My cat tore up my Virtual Dynamics Power 3...

[Uncle Erik]

Grizzlepaw, if Virtual Dynamics is open and accessible, would you please explain how your commission and sales positions are structured? What qualifies someone to receive a commission? How are they earned? Does Virtual Dynamics have any other Head-Fi members on payroll or commission?

If another member with a financial interest in Virtual Dynamics comes out of the woodwork, it will not look good.

[SamNOISE]

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This would be an excellent opportunity for the owner of Virtual Dynamics to step up and demonstrate to potential customers that he can in fact discern audible differences between his very best cables and a basic computer power cable, the likes of which is powering your home PC at this moment.

I for one would be willing to travel into Calgary to assist with such an audition. I suggest that it would go something like this:

The owner picks (and supplies), the stereo components / cables / favourite music / listening room and time. I or others - attend onsite and set up the listening session as such:

Stereo system – minus the speakers – is set up in an adjacent room with a closable door between the stereo setup room and the room where the loudspeakers are setup. We run a length of (owner’s choice) brand speaker cables from the ‘stereo-setup room', under the door, into the listening room where the owner will sit to audition the cables. After the initial setup is complete, and before the session begins, the stereo is turned on and left playing music to 'warm-up' for an hour.

Owner sits in the auditioning room with his choice of chair / room / speaker layout.

Stereo operator stays in the adjacent room with the stereo system setup and plays selection(s) of music as pre-determined by owner – in whatever order / at whatever volume as previously directed by him. This can be changed at any time by request from owner.

Stereo operator has two cables in hand; one is the top of the line cable from Virtual Dynamics. The other is a generic computer cable the likes of which comes ‘free’ (so to speak), with every home PC sold in North America over the past decade.

Stereo operator [opens] the door between the two rooms and plugs in the computer power cable to which ever component he is directed to by owner. Stereo operator openly identifies it as being the computer power cable and allows the owner to ‘listen to it’ as long as he wishes. When the owner is satisfied, the stereo operator swaps it with the high-end power cable and again, follows through with the procedure as above. This process of open identification can go on as long as the owner wishes – until he is comfortable.

Following this – the door is closed and the stereo operator is free to swap the cables back and forth between songs. Cables would be swapped according to a simple coin toss; heads for the generic cable / tales for the high-end cable. The stereo operator keeps notes on which cable was in play throughout the session. The owner also notes which cable he discerned was in play for any given song. The owner is allowed to ask for repeats as often and as long as requested. The session is set to last one hour – which should be enough time for the enjoyment of (at least), 10 tracks. If the owner feels he knows which cable is in play at any time before the one hour session has finished, he may open the door and call off the session.

This is really quite elementary as far as evaluations go – and again, I would be happy to travel the nearly 500 Km to Calgary in order to attend such a listening session; it’d be educational as well as allowing me to visit friends while there.

Andrew D.
Canadian Audio Video

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[chesebert]

I can measure and hear couple more dB using sound meter in the 30hz range when I switched from Volex to VD David with my Ayre amp running test tones; granted going from Power 1 to David differences were not that obvious.

My wife can tell the difference between BJC LC1 and the cheapest VD RCA cable; with VD RCA music sounds real and instruments come alive. The difference was too obvious for me..but was surprised it was obvious for her as well.

[The Monkey]

Samnoise, it is an interesting idea and maybe a fun exercise, but a n of 1 with single blinding would not do much in the end to satisfy either side. However, if you power it adequately, add a proper control (I guess it would have to be an active control, so blinding may still be a problem), and place a device that randomly switches the cable (manley skipjack?), then you've got something. Does anyone know of a clinical protocol that has been developed for this type of thing?

[SamNOISE]

Samnoise, it is an interesting idea and maybe a fun exercise, but a n of 1 with single blinding would not do much in the end to satisfy either side. However, if you power it adequately, add a proper control (I guess it would have to be an active control, so blinding may still be a problem), and place a device that randomly switches the cable (manley skipjack?), then you've got something. Does anyone know of a clinical protocol that has been developed for this type of thing?

I see your point of view – however – if one were to introduce third-party control devices you can be damned sure that it’ll be pointed to as the reason for indefinite results.

In fact: there should be no reason that an individual who lovingly hand-builds a specialized device (in this case, a power-cable), believes in it fully, markets it as an improvement over ‘standard / generic’ devices (in this case, also power cables), should not be able to pick it out when directly compared. I’ve offered the owner every possible benefit: his choice of listening environment / music / timing – full control in fact, of every variable with the exception of visual clues.

If one were to judge the ‘big question about cables’ by the words of every individual who comments on the wonders of high-end power cables – then the audible differences should be blatantly obvious. With regards to the methodology; I feel that single-blind is sufficient given the isolation suggested and the random nature of a coin-toss. I suppose one could also employ a laptop and a ‘virtual coin-toss’ software script in order to remove any potential ‘coin-flipping-bias’…

Andrew D.
Canadian Audio Video

[Grizzlepaw]

Originally Posted by Uncle Erik

Grizzlepaw, if Virtual Dynamics is open and accessible, would you please explain how your commission and sales positions are structured?

