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Power Cables. Are they overhyped?

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Yes and no. :)

For something like an amplifier, yes. In my view well made amp designs from a few decades ago can work fine even now. Although here the change might something like going to 'switching' designs to give higher efficiency as engineers learn how to do this whilst dealing with the snags that hampered early attempts. (I wonder what role mains cables would have with an amp that *generates* huge amounts of *internal* 'RFI'? :) )

But for loudspeakers and rooms, the situation remains complicated and highly variable. I suspect people would be *much* better served by learning more about that and how to alter their setup to optimise results than by buying a mains cable. And this is an area where people at home *can* experiment relatively easily if they want to.

To me modern systems have two weak links. One is the input. If the CD/LP/download has been crapped up by 'experts' you start off down a hole you may not be able to climb out of. The other is the room/speaker arrangement. This is a variable as well as a preference and is complex, but something people *can* tweak and hope to get improvements from. *If* they have some understanding of what is involved and put in the time and effort.
All agreed- I was using the word "electronics" to refer to the equipment before the loudspeaker (sorry I agree it probably was confusing). For example, the technology in the enormous new ish B & O speaker may be a genuine advance.
It's interesting though that comparatively little heat and noise seems to be generated by arguments about loudspeakers
 
Ah, well I never completed in my practical project (a reaction timer) as a result of burning myself by picking up the soldering iron at the less-easily-handled end.

I have a T-shirt that says "If it smells like chicken, you are holding the wrong end of the soldering iron" :)
 
Ah, well I never completed in my practical project (a reaction timer) as a result of burning myself by picking up the soldering iron at the less-easily-handled end.

I assumed that was a dig!

Making the reaction to be timed that of grabbing the soldering iron possibly not your finest moment, then?
 
I'm sure we know that Adam was referring to the electronics side of things. :)

The problem I perceive is that there is a lot of effort involved in tweaking rooms and speakers - and that doesn't play well to the tweakers mind-set. Hence the dogged determination to hear differences that science strongly suggests aren't there.

Yes, however I'm really thinking of the coverage and scope of what could be in hifi magazines.

TBH I would have hoped that the "tweaker mind-set" should be exactly what can lead to someone being willing to put in some time and effort when dealing with factors that are quite likely to have a significant effect. Probably much more obvious than changing a mains cable. But that said, it would be for those involved in tweaking to say.
 
Making the reaction to be timed that of grabbing the soldering iron possibly not your finest moment, then?
I still have the scar on my middle finger. The reaction was indeed remarkably slow. I only realised that the soldering iron was on when I heard the sizzling.
 
Yes, however I'm really thinking of the coverage and scope of what could be in hifi magazines.

TBH I would have hoped that the "tweaker mind-set" should be exactly what can lead to someone being willing to put in some time and effort when dealing with factors that are quite likely to have a significant effect. Probably much more obvious than changing a mains cable. But that said, it would be for those involved in tweaking to say.

On reflection, perhaps "may not play well" would have been a fairer comment.
 
I have a T-shirt that says "If it smells like chicken, you are holding the wrong end of the soldering iron" :)

Surely for audiophiles the sound of frying flesh would be the giveaway. :)

Edit: Adam has just confirmed that as I wrote the above!

In my case the smell of burning hair was more common. A few decades ago I had a *lot* more hair than I do now.
 
<kind of moderating>

I should point out that I really have no issue whatsoever with Alan, he's a good bloke who I've always got on with well and very much welcome posting here. I'd really hate for anyone to cancel a subscription or anything as a result of what is a publisher's misunderstanding. As such my moderation post shoud be read slightly tongue in cheek - I have been doing this a very long time now and have learnt very well how to deal with legal threats! ;-)
 
I still have the scar on my middle finger. The reaction was indeed remarkably slow. I only realised that the soldering iron was on when I heard the sizzling.

At least you still have the middle finger. Had the iron been on a better quality lead things could have turned out far worse.
 
Was it
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident"
or was it "it is far easier to fool a puffed up idiot who thinks he's intelligent than it is a well-brought up simpleton."
I may have made one of those up.

Definitely the latter.
 
Yes, however I'm really thinking of the coverage and scope of what could be in hifi magazines.

