust is. Oh, do power blocks have a burn in time? 8)

It's often found in the tail feathers of the ouzelum bird, woofle dust that is.

Chris