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

[UseName]

Originally Posted by Maniac

Well, in theory true, and like I said before, what are you going to test? There are just as many things that can be tested on PSU as in audio. How do you determine what's going to affect the resulting sound? Number don't really mean much if it didn't reflect what's being heard.


For example would be my CD Player, a Sony CDP-X5000. It have some of the best power supply setup that I've ever seen stuffed into such a small case. Large snap-in caps (looks like custom Silmic from Elna) and all kind of regulator circuit. there are even some OP controlled regulators in there as well.


But guess what? It is also one of the more sensitive equipments in my setup to different power cords, even tho I'm only using its digital output only.


I have no idea why it's affected like that, and it goes against all the electrical/electronics knowledge I have learned so far. However, it is always fun to find out stuff like that tho.

The problem is, you say the cord makes a difference, you hear the difference... fine. But to anyone that doesn't hear the difference, and has any experience with electronics, you have to appretiate how rediculous such a claim sounds.

It's like hearing about an amazing magic trick. If I told you I saw a guy on the street levitate and there was NO WAY it was just an illusion, would you say, "wow, that is amazing" and believe me? or would you ask questions and maybe even tell me how impossible it is?

This might not be the most perfect analogy, but it does help illustrate the view of a skeptic. Unfortunately, most believers on this site are intollerant of the skeptic veiwpoint (at least that is what I have seen), so when they ask for proof or reasons behind the magic, nobody is willing to help them. At least you are willing to admit it goes against your electrical knowledge.

[Maniac]

Originally Posted by UseName

The problem is, you say the cord makes a difference, you hear the difference... fine. But to anyone that doesn't hear the difference, and has any experience with electronics, you have to appretiate how rediculous such a claim sounds.

It's like hearing about an amazing magic trick. If I told you I saw a guy on the street levitate and there was NO WAY it was just an illusion, would you say, "wow, that is amazing" and believe me? or would you ask questions and maybe even tell me how impossible it is?

This might not be the most perfect analogy, but it does help illustrate the view of a skeptic. Unfortunately, most believers on this site are intollerant of the skeptic veiwpoint (at least that is what I have seen), so when they ask for proof or reasons behind the magic, nobody is willing to help them. At least you are willing to admit it goes against your electrical knowledge.

Well, the very simple way is to test them yourself. I've personally seen so many things in audio that goes against my electrical knowledge, and then so many little things that goes kinda in between.


The problem with magicians and street performers is that you can't get them home and probe and poke them all day long, at least not legally anyways. While with most cables you can, and if you do not damage the cables while probing and poking them, some even offers money back guarantees to take it back if you don't like it.

[JustPhilbo]

Imagine that, a MOT, that sells power cables, doesn't think testing can show the benefit of power cables.

I *almost* believe that ICs and speaker cables can affect sound. I can not understand any way that a power cable could do so, unless the downstream transformer and power supply were defective or under-engineered.

I am an IT architect for a large company with millions of dollars of computers, storage and network equipment that run with standard IEC power cables that the manufacturers supply as $0 line items. These free power cables sure seem to do what they are supposed to do, which is to transmit AC power to the load.

So, would one of these special power cables make a server run better?

[Maniac]

Originally Posted by JustPhilbo

Imagine that, a MOT, that sells power cables, doesn't think testing can show the benefit of power cables.

I *almost* believe that ICs and speaker cables can affect sound. I can not understand any way that a power cable could do so, unless the downstream transformer and power supply were defective or under-engineered.

I am an IT architect for a large company with millions of dollars of computers, storage and network equipment that run with standard IEC power cables that the manufacturers supply as $0 line items. These free power cables sure seem to do what they are supposed to do, which is to transmit AC power to the load.

So, would one of these special power cables make a server run better?

Testing may and may not show, it pretty much depend on how you test them. What I'm saying is that trying to simplify it by measuring a PSU connected to a said power supply would not be simplifying it at all, but opening another can of worms with results that is most likely unrelated to the actual performance of the cable on audio equipments.

IMHO the simplest way to test it is simply use it is use it in your stereo setup and see. IMO, consider yourself lucky if you can hear no differences, since you won't be spending all the money on cables like those who can hear a difference.

