|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
63.142.209.123
In Reply to: RE: Insulating AC Outlets from Wall Vibration posted by Sondek on November 11, 2014 at 11:23:11
I have stayed out of this asylum, but I was curious if you came up with any good ideas lately. Sorry I couldn't keep myself from posting. Hard to believe me? I am an honest person. I have no reason to lie. If you research deeper I think you will find that vibration does not affect current flow. At least that is what I learned in college.
Follow Ups:
Cloudwalker,
Am not qualified to answer such a broad assertion but have experienced, when ripping CDs in an external optical drive, how vibration created a large volume of extra calls to its power supply (for secondary laser-reading and verification) that degraded the sound quality of the output. The major source was the lack of circularity of unbeveled CDs and the effect was amplified by insufficient isolation of the unit from the underlying base and inadequate insulation of the drive itself from the controlling circuit boards and dampening of their chips. At the same time, of course, ripping rotation generated static electricity and a magnetic field which also affected the power going through the wires nearby in an effect which I believe is labeled as 'jitter'. Anyway I cannot envisage how any vibration that interferes with smooth power delivery can help sound quality. It must therefore surely be a good idea for unexposed, in-wall Romex (that has any use connected with audio) to be initially installed in such a way as to minimize vibration as you suggest. Please forgive me if, after spending twenty minutes testing your suggestion by wrapping some exposed Romex, I responded light-heartedly to an individual of good intent.
DG
"If you research deeper I think you will find that vibration does not affect current flow. At least that is what I learned in college."
Really? Medieval literature?
Let me assure you from too many decades of experience with electronic stuff attached to missiles, airplanes, log trucks, humans, cash registers, artillery shells and home audio systems that shock and vibration are always part of the issues. Sometimes a huge part.
Mechanisms and sensitivities vary by application but it ALWAYS has to be considered and often is a major driver in design and implementation.
Wish I could live in an ideal world too...
Rick
.
I agree with you. But I still think that vibration does not affect the flow of electricity. The things you mention are subject to FAILURE because of vibration. It still does not affect the flow of electricity, only mechanical failure. Teach me. I want to learn. Show me how vibration can affect the flow of electricity. I want to be the student for awhile. I do remember once I was in a small airplane on a dirt runway. The gauges were shaking so much that we could not read them. I still don't think that electricity flow is affected by vibration but I understand why those things might fail...
"I want to be the student for awhile. I do remember once I was in a small airplane on a dirt runway. The gauges were shaking so much that we could not read them. I still don't think that electricity flow is affected by vibration but I understand why those things might fail..."
Oh, I'm glad you took it so well, I was feeling that I had been too churlish.
Starting with the plane, the main thing that matters to you is that the spark plugs fire. And they run off of redundant magnetos isolated from the main electrical system. Part of that is historical but part is due to reliability concerns. Magnetos are sort of crude devices and that's good, they are not especially affected by shock and vib and even the timing of the points opening has a fairly broad error tolerance.
So moving on to stuff powered by the main electrical system... Let's say the Com. transceiver. Nowadays it's synthesized meaning that it uses one or two crystals to generate the various frequencies required for operation. Each of them is a resonant piece of quartz with piezo electric coupling to electrodes which are usually plated to the surface. Electricity can make them wiggle and when they wiggle they generate electricity so electrically they look rather like a resonant circuit. BUT they are also mechanical devices which means that mechanical shock and vibration from, say, your engine will ALSO produce electrical signals at their electrodes which cause Incidental Frequency Modulation (IFM). Whether this causes problems depends on other things, especially the passband ripple in the IF filters of both your receiver and the one at the tower or wherever. It can cause a very noticable distortion that reduces one's abilities to understand speech.
Now nothing is broken, everything meets Spec., and yet with the wrong combination of transmitter, receiver and engine speed and loading, your communications may be somewhat garbled.
And it isn't just crystals, virtually all active parts and most passives are somewhat sensitive to shock, Vib., temperature, physical stress in general, and possibly humidity. Grids rattle and sway in tubes, substrates twist and bend in IC's, many capacitors change their value when stressed and most transduce physical stresses to terminal voltages and vice-versa. There's crosstalk in cables and reflections which vary when they are bent or compressed and so on.
The bottom line is that essentially every part is more than it seems. When we use a resistor we KNOW that it also has inductance, capacitance, a temperature coefficient, power dissipation limits, excess noise and so on. But life would be insane if we thought or said that constantly. As much as practical we design stuff to not be hyper-critical to all of the miriad parameters and charactoristics of every piece. But sometimes, especially in things like switchers, there is really a particular set of parts thet are required for good performance.
NOW take the case in point, a wall outlet and plug. No big deal right? Well, that's actually reasonable for low wattage incandescent lightbulbs. Maybe not so much for stereos? I can't really speak from much experience but I do know that many cables are real good at conveying longitudinal compression waves so some of the audio energy itself may get coupled from the wall to your device via the power cord. Also the low frequency components of loud signals modulate the current draw which may cause micro-arcs at the prongs if the connector isn't quite tight and especially in an unbalanced system can show up as a signal term. And there are probably are other issues also.
