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In Reply to: RE: It seems to be a diurnal variation. posted by rick_m on October 27, 2008 at 08:47:51
While some may regards p=line conditioning as being ineffectual, I find that addressing power grid variations to be the key to consistent performance. To be certain, power line conditioning covers many aspects and issues and very few line conditioners (affordable ones, that is) can address all possibilities.
I used a large number of PLC's including some based on Corcom modules. The Corcom module based ones were used primarily for front end gear with more limited current draw. I left my amps unfiltered until I tried the Shunyata Hydra which did a marvelous job on large current devices but worked poorly for the small current components. I also find that the divide and conquer concept very beneficial in using separate conditioner stages to isolate every device in the audio chain.
One interesting step was the installing of two ferrites per power cord on every appliance plugged into the home power grid. You need to place the ferrites at the ends of the power cords but that noticeably lowers the amount of hash on the power grid. You can pick up ferrites fairly cheaply from Digikey these days, but when I had experimented with them about 15-20 years ago, I had to order them from the factory (Steward, IIRC). I don't like them on the audio components, but they work well on the lamps, clock radios, frig and other things on your power grid.
Stu
Follow Ups:
Agree with your ferrite strategy. Totally.
Hi Stu,
I actually had made some references to line noise vs the time of industrial energy usage but I see I edited them out. I agree with you, it's a possible cause. At least that used to be a common assumption and one that I shared about why things sounded better in the late evening. Around here the mills used to shut down during graveyard shift and that seemed to be when things improved. However nowadays they've mostly shut down completely having exported those nasty noise sources to mills overseas.
And indeed, I don't think I notice the difference as much, but my equipment has changed a bit over the years and so have my ears. But just the other evening I hit a spell where things sounded especially good, and enjoyed it.
While I suspect there's more to it than just line noise I've made no effort to pursue it.
Rick
Line noise certainly is a noticeable difference dependent on the time of day and of course power consumption is lower at night as people go to sleep, other than those insomniac audiophiles.
I spoke to a electric company employee in my area and was informed the power grid starts ramping up voltages at about 2 in the afternoon and it reaches a peak at about 7-9 PM and then starts to slowly ramp down to about 12AM. It is interesting and of course may vary in different locales.
Also I would point out too that the solar wind moving past the earth generates positive ionic conditions on the sunny side and negative ions on the backside ( night side) of the planet. In experimenting with the negative tourmaline dryers and curlers, I am wondering if this ionic condition is also responsible for a little of the difference of what we hear.
Stu
> > > "Also I would point out too that the solar wind moving past the earth generates positive ionic conditions on the sunny side and negative ions on the backside ( night side) of the planet. In experimenting with the negative tourmaline dryers and curlers, I am wondering if this ionic condition is also responsible for a little of the difference of what we hear." < < <
Unclestu. You suggest positive and negative ions could be responsible for some differences in the sound (for the differences in what we hear!!) but you do not give any indication as to where, in your opinion, either the positive or negative ions are 'having their effect'. Even where the negative ions created by the tourmaline hair dryers are 'having THEIR effect' !!!
On the information encoded on the CDs ????
On the way the laser beam may be 'reading' that information ???
On the audio signal travelling through the audio equipment ???
On the acoustic information presented into the room by the speakers system ???
If the people reporting hearing improvements after aiming negative ions from the tourmaline hair dryer at their CDs are correct, then how are the negative ions 'affecting' the information encoded on the CD ??? If it is exactly the same information encoded on the CD both before and after aiming the tourmaline hair dryer at the CD, and only afterwards is the additional information 'heard' (resolved), then why was not that same additional information which was heard 'afterwards' not heard the week before ??? If it is the same information ???
If an explanation is that it is the way the laser beam is 'reading' the information encoded on the CD better after aiming the tourmaline hair dryer at the CD, then why could not the laser beam 'read' that information just as well the week before ???
If an explanation is that it is the audio signal travelling through the audio system which is being beneficially affected by the negative ions from the tourmaline hair dryer - producing better sound - then why did the audio system not 'handle' that same information just as well the week before using the tourmaline hair dryer ???
If the explanation has to do with the acoustic information which is presented into the room by the speaker system being 'beneficially affected' by the negative ions, then why was not exactly the same (better) acoustic information 'heard' the week before using the tourmaline hair dryer ??? Surely it is the same acoustic information, being presented into the room by the same speaker system, before and after using the tourmaline hair dryer ????
So, what exactly are the positive and negative ions you refer to doing to 'change' the sound ??
