Audiophile cord manufacturers

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Balanced power is indeed the way to go. Or just buy single phase 240 equipment.

You should go balanced with the audio signal too....XLR's with two hots and a ground.

Single ended power and single ended audio is part of the problem but deeply entrenched here in the US residential market.

Eupen cords are worth a look. Just a little hard to find a supplier.
 
synchro said:
The power pole and distribution transformer also needs to be replaced with one of your own: :rolleyes:


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The guy is old. The older the listener, the less it should matter, because it's a proven fact that hearing declines with age.


tom baker said:
Does the type of power cord make a difference?
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Yes. Certain resins used in some jackets, such as PVC contain chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer. So the cord with -CA edition made with materials certified non cancer causing in California does make a difference.
 
Flicker Index said:
The guy is old. The older the listener, the less it should matter, because it's a proven fact that hearing declines with age.
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WHAT?!
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LarryFine said:
I've seen a pair of 10m speaker cables for $ 15,000. That's where "The Emperor's New . . . " came from.

I think what happens is "they" fear not being able to justify saying it isn't important enough to buy.

"What does it say about me if I claim that I can not hear the difference?!" :eek:
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If you would have been the one spending the $$ you would have been able to hear the difference ;)
 
Todd0x1 said:
What's funny on all this is that apparently special line cords sprinkled with holy water or whatever can make an audible difference, but the romex, wirenuts and backstab receptacles, aluminum buss panel, contactor in smart meter, aluminum service conductors, corroded polaris connectors in u/g utility handhole, and 40 year old overloaded transformer have no effect whatsoever...

There is/was a small audio cable manufacturer, they made nice cables expensive but an appropriate price for what they are and left out the snakeoil. They did a blind A/B comparison with monster cable speaker wire and some coathangers. None of the experts could tell the difference. When the cable co published the findings of the study monster cable threatened to sue them. What monster did not realize was that the owner of the cable co was a high power trial attorney specializing in that type of business litigation. Monster got smacked down hard that day.
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Speaking of holy water, I got called to a church maybe about a year ago. They had some "tech guys" install audio and video cabling. They have the main church and an added on building next to is with a fellowship hall. When they have overflow crowd for large funerals, weddings, etc. they have a big screen and sound system in fellowship hall and seat people in there if needed. Problem was noise in the fellowship hall sound system whenever it is receiving input from the church sound system.

Tech guys told them they needed both systems on same circuit and that is what the church representative that contacted me was expecting me to do.
First thing here - each building has it's own electric service, there is just a walkway with fire doors between them effectively keeping a barrier to call them separate buildings. I was reluctant right away to run a circuit from one building to the other. I decided to experiment a little to show the guy what may or may not work before even permanently installing anything. I ran an extension cord from same receptacle fellowship hall sound system powered by to the church sound system. It did get better but was still noise there.

I eventually grabbed a two wire to three wire cheater and plugged one of the sound systems in via that and no noise at all - told them we have ground loop issues. Ended up buying them a ground loop isolator to plug their interconnect cable into and everything was fine.
 
zbang said:
I really don't understand why some A/V people are so hung up on avoiding isolation transformers, especially for commercial sound systems; sure good ones aren't cheap, but they're a lot cheaper (and better) than many other options.
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Because everything they can't explain/fix is always the electrician's fault.
 
zbang said:
I really don't understand why some A/V people are so hung up on avoiding isolation transformers, especially for commercial sound systems; sure good ones aren't cheap, but they're a lot cheaper (and better) than many other options.
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Because they often don't really understand how their stuff works, which often leads to dangerous situations such as removed EGC.
 
hbiss said:
Here you go. Not much has changed.


-Hal
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It's sad that RCA (that developed color television, the first commercial CMOS ICs, and many other innovations) is now just a brand name and a phono connector like the jack shown at 5:22 in this video.
 
Rex Hungerford said:
I just wish I could simplify the power delivery chain. Get rid of all the plugs and receptacles. They have a detrimental impact on sonics that is very apparent.
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Ummm. No.

Yes, copper matters, use a reasonable amount so that power cord Voltage drop is low. Use a spec grade receptacle at the wall for a reliable firm connection. Maximum performance audiofile Power cords are readily assembled from Leviton/Hubbell and Home Depot for a reasonable cost. Silver plating and braiding power cord connections is the Emperors clothes.

When it comes to speaker wire, again, copper matters. You will hear a noticeable difference when the copper cross section is increased. Make the conductor impedance small in comparison to the 4 to 8 Ohm speaker load.
Braiding small diameter conductors and flat braided conductors takes us back to undressing the Emperor. Audible benefit comes from increasing the copper cross section, not from increasing surface area to compensate for skin effect. Physics matters, and the Emperor and his advisors are not physicists.

Low level signal cables benefit from solid construction and plated contacts that do not readily oxidize. Benefits beyond that are expensive and do not add value. that does not mean that expensive cables do not sound good, it just means they sound good because someone took care in their construction. You do not need to go overboard spending money on fancy designs, keep it simple and solid and you will have all the benefit needed.
 
Rex Hungerford said:
It looks like nice work Larry. I would keep it all on 1 phase. Its pretty common to have 1 to 2 volts difference between phases. That can translate into ground loops as the voltage difference works though the equipment. It can also manifest as a bit of smear and loss of punch in the bass. I run #4 to subpanels too. That oven wire is easy to install. I then take the red and phase it green. Using both the red/green and #10 paper ground together will drop about 7 milivolts of potential between the ground and neutral at the subpanel. I always shoot for 0. If I'm running pipe and wire, my phase and Neutral are maybe #4 and my ground is then #2. I always double the size of the ground.
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Can you explain how ground loops develop from differences in line potential please?
 
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