I love home audio, I really enjoy, well, listening to music at home. But I also find it fascinating as a system. The amazing sensitivities of our ear/brain coupled with an abysmal bunch of legacy engineering practices make for an imteresting hobby.
Regards, Rick
'.... in cables and reflections which vary when they are bent or compressed and so on.'
Are we still talking about audio frequencies?
"Are we still talking about audio frequencies?"
Well... both RF and audio actually. Especially if the cable is sort of stiff.
The RF end of things is just electrical reflections and resonances from the TEM wave hitting a non-conjugate match, often at both ends. The audio one is mechanical and I really don't know if the mode is longitudinal, transverse or even both. But it can have a suprisingly high-Q. It can also generate electrical problems by exciting triboelectric effects in the insulation.
Rather than more words, when I get back to town I'll see about actually repeating the experiment I did years ago and post the data. It's sort-of hard to believe until you hear it with your own ears and see it (on a scope) with your own eyes.
Best, Rick
I think this is indeed the wrong asylum for me. I use my head too much. I need proof sometimes. If you want to be credible sometimes you need more proof than "because I said so", There are a couple big holes in the vibration theory. 1) some people (including me) do not listen to music loud enough for vibration to be a problem 2) the biggest problem area hasn't been addressed...that is the wiring inside the cabinet between the crossover and drivers. 3) I am a retired builder. If you were really into vibrations, it would be easy before sheet rocking to dampen the wiring and walls (with insulation) but I have not heard of anyone doing that. And each electrical box is nailed to a solid stud and mostly free of the sheetrock. And I am sure buying an area rug is cheaper, more effective and an easier way to dampen things.
Good luck to you all. I still believe the best things to improve sound systems is to buy quality gear to start with and position it correctly in the room. The one "tweak" I believe in is a voltage stabilizer if voltage is a problem.
"I think this is indeed the wrong asylum for me. I use my head too much. I need proof sometimes. If you want to be credible sometimes you need more proof than "because I said so"
-Well, I wasn't attempting to prove anything, merely suggesting possible mechanisms that you might not have considered.
"There are a couple big holes in the vibration theory. 1) some people (including me) do not listen to music loud enough for vibration to be a problem"
-And you know this how? You may well be correct, however at this point that is just an assumption.
2) the biggest problem area hasn't been addressed...that is the wiring inside the cabinet between the crossover and drivers.
-Maybe not but that seems to be quite a different issue to me. I think it's worth paying attention to and I have when tinkering with speakers. But that just isn't what the OP was focusing on.
3) I am a retired builder. If you were really into vibrations, it would be easy before sheet rocking to dampen the wiring and walls (with insulation) but I have not heard of anyone doing that. And each electrical box is nailed to a solid stud and mostly free of the sheetrock. And I am sure buying an area rug is cheaper, more effective and an easier way to dampen things.
-My sense of it is that the post was only concerned with vibrations at the outlet. And considering that the sheetrock is nailed to the studs I would expect it all to vibrate probably with some rather complex modes over frequency.
Good luck to you all. I still believe the best things to improve sound systems is to buy quality gear to start with and position it correctly in the room.
-That seems darn reasonable to me. Well, except that there may multiple reasonables...
The one "tweak" I believe in is a voltage stabilizer if voltage is a problem.
-OK
-I'm not clear if it's AA in general or the tweaks forum that you don't care for. Actually I rarely participate in "Tweaks" myself. But in AA in general there is actually a tremendous depth of knowledge, skills and experience but you have to be able to tolerate some hogwash, after all this IS an asylum.
One thing that helps me here, and in most other situations as well, is to accept the observation and ignore the explanation. I developed the approach in my working life and it has proven very effective. It's largely an application of the Will Roger's bit that it's not what you know that's the problem, it's what you know that ain't so.
I think it would be grand if you decide to hang around, but regardless I wish you well, it was fun.
Regards, Rick
what forums do you post in? To me every asylum has some people who think that putting others down proves them right. Especially this asylum. That is not now I ever am. These groups should help each other. This is a great resource. I have many things I am interested in. Audio gear is just a part of my life. But there is so much to learn. I have some questions for you. Do you think there is any need for separates still? And do you think tube gear is really better or just different?
Cloudwalker,
128-page color catalogs are typically printed in one huge continuous run after a production executive has taken critical color-balance decisions to ensure that each page will at least look reasonable, even if none of the other 127 appear exceptional. It's somewhat similar when Japanese electronics engineers design their large, powerful surround-sound amplifiers that offer many processing effects, built-in DACs and full-remote control. The engineers must match the competitive feature requirements of the marketing dept. and build to a cost decreed by their accountants; it's remarkable how successful they generally are in delivering good, broad-tiered compromise in performance at a reasonable price. It's nevertheless hardly surprising that the close proximity of many complex audio and video circuit boards in a contained area so close to the heat, vibration and magnetic field generated by a powerful internal power supply (Toroidal transformer) degrades the performance of the unit.
