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Posts: 7054
Location: so cal
Joined: September 24, 2003
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I don't claim to have any kind of perfect understanding, but I just don't understand the possible physics, how changing only the construction of a power cord to a turntable could improve the sound .
I have experienced audio illusions, where the brain hears what it desires. I tried really hard on a hearing test, required periodically in my sailor days, and was embarrassed by hearing things that weren't there. And having an audio hobby just seemingly rubbed it in. Fortunately the pretty nurse, the cause of my embarrassment over errors, informed me the effect was normal, and a correction for errors is built into the test.
Satisfying the desire to hear is why I have no problem with others enjoying the effect.
But it is not for me, I rate it as a placebo effect in this case. I can understand how changing the loading, with different wires, that an amplifier sees can change the sound, but can't figure out what it is supposed to do with a turntable motor.
does it effect the speed of the motor, which can't be good, or change the motor controls to somehow transmit a better audio tone up into the platter, past the vinyl , and effect the needle trace.
As I understand it, you have rotation and accurate speed as the primary design goals, I really don't see how one could change anything without deviating from the accuracy of those primary system design goals.
I got such an improved sound stage when I went to a belt drive,I stayed with that type of design. I am sure it effects my conceptual thinking on this issue, since it would be hard to convince anyone that a different power cord would effect any audio results since such changes would also have to transmit through the belt. But when one considers everything electrical supposedly stops at the motor, having a belt really doesn't matter.
One other time I was at a buddies house, setting up some Bose 901 speakers, they used to be popular , not with me, and required extensive equalization , a special box in the line.
because, in the interest of manufacturing economy, it was just a bunch of mid range drivers only, with a signal processor to make them sound like a full audio spectrum. my friend liked them, they could play loudly, and looked real cool in a special black finish.
He had a custom space for his audio gear, but didn't keep any instructions , and never hooked up his own stuff . I think the EQ was supposed to go into a tape loop or something I couldn't identify easily.
I was plugging the EQ into various holes, some without results, some would play, and we thought we had it , really, from the sound. Trouble was multiple out puts had the same results, we must have spent 20 minutes comparing plugging into different holes, each time thinking we had gotten it correctly from the sound, until one set of holes finally incorporated the EQ box, and we knew we had been fooled many times by what we thought we were hearing.
That's the trouble with hearing, it produces illusions. Sight does the same thing , but, unlike sight, the more one tries to hear something specific, the more difficult it becomes.
I agree the jumping to conclusions effect of hearing was probably an important evolutionary tool to keep us off the menu. better to think you hear something and run, than to try and figure the sound out. We are real good with direction, which way to run. I can hear , through a closed window, if a siren is around the corner or on my street, at distance, and the direction of travel.
The brain hears a lot of things well, it is just not a slave to accuracy. If you think you hear something, you are correct , as far as you know. the brain has no self awareness.
Thus the use of double blind listening tests in the pioneering days of Hi Fi, when criteria and measurements were still being hammered out. I suppose a test to separate reality from illusion didn't move enough product, I don't hear about it being used much anymore.
It would seemingly be easy to know if the observed effect with the turntable power cord is real or illusionary . one guy to keep changing the cords, or not change it, unobserved, with a listener to record the impressions from the three possibilities, cord A, cord B, no cord change, using both cords. then compare notes after multiple changes.
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