TBH I would have hoped that the "tweaker mind-set" should be exactly what can lead to someone being willing to put in some time and effort when dealing with factors that are quite likely to have a significant effect. Probably much more obvious than changing a mains cable. But that said, it would be for those involved in tweaking to say.
My observation here is that I think a lot of people dislike the sort of tweak which draws to their attention that they are making a series of choices and not accessing a unique direct perfection. It goes against the "I can hear the difference when I bypass the tone controls" ideology. This is why it's ok to attempt to change the tonal character of your system using cables,, but not to use tone controls.
 
Well if you can't plug in your gear, it won't power on, unless you have a battery-powered unit. So I'd say that power cables are far from over-hyped, but in fact essential for mains powered gear. :D ;)
 
Highlighted bit. He believes and may

In other words he has no evidence. A more persuading response from an academic would have been, "I have shown with these scientific/technical tests, which have been replicated by peers, that......"

If RF is the issue then purpose designed off the shelf filters will do a better job than 1m of hocus pocus cable

For the uninitiated , Dr Bews is the founder and designer and hands-on builder of high-end audio components in his company ,LFD Audio. He is no laissez-faire simple academic pontificating and just cheering or schilling from the cheap seats.

The following extracted snippet indicates that he is no simple run-of-the-mill academic, but rather a CEO in a hands-on rolled-up sleeves engineers team in the high-end quality hand-built audio equipment strata field. The quote below indicates that he and his team are PhD engineers . As such, his comments to me carry significantly more weight and credence to audio questions than the vast majority of laymen's highly biased and purely anecdotal value judgements posted herein.

" ..... LFD's founder Dr Richard Bews - interviewed by Stereonow's founder Howard Popeck in 2006

LFD is an enigmatic company. In many ways their public face and their market position mirror that of Michell Engineering in that technical excellence is paramount but the enthusiasm for playing the hi-fi PR game is non existent.

The driving forces at LFD have impeccable engineering pedigrees, just like the late John Michell in his organisation. LFD’s managing director and principal designer is Dr Richard Bews. The technical director is Professor Malcom Hawksford. Their public presence in the audio world is virtually non-existent, yet their cult following is ultra loyal...."

http://www.stereo-now.co.uk/interviews-RB.html
http://www.soundcenter.be/en/top-high-end-sets/

All he said was that

(1) Different mains cables may yield an improved audio performance in your audio electronics, (ergo the degree is system dependent with no one-size fits all rule of thumb)
(2) quality built connector components (including inter alia, OYAIDE, FURUTECH ) in a quality OCC copper mains cable along with an improved dialectic shielding (instead of cheap crap PVC) may yield a better performing result in quality systems because of a better RF shielding
(3) he also denounces the unfortunate existence of many low quality product offerings with a shameful jacked-up price that is indeed just snake-oil sales bullshit , that should be culled from the herd of quality build contenders and tossed into the trash bin with the rest of the crap pretenders


If the PhD engineer audio designer/audio builder explains that the audio improvement effect is variable from system to system and it has an ethereal compound reason that is not just a distilled finite oversimplified stamp for the sole benefit of audio forum bloggers , then who are we to dismiss him as a disengaged academic and his expressed comments as fluff?
 
Yes and no. :)

For something like an amplifier, yes. In my view well made amp designs from a few decades ago can work fine even now. Although here the change might something like going to 'switching' designs to give higher efficiency as engineers learn how to do this whilst dealing with the snags that hampered early attempts. (I wonder what role mains cables would have with an amp that *generates* huge amounts of *internal* 'RFI'? :) )

One of the problems going forward is dealing with increasingly green demands without sacrificing performance. The early generations of switch-mode PSUs and Class D amplifiers were at best 'troubling' in this respect, but their sound quality has improved considerably in recent years.

Of course, with The Donald at the helm in America, I suspect some of those concerns will be neatly side-stepped – demanding a 500W standby power draw is your patriotic duty because it keeps coal miners in work!

As to the RFI question, the prevailing thinking here is that if a device generates a significant amount of internal RFI, the cable acts as a kind of firewall, preventing that product from influencing or undermining the performance of other components in the signal path.

But for loudspeakers and rooms, the situation remains complicated and highly variable. I suspect people would be *much* better served by learning more about that and how to alter their setup to optimise results than by buying a mains cable. And this is an area where people at home *can* experiment relatively easily if they want to.