[UseName]

Originally Posted by Maniac

Testing may and may not show, it pretty much depend on how you test them. What I'm saying is that trying to simplify it by measuring a PSU connected to a said power supply would not be simplifying it at all, but opening another can of worms with results that is most likely unrelated to the actual performance of the cable on audio equipments.

IMHO the simplest way to test it is simply use it is use it in your stereo setup and see. IMO, consider yourself lucky if you can hear no differences, since you won't be spending all the money on cables like those who can hear a difference.

If they do make a difference, the first thing I would check is the power supply. I'm not satified simply knowing that it makes a difference, I like to know why. That is why I made the suggestion and it is only a suggestion.

I also made the suggestion to bring the attention back to the actual purpose of the power cord. Most people look at electronics like they are a magical device and don't have the first clue how they work. On this site, I think most people have an above average understanding, however, there are still parts that people seem to gloss over. Power cords seem to be one of these parts.

The purpose of a power cord is to deliver AC power to the PSU. That is it. If two cords sound different the PSU output is different in some way 100% of the time, no question about it. If you can prove that a power cord can affect a PSU first, then answer the question what it changes, you will then be able find better ways of fixing the problem without resorting to cryogenic freezing, rare earth magnets or magic dust.

I do agree that using it in your own setup is the most simply way, but it isn't the most accurate, it won't end the debate. If you aren't interested in testing in this manor, that is fine. But, because of the reasons above, I think it is a valid and extremely useful thing to test.

I mean, imagine how easy it would be to prove that they make a difference if you hook up 2 different cords and find out they cause the PSU to produce a different voltage? Nobody would be able to say you didn't DBT properly, or anything like that because you could easily repeat it and don't need to worry about sample size, variance, or any statistics.

I highly doubt it would be that easy, but that doesn't mean people can't start looking at it from this angle. Please don't dismiss my idea.

[bigshot]

Originally Posted by Maniac

Well, the very simple way is to test them yourself. I've personally seen so many things in audio that goes against my electrical knowledge

Whenever I run into that sort of situation, it usually turns out that my electrical knowledge is deficient, and I'm not actually witnessing an unnatural freak of nature. That's always a good opportunity to learn something new to add to my bag of tricks.

See ya
Steve

[Maniac]

Originally Posted by UseName

If they do make a difference, the first thing I would check is the power supply. I'm not satified simply knowing that it makes a difference, I like to know why. That is why I made the suggestion and it is only a suggestion.

I also made the suggestion to bring the attention back to the actual purpose of the power cord. Most people look at electronics like they are a magical device and don't have the first clue how they work. On this site, I think most people have an above average understanding, however, there are still parts that people seem to gloss over. Power cords seem to be one of these parts.

The purpose of a power cord is to deliver AC power to the PSU. That is it. If two cords sound different the PSU output is different in some way 100% of the time, no question about it. If you can prove that a power cord can affect a PSU first, then answer the question what it changes, you will then be able find better ways of fixing the problem without resorting to cryogenic freezing, rare earth magnets or magic dust.

I do agree that using it in your own setup is the most simply way, but it isn't the most accurate, it won't end the debate. If you aren't interested in testing in this manor, that is fine. But, because of the reasons above, I think it is a valid and extremely useful thing to test.

I mean, imagine how easy it would be to prove that they make a difference if you hook up 2 different cords and find out they cause the PSU to produce a different voltage? Nobody would be able to say you didn't DBT properly, or anything like that because you could easily repeat it and don't need to worry about sample size, variance, or any statistics.

I highly doubt it would be that easy, but that doesn't mean people can't start looking at it from this angle. Please don't dismiss my idea.

I'm not really dismissing your idea, but I'm feeling that it would be even more difficult to match the numbers there than testing it on audio equipments.

I really don't agree with the accurate part of your post, IMHO accuracy in this regard is depending on the user of the actual equipment, ie whoever bought it and use it at home.

If you are going to test power cables on PSUs, do let everyone know how you are going to go about it, since the setup alone would be rather interesting and complicated. I'd love to know how it turns out, even tho I don't think the result is going to reflect actual effect on stereo very easily.

[Maniac]

Originally Posted by bigshot

Whenever I run into that sort of situation, it usually turns out that my electrical knowledge is deficient, and I'm not actually witnessing an unnatural freak of nature. That's always a good opportunity to learn something new to add to my bag of tricks.

