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In Reply to: More on the listening room as an evaluation tool posted by Charles Hansen on January 17, 2007 at 20:19:17:
As I said below, I fully agree that a reviewer's setup is his or her place of work and laboratory so we owe it to the makers and readers to do the best we can to have it optimized and conducive for the job, the tools appropriate and sharp for the task.But there also can come a point where a reviewer creates an idealized environment which 95% of prospective owners of the gear he reviews can't or won't duplicate. Large conventional bass traps and room treatments are one example. Most living room systems simply won't tolerate their installation as a matter of decor.
Even having a dedicated listening room is something many real-world listeners don't enjoy. They use double-duty spaces.
Installing separate system grounds with copper rods in the yards is something most end users who rent won't ever do - nor many who own their home. Elevating cables on riser above synthetic carpet. There's a long list of optimizations that audiophiles are willing to consider but not regular music lovers.
The best compromise to me is to have full disclosure on the part of the given reviewer, about what his system, setup and room are and look like. Then the manufacturer has hard data to decide whether he considers that suitable and appropriate for his standards while the reader can decide how much weight the conclusions should hold that were made under those circumstances.
And yes, something can look slick and gorgeous but may still sound like shit - a component or a system or an installaton. We all know examples of that, don't we? -;)
Follow Ups:
And when I worked industrial maintainance we grounded every machine with 6 ft copper rods. You should see the system pics I get from audiophiles either its a packed to the gills room or massive open floor plans and the worst total controled by she who must be obeyed rare I see dedicated spaces or proper set ups.I take this in as I design some types of controled dispersion loudspeakers can do better in average spaces, interacting less with the listening space is usualy a good thing for most dont have it anywhere near optimised.
"Installing separate system grounds with copper rods in the yards is something most end users who rent won't ever do"This is illegal and an incredibly dangerous practice. What can happen here is that in a near lightening strike the current/voltage can travel from one earth ground rod to the other through the wiring of the house. This is not something anyone should wish for. I have a had one piece of equipment returned to me when this happened in a customers system, and I bet he's still wondering why his surge suppressors didn't work.
If you are a responsible reviewer, and check with your electrician on this, please do not recommend this practice to anyone in the future. In fact you would do your readership a service by warning them of the hazards of doing this.
Disregard all of the above if you are seriously trying to win the Darwin award.
d.b.
The ground rod installations I was referring to are fully encapsulated affairs used by Japanese recording studios. While I haven't studied all the specs nor done it myself, I have talked to people who have. Unless I missed something (and some of these were manufacturers of power products), they thought this solution perfectly safe and legal. It was a rather expensive kit that included professional installation by an electrician.
The last I knew it was outright illegal to do this for residential installations. For professional/industrial installations both ground rods must be tied together with something like #2 AWG wire. This is technique is rarely done in industrial applications here to the best of my knowledge.However: This does not excuse you from disseminating this information as something for audiophiles to think of. In short; ignorance of the law is no excuse in this country, and I think you owe your readers an explanation and an apology.
d.b.
Time out. I didn't condone, suggest or recommend any of it, I merely made a mention higher in this thread about certain tweaks some audiophiles are willing to implement which ordinary music lovers wouldn't or couldn't and that hence, there's an argument to be made that reviewers not go overboard tweaking too much since they'd go beyond what the average customer liable to buy the stuff they're reviewing could or would duplicate.Both the Magnan and Galen Carol Audio websites mention specialized earth grounding and I've also seen it references on the PureAudio site. Sound Application had first mentioned a specialty Japanese implementation which he was considering importing as a kit. Not sure whether he ever did. Additionally, I know people who've hired electricians to install these kits to measure a severe drop of impedance on their ground leg with reportedly very audible effects.
That's all she said on that topic and insinuating anything more is putting words in my mouth. -:)
About 8 years ago when I was working on high power radar transmitters we had a 3/8 inch copper pipe that led back to the main panel for a safety ground. It was very effective in discharging 25 Kv and the instantaneous current that went with it.
The point of this is, is that Audiophiles/Recording people seem to love going the most expensive route available, as in digging up the ground to install an additional rod and wiring the two together, when all you needed was a run of copper pipe back to the main panel.
d.b.
Bill Whitlock's Jensen paper on the subject contains this quote: "If multiple ground rods are used, Code requires that they all must be bonded to the main utility power grounding electrode."
"This is illegal and an incredibly dangerous practice. What can happen here is that in a near lightening strike the current/voltage can travel from one earth ground rod to the other through the wiring of the house. This is not something anyone should wish for. I have a had one piece of equipment returned to me when this happened in a customers system, and I bet he's still wondering why his surge suppressors didn't work."I don't think you really understood this Maybe you need time to think about it.
d.b.
That's what I said when I mentioned "back to the main panel"
d.b.
I've got half my back yard dug up... please don't tell me it was all for naught! If you're serious I swear I'm gonna sue that guy!
No Guru, No Method, No Teacher
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