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General Asylum General audio topics that don't fit into specific categories. |
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General Asylum General audio topics that don't fit into specific categories. |
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In Reply to: Power Cord Sound posted by warnerwh on April 3, 2002 at 22:44:45:
Why stop with power cords? Given that THD, Frequency Response and S/N ratios are all within "accepted parameters", then don't all receivers sound the same, and the same as Krell amps?After all, there are miles and miles of cables, op-amps, and volume slider's between the original instrument in the studio, and the playback of the recording in your home. So isn't it all a moot point, and boom boxes reign supreme?
No, thank goodness, and this is not AR either.
The kind of arguments you cite have been around for quite awhile, but that does not make them any less correct, or any less irrelevant than they have been in the past.
First, lets address the miles and miles fallacy.
It is often used as in the quotation above, to show that with all that wiring and components in the recording chain, a few feet of interconnect, and some zip cords are not going to have any effect on the signal in the home. Unfortunately, this is flawed thinking for audio cables.In the above argument, it is actually more likely that all the signal distortion "headroom" that got "used up" in the recording studio only makes minor details in the home playback system MORE critical, not less. Once the signal has been savaged to whatever extent is was during the recording process, even the slightest additional signal distortion could put it over the edge into audibility.
Now this is not exactly analogous to AC power cables. However, it does bring up a significant point: Just because YOU did not think of a good reason for such things to matter, does not mean they are not there.
As has already been noted in other replies to this thread, if the AC cord is presenting some filtering action, then it can readily affect the "miles and miles of upstream wiring". What is occuring locally is more important than what is happening miles away. The RFI and interference picked up by the miles and miles of power cable can be positively reduced or eliminated by an AC power cord that is designed to address these issues.
I was formally trained as an engineer, and like all my compatriots, I was taught that a resistor is a resistor, a capacitor is a capacitor, and an inductor is an inductor. Period. This IS true in the text books, but once you have to actually deal with a resistor in the real world, with capacitive shunt effects that reduce it's resistnace at RF frequencies, spiral resistance traces that act as inductors, tempco, voltco, thermocouple effects, microphonics, leads that may be ferrous, and so on, it is clear that a resistor is not just a resistor, but rather must be modelled as a whole handfull of parts. Note that this is STILL just a model, and not the real resistor, just a good first approximation.
You mention several things: adequate gauge, shielding, and a good connection. Funny thing is, that OEM cords usually have none of these things. They are seldom shielded. They usually are 18 ga. cords, since this is adequate ACCORDING TO UL, for all but the most powerful of power amps and receivers. And they seldom use a good plug or IEC connector.
All UL is concerned with is: Will the current through the cord heat it up enough to cause a fire hazard? It can even get warm, just not hot.
This is NOT exactly what most folks who stop and think about it would call good linearity. If the copper gets warm, we have so much current going through that ga. cord, that it is acting as a ressitor. Guess what? Now we have to invoke our sadly lacking model of a real resistor.As for the connection, this is probably one of the more significant things, yet is often dismissed as irrelevant. Try going down to your local hardware store, and plugging in the cheapo plugs (two prong, keep the ground connection out of the equation for now) into the cheapo outlets. Now find a HD two-prong plug,and some Industrial duty outlets (or a "Hospital Grade" outlet). The amount of force required to insert and remove the plug is almost ten times what the el cheapo plug and outlet were. I doubt many would argue that this is probably making a better electrical connection (not ten times better, but an improvement).
Even with what seem to be straight ahead thngs, such as cable resistance, etc., are NOT that straightforward.
See:
http://www.AudioAsylum.com/audio/cables/messages/13538.htmlThose are real world measurements, not a flight of fancy.
Is a high tech power cord going to make a Dept. store rack system sound better? Highly unlikely. But it is not inconceivable that it would add to the performance of a really decent home playback system.
Jon Risch
Jon Risch
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- Re: Power Cord Sound - Jon Risch 16:49:31 04/04/02 (0)
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