See ya
Steve

Indeed, there's often new things to learn when those things happens. I've personally learned quite a bit because of that. Tho there are still quite a lot that are not easily explained or solved.

[SamNOISE]

Well, it’s been a few weeks now since I public ally asked the owner of the cable company in question if he would take me up on my offer to set up an unsighted audition at his home, under his terms – so I guess it’s on to ‘Option 2’.

‘O2’ goes about the issue quite a bit differently: I’ve looked at the various ways that we could all share in the ‘auditioning’ of products online. My trials and errors have found me working with an unlikely partner: a fellow who goes by the handle ‘Elk’ on (of all places), the Stereophile forum. Elk is a ‘cable-believer’, but one with an open mind to logical experimentation. He is working with me on a process where we put together a decent group of equipment and simply record a passage of high-resolution music from a CD player to a quality recording device, while said devices are plugged into the wall with standard ‘computer’ power cables. After we create a high-quality / lossless music file, we then swap cords and re-do the recording. We present both resultant recordings as downloadable, lossless digital files that you can D/L and audition in many ways:

On the PC with headphones
On the PC with headphones and an outboard headphone amplifier
On the PC with the headphone stage of your favourite DAC / headphone amplifier
On the PC hooked up to a large stereo system / through a DAC (or not)
On the stereo system by burning files to CD and playing the CD on random shuffle

…I’m sure you can think of several other possible scenarios

I’ve taken several stabs at this process, as those who read my www site will attest to, and realize that my methods / equipment don’t represent absolute state-of-the-art. However, Elk appears to have access to better equipment than me - and so I strongly suspect - do many of you. What I’m asking is this: will at least some of you folks with absolutely ‘over-the-top’ audiophile equipment please step up and create a couple of high-resolution / high-quality lossless .wav files (or whatever your favourite lossless file format is), swapping cables as mentioned above. I’ll offer to host these files on my server, obviously free of charge.

If enough folks do this, with enough types of hardware, we’ll be able to get past the “but it works on my equipment combination” excuse and get on with a meaningful dialogue - one that we can all share in - not one that simply involves folks making blanket statements without any fundamental facts / framework within which to frame them.

[tomjtx]

[quote=SamNOISE;4105083]Well, it’s been a few weeks now since I public ally asked the owner of the cable company in question if he would take me up on my offer to set up an unsighted audition at his home, under his terms – so I guess it’s on to ‘Option 2’.

‘O2’ goes about the issue quite a bit differently: I’ve looked at the various ways that we could all share in the ‘auditioning’ of products online. My trials and errors have found me working with an unlikely partner: a fellow who goes by the handle ‘Elk’ on (of all places), the Stereophile forum. Elk is a ‘cable-believer’, but one with an open mind to logical experimentation. He is working with me on a process where we put together a decent group of equipment and simply record a passage of high-resolution music from a CD player to a quality recording device, while said devices are plugged into the wall with standard ‘computer’ power cables. After we create a high-quality / lossless music file, we then swap cords and re-do the recording. We present both resultant recordings as downloadable, lossless digital files that you can D/L and audition in many ways:

On the PC with headphones
On the PC with headphones and an outboard headphone amplifier
On the PC with the headphone stage of your favourite DAC / headphone amplifier
On the PC hooked up to a large stereo system / through a DAC (or not)
On the stereo system by burning files to CD and playing the CD on random shuffle

…I’m sure you can think of several other possible scenarios

I’ve taken several stabs at this process, as those who read my www site will attest to, and realize that my methods / equipment don’t represent absolute state-of-the-art. However, Elk appears to have access to better equipment than me - and so I strongly suspect - do many of you. What I’m asking is this: will at least some of you folks with absolutely ‘over-the-top’ audiophile equipment please step up and create a couple of high-resolution / high-quality lossless .wav files (or whatever your favourite lossless file format is), swapping cables as mentioned above. I’ll offer to host these files on my server, obviously free of charge.

If enough folks do this, with enough types of hardware, we’ll be able to get past the “but it works on my equipment combination” excuse and get on with a meaningful dialogue - one that we can all share in - not one that simply involves folks making blanket statements without any fundamental facts / framework within which to frame them.



But that is too rational an approach, I thought this was an audiophile forum.