Regards,
May Belt.
so I have no postulate. I do know that the negative ions sound better, though: more of a sense of silence and greater dynamics and detail.
Of course in dealing with negative ions we are essentially dealing with electrons, a subatomic particle. I believe we are actually working with an electron surplus and not an ionized molecule like say OH-. Many so called ionizing machines work by generating ozone (O3-, but that has a rather distinctive smell which I do not detect with the tourmaline gear.
Since electricity works by the transfer of electrons... It may be a very far fetched postulate, but it may be that a surplus of electrons could actually be reducing the 1/f noise, so commonly found in electronic gear and circuits. I do believe we have not thoroughly explored the importance of ground circuits in most electronic design.
Of course, YMMV
S6tu
The Bybee purifiers claim to work upon that principle: a lowering of the 1/f noise, and in my experience they work extremely well. The tourmaline/negative ion devices do not work quite as well as the Bybee devices in my experience, but they do create a similar effect, just lower in amplitude.
Ah, negative ions. I remembered reading about an additional solar effect besides the shifts in the ionosphere but couldn't recall what it was. Then of course there's the light level, the winds, the noise et al. We are biologically linked to many of the cycles within which we evolved. Perhaps we are intrinsically receptive to sensual pleasures late in the evening. Now let's keep this on a higher plane, I'm talking about stereo's I say, stereos!
Rick
the ionosphere is on a higher plane !I wonder sometimes if the temperature differential between night and day has also something to do with it. I understand that many have AC so theoretically the gear in the room may be unchanged, but the power plants and attending network lines will vary in temperature. The too, as the ground becomes cooler and generally moister during the night (condensation and such) you may be getting a better ground.
There could be possibly many factors.
To quote Richard Feynman:
I wonder why, I wonder why,
I wonder why I wonder why,
I wonder why I wonder why
I wonder why I wonder....
Stu
Edits: 10/29/08
You know, the ionosphere IS a higher plane indeed, and it gets higher at night! Iffins I recall correctly (I spent my wayward youth on 80M (~3.8 MHz)) the noise during the day has a different quality than it does at night. Very electric-fency during the day and quieter at night, but more distant stations interfering with one another.
Naturally that also changes the frequency of the Schuman resonance. I never thought about humidity and fog affecting it. But it's been wretchedly foggy in the mornings here for the last week and I haven't noticed any improvement.
Maybe we can make our fortune by coming up with a circular cardboard thingy (far more eclectic than a computer program), that would let audiophiles dial in a few factors and find the optimum time for listening. I don't know what the factors would be, but it probably doesn't matter a great deal as long as you can get the answer you want to so that you can make the point that the rest of the family needs to be quiet and not bug you during that interval. Obviously one of the factors needs to be the length of the work you have in mind. And I've even got the marketing tag line: "Better things for better listening through chicanery".
Rick
I've done and there is no further elaboration, unfortunately, but the Schumann resonances will vary on the planet's surface. Apparently the Schumann resonances are set up by the movement of the planet through the the solar wind but the induced electromagnetic field is dependent on the ground composition: makes sense as over the middle of the Pacific ocean should have less induction than say a continental slab of possible ferromagnetic rock. There are some interesting implications in all of this. My guess is that by examining the lines of magnetic declination, it ought to give some indication of the inductive qualities of the surface topology.
All this, though, certainly pushes the notion of user controllable conditions. Although I am not surprised. With individual components like resisters reaching the .001% tolerance range I wonder at the limits of resolution we can achieve.
Stu
Well... I think maybe it's the Northern lights that's caused by the solar wind. Must say I take them on faith since I've never seen them. Could we do a DBT to see if they are real? The Schumann resonance is the energy from lightning bouncing around between the earth and ionosphere. In general I detest wikipedia, but their entry for this subject seems OK. See link.
Lightning also shunt regulates the static electricity formed from friction and air movements resulting in a fairly uniform vertical DC E field gradient. When I was in the avionics biz the story was that someone (Sperry?) decided to take advantage of it and built a wing-leveler that had a discharge point on each wing tip and adjusted the ailerons to keep a constant voltage differential. Ostensibly it worked find but had a tendency to steer you into thunderstorm cells and then go wild. But other than that the solution had a certain elegance...
If you are interested in magnetic declination type stuff just pop over to http://geomag.usgs.gov/ and get some entertainment from your tax dollars.
Rick
auroras. The thing I was referring to about the Schumann fields refers to alternately charged longitudinally strips circling the earth, hence the low frequency vibration. Apparently if the earth had ionic differences only in the night and day atmospheres, the frequency would be much, much lower. It wasn't well defined in the text I read and mentioned only in passing, but I'll try to look it up again.