To me modern systems have two weak links. One is the input. If the CD/LP/download has been crapped up by 'experts' you start off down a hole you may not be able to climb out of. The other is the room/speaker arrangement. This is a variable as well as a preference and is complex, but something people *can* tweak and hope to get improvements from. *If* they have some understanding of what is involved and put in the time and effort.

I agree in no small part, and I do find it more than a little distressing when finding a good system in poor order, only to find the owner is more determined to buy their way out of a problem, than to actually resolve the problem through careful installation and consideration of room acoustics and dynamics.

This is one of the consequences of reviews, however, and I accept the negative part we play in that.
 
along with an improved dialectic shielding (instead of cheap crap PVC) may yield a better performing result in quality systems because of a better RF shielding
...
I hate to break the news to you but a dielectric is not a shield. And you have beautifully illustrated why the statement about RFI was nonsense. Of course a better shield could help, but he wasn't talking about shields he was talking about dieletrics.

PS Having a PhD is more or less irrelevant to anything, except on creationist forums where it is always mentioned in relation to people holding absurd stupid views which would cause a 13 year old to fail his biology test.
 
For the uninitiated , Dr Bews is the founder and designer and hands-on builder of high-end audio components in his company ,LFD Audio.

(snip)

The quote below indicates that he and his team are PhD engineers . As such, his comments to me carry significantly more weight and credence to audio questions than the vast majority of laymen's highly biased and purely anecdotal value judgements posted herein.

(snip)

The technical director is Professor Malcom Hawksford. Their public presence in the audio world is virtually non-existent, yet their cult following is ultra loyal...."

http://www.stereo-now.co.uk/interviews-RB.html
http://www.soundcenter.be/en/top-high-end-sets/

All he said was that

(snip)

(2) quality built connector components (including inter alia, OYAIDE, FURUTECH ) in a quality OCC copper mains cable along with an improved dialectic shielding (instead of cheap crap PVC) may yield a better performing result in quality systems because of a better RF shielding

I can't comment on Dr Bews work in general as I don't know enough about it. However as well as having a PhD myself I've also led a number of research students to their own PhDs. Some were brighter than others. Similarly, I've met PhD-holding academics, etc, who varied from hopeless to brilliant. I've also met and worked with technicians and others with no PhD or 1st degree who were brilliant.

So as has already been said, I don't judge people by what degrees that have. The mottoe of the Royal Society is essentially "take no-one's word for it". i.e. judge on *evidence* not the apparent 'authority' of the person saying something.

And Dr Hawksford was the author of the old "Essex Echo" articles some decades ago which my examination led me to decide had flaws.

No matter how 'eminent' someone is, they can still make mistakes.

I'll add a part two...
 
I hate to break the news to you but a dielectric is not a shield. And you have beautifully illustrated why the statement about RFI was nonsense. Of course a better shield could help, but he wasn't talking about shields the was talking about dieletrics.

You beat me to that.

The dielectric in cables is only a 'sheild' in the sense that is prevents near dc current leakage between conductors. i.e. it is a non-conductor that prevents the physical flow of electrons though it.

But dielectrics like PVC, etc, aren't a 'shield' for RF radiation or coupling. Indeed, they can *increase* the coupling. e.g. note how putting some dielectric between conductors increases the capacitance between them.
 
If the PhD engineer audio designer/audio builder explains that the audio improvement effect is variable from system to system and it has an ethereal compound reason that is not just a distilled finite oversimplified stamp for the sole benefit of audio forum bloggers , then who are we to dismiss him as a disengaged academic and his expressed comments as fluff?

No matter what his credentials are (and you seem to assume that people herte don't have any credentials), we are justified in asking for evidence.
 
Alan, of course you can claim what you like. Your reputation as far as I am concerned as a reader does indeed rest upon whether you are percieved to hold to those claims honestly. Perhaps you can expand on the part of this where threatening an open forum with legal action helps the perception?

It doesn't help that perception at all.

But as I said, this was 'somewhat' out of my hands. We have some fairly significant (and, sadly, probably well-justified) sensitivity toward this very subject elsewhere in the company, and a friendly email falling into the wrong inbox escalated quickly.
 
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