Commission is available to Matt, and Sherry on direct sales to customers. Our sales manager Omer earns commission based on a team bonus and overall sales. Sometimes bonus programs are put in place for the entire staff reaching a certain sales goal, in order to compensate the production department for reaching a certain level of output. Any new salesperson would be eligible for commission starting in his/her second month with us.

Our sales positions are very loosely structured. Our sales people focus on answering questions and developing relationships with the clients that call and email us. They are also responsible for auctioning off trade-ins, developing sales strategies and giving feedback to marketing (me.)

What qualifies someone to receive a commission? How are they earned?

Sales team members earn commissions on direct sales, and sometimes on team bonuses. The sales manager earns based on total company sales performance.

Does Virtual Dynamics have any other Head-Fi members on payroll or commission?

There's me, and there's draudio... there used to be acoustic chef, but he got banned (or re-banned rather, :-) and there may have been other salesmen on here before I started working for the company that I am unaware of. Currently its just me and Rick (draudio). It is only people who work in this building receives commissions.

Now if you want to talk about discounts, yeah, we discount a lot. Pretty much everything but the Power Three has the margin for a good deal of discount.

If another member with a financial interest in Virtual Dynamics comes out of the woodwork, it will not look good.

Well, that can't happen because there is only me and Draudio, but our customers do have an interest in us staying in business, because they feel we make an excellent product, and oftentimes they yell pretty loud about it.

[slwiser]

Originally Posted by Grizzlepaw

........... our customers do have an interest in us staying in business, because they feel we make an excellent product, and oftentimes they yell pretty loud about it.

Yep, you found me out....guilty as charged.

[furball]

SamNOISE,

Excellent idea! I just would like to add one thing.

It is known within audio circles that some manufacturers intentionally introduce impurities into their cables or using ultra small gauge wires in certain sections, that serve to alter the electrical conduction of the signal through the cable, thus making their cables "sound" audibly different from ordinary impurity free cables.

You have to take this factor into consideration when conducting your test. Perhaps by doing some objective measurements of all the cables involved, such as by measuring the conductance, etc. Someone more knowledgeable with EE please chime in.

Originally Posted by SamNOISE

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This would be an excellent opportunity for the owner of Virtual Dynamics to step up and demonstrate to potential customers that he can in fact discern audible differences between his very best cables and a basic computer power cable, the likes of which is powering your home PC at this moment.

[VeipaCray]

Originally Posted by SamNOISE

I see your point of view – however – if one were to introduce third-party control devices you can be damned sure that it’ll be pointed to as the reason for indefinite results.

In fact: there should be no reason that an individual who lovingly hand-builds a specialized device (in this case, a power-cable), believes in it fully, markets it as an improvement over ‘standard / generic’ devices (in this case, also power cables), should not be able to pick it out when directly compared. I’ve offered the owner every possible benefit: his choice of listening environment / music / timing – full control in fact, of every variable with the exception of visual clues.

If one were to judge the ‘big question about cables’ by the words of every individual who comments on the wonders of high-end power cables – then the audible differences should be blatantly obvious. With regards to the methodology; I feel that single-blind is sufficient given the isolation suggested and the random nature of a coin-toss. I suppose one could also employ a laptop and a ‘virtual coin-toss’ software script in order to remove any potential ‘coin-flipping-bias’…

Andrew D.
Canadian Audio Video

Wouldn't a calibrated mic with RTA software recording what it heard eliminate the human factor. I mean if you had a calibrated mic, hooked up to a real deal RTA that records files as wav files. You could position the mic once and let it do the listening. You could run a program like unix "diff" across the two recorded wav files to see if there in fact was any difference in the files indicating a difference in sound. In this scenario the ONLY thing that would change between tests is the power cable itself.

As for the virtual coin toss software... it would use the random number generator of the computer it was running on. There have been many studies showing that RNGs are not really random. Use the mood of your girlfriend or wife tomorrow. THAT is random. Happy = heads, Pissed at you for unknown reason = tails. :allteeth:

[SamNOISE]

Furball

That’s a chance I’d be willing to take! I suggest that it’d be damned difficult to mess with a bit of wire to the extent that it’s design would actually have an audible effect on the output of a stereo component.

I recently ran a 'blind' post of two lossless .wav files and posted it on several forums. The 'guesses' were around 50/50 and you should have seen the cables! One was cut in several places and taped with cellophane tape, ground in the dirt, had it’s prongs pounded with a hammer and twisted with pliers, left to rust and randomly spliced with thin speaker cable. The cable it was compared to was a very well-built ‘PSAudio Prelude’ power cable. If folks have a difficult time guessing one or the other in that outrageous situation, I suggest that there will be a significant challenge ahead of them in audibly discerning an intact generic computer cable from any well-built 'high-end' cable.

VeipaCray

Mic / RTA software results would be challenged over the room acoustics / mic preamp etc… The best solution is still to have the cable’s designer sit down and make decisions on audibility in his own home, with his own stereo, music etc. That way all ‘negative’ variables are eliminated.

Andrew D.
Canadian Audio Video