Just read the book The Body Electric, a dated text about experiments in human regeneration, primarily bone structure. Quite interesting reading although obviously outdated with the latest advances in molecular science. Did you know that children under age eleven who lose the first joint of their finger beyond the the first ridge line will regenerate their finger tip? A lot was based on the the fact that the body produces negative and positive ions which seem to stimulate certain cellular growth. But the research quoted in the book points out that ionic transfer is what is propagated in nerve cells and their linings. Interesting.
Stu
Re: Body Electric.
I've read the book and indeed used to own a copy. While it seems reasonable that charge is the method that cells use to tell when to stop healing, much of the information in it was so questionable (IMHO) that I concluded I'd never read it again and gave it away. And that's saying something because I tend to hang on to almost any book that comes my way.
It's hard to judge veracity outside of your own field but as I recall their methodology wasn't reassuring. None the less, our bodies do use all sorts of electrical processes and interactions are bound to occur for good or ill with some of the other things we use electricity for.
There was a thread here quite a while ago about feeling more peaceful if your power goes out. I've certainly experienced that, but I think a major factor is acoustical. Man there are a lot of things that hum, buzz, sing, click, and run. The silence is breathtaking even if we don't consciously hear them.
Rick
Becker does get weird in the end, however I find his electrical summaries of the charge versus healing to be quite interesting. A long long time ago I read a full page article in Time Magazine about some Swedish Nobel prize winner who claimed that the human organism was an electrical entity and that certain cancers could be "cured" by electrical treatment. This was 30 plus years ago and I haven't seen any follow up. I believe he had some experimental remissions by using acupuncture type needles, inserting them into a tumor which would have been otherwise inoperable, and hooking the needle up to negative voltage. for as long a period as the patient could bear. His claim was that the the tumors were charged positively ( IIRC) and that the negative charge enable the natural immune system (leukocytes or white blood cells) to attack that tumor. Thus I found the book to be interesting reading, if quite a bit dated. ( have a couple of friends who are molecular biologists and they also had some interesting comments.
Stu
I can't speak to tumors, but I know how to kill warts with RF.
Many moons ago I got a wart on my hand. When I got the first one I didn't even know what they were but happened to be in getting a routine physical and asked the Doc. He told me and said it might go away on it's own hook or he could burn it off. I went the latter route and he used an RF probe to burn it away and left a hole almost to the bone. Eventually it healed up, then after a while a wart reappeared on the scar. Bummer.
I tried freezing it with dry ice and liquid CO2 since had them around at work, but to no avail. A few years later I was working in a different place on aircraft com transceivers and was testing the VSWR protection. So I tried applying a little RF and waited until it felt slightly uncomfortable and quit. Ta Da, within a month it was gone from just one "treatment". By then I had several others and got rid of them by the same technique. None have returned in the intervening decades. I understand that warts are right on the cusp of the immune system's response and that even positive thinking can help in some cases, but mine did not appear to be one of them.
My guess is that I killed them with heat. My weak understanding of the critters is that the part of them that's actually alive is at the interface of the dead tissue (the wart) and normal part of your body. I think the RF had little loss in the dead part since it had little moisture and tended to heat it's interface with the real meat, just where it was needed to fry the nasties. And the transmitter came through it intact!
Dr. Rick
using yourself as a guinea pig, so to say! I believe they are using RF for some forms of tumors these days. I'll ask one of my customers who happenings to be an oncologist.
I have noticed that my body chemistry has greatly changed as my kidneys failed and after I went on dialysis. I use some analog stainless steel/chromed brass watches and they would literally dissolve from my wearing the watch: right through the chrome plating and into the brass body. Never did that before. Since going on dialysis, I notice my skin is a lot more oily now like I was in puberty.
It is interesting to see how the body reacts to various ailments. Oh yeah, my hearing did increase in sensitivity as well as my vision. Immediately during my first session the whole room got brighter, sort of akin to turning your brightness on the TV set up and I became more aware of the upper midrange sounds, particularly female voices like the nurses. They were rather taken aback when I told them the range in centered in about 1.2 kHz seemed to be emphasized more.They expected a change but no one had been so specific, I guess.
I am aware of hearing fatigue having worked with pneumatic tools in a big shipyard. I once went in for a physical including a hearing test in the afternoon and was told I had a 15% hearing loss. but the alarmed tech had me come come back first thing in the morning and my hearing was normal, just a few dips in my right ear. This was quite unusual, but has stabilized after a continuous cycle of treatments.
Stu
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