While separate DACs and amplifiers introduce the added cost for interconnects and power cables, yet two-channel immediately sounded better than five-channel and the external DAC was a great improvement in clarity. Dumping the Denon amplifier and buying separates made by dedicated perfectionists and a Mac Mini made it possible to quit the wall-of-digital-sound. So, speaking for myself only, separates are where the audiophile world starts and their alternative is an economic compromise for the consumer mass market in terms of sound quality. At the end of the day, the opinions of others are interesting, sometimes valuable, but testing with our own ears is the only sure way forward. This initially translates to taking a calculated risk after being convinced by sufficient breadth of repeated individual recommendation.
So, yes, there certainly is a need for separates as long as there are audiophiles in my view...
DG
People forget that DD n DTS are all set decoders. Your can not be certified unless you use factory circuit designs. Thus for stereo options are limited.
Uncle Stu,
You are absolutely right. It's interesting, however, that in playing a collection of non-Blu-ray movies/ series (all of which which were bought with the highest available sound option such as DTS at the time), have never been aware of any loss of audio satisfaction from movie sounds tracks after switching to two-channel, perhaps because the improvements from tweaks/ separates more than compensated for that loss of processing...
DG
What I meant to say was that with DTS and DD the processing options are limited in order to meet their standards. Sorry. Thus for high end two channel playback there are much more options available for the skilled digital designer.
In particular waveshaping: Oh we can all say the typical audiophile prefers one algorithm, but live music may incorporate many algorithms., but no one DAc has allowed such switching, with the exception of the old Ultra Analog DAC chip and on that one only the Spectral allowed user switching
"what forums do you post in?"
Actually none regularly. But the ones I scan daily are General, Amp/Pre, Critics, Digital, PC, Cables and Tweaks. And I review the New Posts list daily.
I am far more interested in audio and audiophiles than in sports, wars, stocks or politicos so this is my daily "infotainment" as I don't do TV. Naturally I love music also but I don't care to read about it, it's better listened to...
Besides enjoying music at home I am fascinated by the subtleties that we can perceive and how little energy they need in the big scheme of things to mess up the experience. Of course that's concentrated on these fora because folks that don't notice or aren't bothered by such things have better things to do and don't hang out here.
Being a lifelong, hard-bitten electronics guy, I find the audiophile struggles and angst fascinating and personal because I care about the results as much as anyone. It really IS amazing (and frustrating) what we can hear and I believe trying to sift out causation is a noble effort. To me AA is like a huge engineering lab with a few good Sr. Engineers, some very knowledgable specialists and a slew of technicians whose skills run the gamut.
So it's sort of like the interesting parts of work, but without any responsibilities or deadlines. Ah retirement is sweet... Sure, some of the mystical bullshit can grow old as can the advertising from some vendors. But the price is right and buried in the user speculations and arm-waving, but ALWAYS unspecified or quantified vendor claims are some interesting nuggets to consider.
One survival mechanism that I've developed over my decades in electronics is to trust the observation but ignore the explaination. Decoupling the two is just magic. Most of the time... If you are at all interested in making AA part of your life consider trying it.
Regards, Rick
Cloudwalker,
Did test enclosing the hookup wires (between cross-overs and drivers) with cotton wrapped in UltraPerm 80 (hydrogen-annealed MuMetal) but that diminished both dynamics and clarity.
DG
I used to think that too. Now in my case with an Oyaide WPC-Z outlet cover I have about 2.3 pounds of aluminum to dampen vibration and a carbon fiber cover that can also reduce EMI and RFI. The result when I added that cover was unbelievable. I mean I really didn't believe it made that much of a difference. I suggest you buy one from one of the many retailers that has a money back program and see for yourself. Until you try SOMETHING your words are just that; words and they have little or no value. Nothing personal, just reality. Please be a skeptic but provide data to back it up. Why don't you try DG's inexpensive tweak? Just think how much more value your words would have if you actually tried something.
ET
having a good audio grade outlet was assumed by me
Edits: 11/11/14
I am much more likely to try it now. When someone has to put someone down to prove a point it makes me wonder? I doubt a salesman would use that tactic. I wonder what sondek is afraid of? I still wonder though...if what you say is true how come electronic engineers don't know about that?
Believe me I don't know the answer to the question you pose. I have met many engineers that will say things like all amps sound the same too. I think theory is used by these guys often w/o real world experience or even experimenting to disprove what others that they disagree with say. For many years I did nothing to treat AC in any way including upgraded power cords. I had always figured that why? My piece of gear takes the AC, changes it to DC and then filters it, what would be the point? I was even a high end dealer and could have tried them free.
Well eventually I did and I spent most of the 2000's improving AC delivery via power cords, outlets, chokes, parallel filters, regenerators for sources and crystals to passively absorb RFI/EMI. I have the same gear I started with but what a difference in sound now because of these improvements. A huge difference.
The first outlet upgrade was to put in a Hubbell hospital grade. Not much of any change. When I did the Oyaide pair WOW! So like I said try these things. But always try from a dealer that has a money back w/o penalty policy. I find vibration damping works well everywhere: gear, speakers, audio rack and so on.
And then there is the world of room treatment........DIY saves a lot here.
ET
Post a Followup:
FAQ |
Post a Message! |
Forgot Password? |
|
||||||||||||||
|
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors: