johnjen said:

 

tomb said:

Yes, and it's the exact same circuit you designed for the power supply of the DoodleBug.  Your design, and a device that can make any USB-powered DAC perform better.

That said, somehow I think that kind of achievement/knowledge will be lost on this thread, but I'll try to keep an open mind while I gird myself for the typical cable/connector/blue-tack gibberish that will ensue. 

 

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Can we look forward to your CONTRIBUTIONS as well?

JJ

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No, there is ample evidence in this forum section already if you use the search tool.  Some of them are in my signature, even.
 
That said, I should've followed your rules instead of trying to bust your thread right away.  Avro kind of alluded to it.  Sorry.

avro_arrow said:

I want to abide by the thread rules of not saying anything negative, so I will just keep quiet.
If the snake oil makes them happy then let them be happy.

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My primary intent here is to help folks explore and learn about what does and doesn't 'help'.

Negative comments in and of themselves aren't the key issue.

Sometimes warning someone or letting others know what doesn't work based upon direct personal experiences could be 'negative' but have a positive intent.
It’s the slamming and derision that is unacceptable and does not help anyone, well except for the ego of those who like to 'prove' something.

There is more than enough of that elsewhere on this site

And "If the snake oil makes them happy then let them be happy." IS the point.
One mans poison etc.
And as Baldr recently posted… "I believe that in the quest for the best sound, an open mind is the most important asset. I will even listen to cables, even though I believe in my heart that all technology about cables is well known. Who knows, even an old fart like me could be surprised."
from here http://www.head-fi.org/t/701900/schiit-happened-the-story-of-the-worlds-most-improbable-start-up/7725.

The point of this thread is to encourage experimentation, personal growth and the joy and fascination of discovery, by any means the individual may choose.
And if a question is raised, we will do our best to answer it in keeping with this same spirit of personal growth and the joy and fascination of discovery.

Thanks JJ

tomb said:

No, there is ample evidence in this forum section already if you use the search tool.  Some of them are in my signature, even.

That said, I should've followed your rules instead of trying to bust your thread right away.  Avro kind of alluded to it.  Sorry.

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No worries! :atsmile:

I figure that establishing this particular set of rules may take a bit of adjusting for some and so I expect some to need to adjust their expectations.

As for searching for "ample evidence" I'm sure there is.
The 'problem' is that the site is so huge that much of this wisdom is buried deep within so many different threads scattered here and there.

Bring up this info (again) and aiming it at a particular issue or experiment just makes it MUCH easier to find and apply to the situation at hand.

This is why contributions are essential, they are meant to help folks learn what others have already come to understand and know.
And along the way other POV's and newly discovered insights will be added to the mix which just helps refine the learning process all the more.

JJ :atsmile:

bimmer100 said:

snip
…Will try with tesla SE t1 cable and ps audio lab cable. In both outlets should produce slightly different results. I thought about replacing the internal wire with high grade wire of some sort. Any suggestions?

snip

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For ac power circuits solid wire will probably yield the best results, but is or can be a PIA to work with.
And what I have found is, the lower the resistance any and everywhere, the better.

Which means where wires terminate at each end is important along with the gauge and strand count of the wire used.

Using 'exotic' metallurgy will also introduce different shades and variations into the mix as well.
Big Poppa is the guy to advise you on that.
But then it comes down to what sonic characteristics are you looking for in the first place.

And this could be approached as an ongoing experiment where different duplex receptacles and wires could be directly compared, and in various combinations to find your sweet spot.
And then once that is found, as many of the other receptacles as are needed could be upgraded as well.

JJ

There was a brief discussion in another thread a while back about our aural memory and I wanted to continue that discussion here if folks were interested…

So here is another angle on aural memory to contemplate.
This is based not upon analytic methods but on experiential ones.

There are 3 necessary ‘ingredients’ for this approach to be ‘useful’.

The first is one’s ability and desire to hear these subtle details.
Not everyone can, as evidenced by a talk given at the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest back a few years. The head of product dev (or some such similar title) for ESS, casually mentioned he couldn’t hear these subtle ‘cues’ and details. And that they would take the latest revision to their guy who could hear it, to do the evaluation.

Second is a sufficiently resolving audio system, one that has been tweaked and is capable of resolving the minutest of details and can delineate and present them with ‘ease’. This usually (but not always) involves much time spent on tweaking and dialing in the entire system.

The third requirement is source material that is involving and captivating to the extent that listening becomes, as I have come to know and describe it as, ‘Imperative’.
Tyll H. at inner|fidelity described it when he found himself so engrossed in the music he was hearing, he couldn’t do anything else.
He found his hands, ‘frozen’ over the keyboard, only after that track ended.
This is where we get sucked into the music here and NOW, where all else fades away, except for the ongoing experience of the music itself.

When these 3 ‘ingredients’ all come together, it is possible to ‘memorize’ any music that demands your attention, for it’s entire length.

This is probably also part of what musicians do, they memorize songs both as muscle memory but also as a function of the sequencing and the timing of what should happen, when and how…
Well, except for jazz…

IOW the music is so captivating that it ‘demands’ our full and undivided attention, to the exclusion of all else. And after sufficient familiarization, during these moments, which can and will be repeated multiple times because the experience is simply so compelling, the sum total of the entire experience can be recalled.
And to the extent that any instrument or voice in any combination can be anticipated during the entire track,
at will.
When the experience becomes so Imperative that all you can, indeed all you want to do, is to get swept up in the music, this is when the brain can kick into a form of synchronization with the music.

I call this a Central Nervous System tap, perhaps you’ve run across the term before?

It is a sublime and compelling experience.

This speaks to our ability to immerse ourselves within the music.
And I figure that some who have top tier DACs such as the Jggy and Jggy Jr. will be exploring these rarefied listening experiences soon enough.
And I bet that there are some who own tweako analog systems who have experienced this as well.

It’s way frick’n kewl.

JJ

subbed

bimmer100 said:

I have made some mods to my p300
Replaced the hospital grade phosphor bronze outlets with high grade red copper/rhodium plated with insanely grippy inlets, and a second outlet from synergistic research that is tesla treated.
I will be able to test them... Eventually. Fitting them was difficult enough as they were wider than normal and required very minor modification. Will try with tesla SE t1 cable and ps audio lab cable. In both outlets should produce slightly different results. I thought about replacing the internal wire with high grade wire of some sort. Any suggestions?
 

Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!

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Can you give us some impressions of what you hear with the different plugs? I am interested in the tesla one myself. Is it significant?

barra said:

Can you give us some impressions of what you hear with the different plugs? I am interested in the tesla one myself. Is it significant?

Click to expand...

I have yet to try them out! I'm still moving and did this project with my fiancé one evening before packing it up and putting it back into storage. I'm really curious too. We are having issues with moving and won't be able to get all my gear up and running for another week or two. I wish there was more time for audio listening.

We are focusing on planning our marriage oct 17th. Just around the corner and takes top priority obviously!

I will be testing these out when I get the time and will let you know what I hear

I'll just throw in a couple comments on power delivery.

I have a dedicated breaker, cabling, and outlet going to my speaker system. In that room, I have a ceiling fan (not getting power from that breaker). When I turn the fan off/on, I get a slight "pop" through the speakers.

So, there are only two paths for that spike to get back to the audio system: 1) Through the air; or 2) Back to the breaker panel and out through every wire in the house.

This means I haven't accomplished isolation by just putting in a dedicated breaker. I would need to have a dedicated line to the house & separate box, right? Or is there such a thing as a higher quality breaker with isolation, chokes, etc?

Anyway, one for ya all to chew on.

Second, just a comment on outlets.

For years audiophiles have talked about "hospital grade". I don't think that's what we need in hi-fi. If you read, for example, Hubbell's info on outlets, the priorities for hospital grade are multiple plated contacts to deal with high moisture, chemical, and oxygen rich environment. That doesn't square with what we have in our homes.

I use Hubbell 5362 outlets, heavy unplated copper throughout. I'm happy with them but don't claim any verified sonic improvements.

gefski said:

I'll just throw in a couple comments on power delivery.

I have a dedicated breaker, cabling, and outlet going to my speaker system. In that room, I have a ceiling fan (not getting power from that breaker). When I turn the fan off/on, I get a slight "pop" through the speakers.

So, there are only two paths for that spike to get back to the audio system: 1) Through the air; or 2) Back to the breaker panel and out through every wire in the house.

This means I haven't accomplished isolation by just putting in a dedicated breaker. I would need to have a dedicated line to the house & separate box, right? Or is there such a thing as a higher quality breaker with isolation, chokes, etc?

Anyway, one for ya all to chew on.

Click to expand...

 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isolated_ground
 
Such things are installed all the time in computer centers, for sensitive laboratory equipment, etc.  More elaborate schemes use an isolation transformer that essentially powers all isolated outlets and is completely separate from the normal power mains.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isolation_transformer 

gefski said:

I'll just throw in a couple comments on power delivery.

I have a dedicated breaker, cabling, and outlet going to my speaker system. In that room, I have a ceiling fan (not getting power from that breaker). When I turn the fan off/on, I get a slight "pop" through the speakers.

So, there are only two paths for that spike to get back to the audio system: 1) Through the air; or 2) Back to the breaker panel and out through every wire in the house.

This means I haven't accomplished isolation by just putting in a dedicated breaker. I would need to have a dedicated line to the house & separate box, right? Or is there such a thing as a higher quality breaker with isolation, chokes, etc?

Anyway, one for ya all to chew on.

Click to expand...

My vote of the path for the 'pop' is thru either the neutral or ground, or both, since these wires are tied together in the panel, along with all the rest of the branch circuits back in the panel.

Motors, when power is 'quickly' disconnected tend to 'spike' the supply circuits.
Some motors are 'impedance protected', which usually means a capacitor has been added to 'absorb' these spikes.
Some are more successful than others in this regard.

One other 'possible' solution is to ground the entire audio system independently of the ground buss in the panel.
This entails a separate ground rod and run to the power that feeds the audio system.

I was amazed at the SQ differences I heard just by soldering the ground wires together where previously they were just wire nutted together on my dedicated branch circuit.
This leads me to want to explore this further, so I'm about to implement this as an experiment in my system, just because I can.
I'm interested in hearing what changes this will make.

And my understanding is the most significant reason for a dedicated branch circuit from the panel to the audio system is the increase in being able to dump more current into the equipment, in a very short time.
As I've been investigating this aspect of powering our equipment and what can be done to help improve our systems, the ASCC (Available Short Circuit Current) tests have thus far correlated the most, with noticeable improvements in SQ and in multiple ways.

And since ALL the grounds and neutrals are tied together on the same buss back at the panel, 'real' isolation isn't really possible.
Even the power feeds tie together, thru the breakers, back into the main buss, at least all those that share the same phase do so.

Which means you 'might' be able to reduce the amount of the 'pop' by moving either your dedicated branch circuit that feeds your audio system or the branch circuit that feeds your ceiling fan to the 'other' phase back in the panel.
This will isolate the power from these 2 branch circuits from each other as much as possible without having to add additional equipment.
I'd opt to move the ceiling fan branch circuit, especially if the power that feeds your audio branch circuit is 'clean' and has no other issues other than the 'pop'.

It might be worth a try just to see if it helps.


JJ

gefski said:

Second, just a comment on outlets.

For years audiophiles have talked about "hospital grade". I don't think that's what we need in hi-fi. If you read, for example, Hubbell's info on outlets, the priorities for hospital grade are multiple plated contacts to deal with high moisture, chemical, and oxygen rich environment. That doesn't square with what we have in our homes.

I use Hubbell 5362 outlets, heavy unplated copper throughout. I'm happy with them but don't claim any verified sonic improvements.

Click to expand...

I too tried the hospital grade receptacle approach and heard no improvement. Much like all the other attempts I made.

Until I installed those very same hubble super delux HBL5362BK receptacles that had been cryo'd and cooked.
The difference was immediate and eye opening.
It was the first time I immediately heard an obvious and striking improvement, just by making a change to the duplex receptacles.

It was so striking it started me on this whole avenue of ac power distribution research.

JJ

What and how do we know what IS ‘better’?
or
It’s all in our heads, or is it?
Part 1

This topic is involved and long, so I’m going to break it up into parts, of which this is like the ‘introduction’.

In some of my other audio musings I briefly touched upon this topic which is likely to be of interest to those of us who ‘fuss with the knobs’ even more so than those who are less heavily audio invested/afflicted/infected.
This subject centers around the idea of hearing changes and determining if these changes are truly beneficial,
or not.

As tweakers we, perhaps more so than most, need to be able to figure if our experiments truly produce improvements in our systems, and do so fairly quickly, with ease and with a degree of confidence.
Even my recent experiment of soldering the ac power romex cable leads, instead of relying solely upon using wire nuts to connect the ends of this branch circuit together, resulted in changes.
But are they a ‘keeper’?
Or not?

Changes do happen when we fuss or introduce new equipment into our systems.
And sometimes even very simple changes can fool us into thinking they really are improvements.
So along the way I figured out a few Audiophool-Tools™®© :atsmile: that have proven themselves to be quite useful.

So I wanted to describe and share some of the tools I use to figure out what truly IS better, at least for me anyways.
Of course not every one will see the need/want to use these sonic tools, but even so just being aware of them and having them in your tool kit, so to speak, might prove to be helpful.

We are all familiar with such common terms as SQ (Sound Quality) and FR (Frequency Response) and Soundstage and S/N (Signal to Noise ratio) and THD (Total Harmonic Distortion) etc.
But these days our systems, with all these newly enhanced capabilities, are approaching 120dB dynamic range & resolution, & channel separation.
Along with jitter and all the rest in this new digital “Audio Schtff”’ (thank you Schitt Audio :atsmile: ), we are being presenting with an expanded and enhanced audio terrain to navigate.

Additionally we use terms that help describe 3d spatial aspects (depth and height and spread etc.) to convey the dimensionality of the soundstage we perceive.
And headphones have a much bigger challenge in being able to recreate and deliver these types of sonic aspects.
So as a result of my experiments I came up with a few ‘refinements’ aimed at sonic aspects which can help us drill down into this portion of the acoustic presentation.

I use terms such as 3C’s (Cohesion, Coherence, Coupling), I5 (Intelligibility), T3 (ToeTapp’nTime), HB&W (HeadBobbing & Weaving), S/S (Spooky/Scary), tLFF (the Listener Fatigue Factor), SEB (Spontaneous Emotional Burst), Holo (Holographic), IMPERATIVE (I MUST LISTEN), as additional means of describing different sets of readily identifiable sonic signatures.

These descriptors along with their related ‘tests’ can help make it easier to determine when ‘new’ sonic attributes are actually ‘better’, or not. Many of these ‘tests’ are or should be familiar enough, and really all I’m adding to the mix is some additional refinement, meaning and context which can help increase their usefulness as tools to help figure out if the changes we make are merely impressive or have deeper, more compelling and desirable benefits.


In Part 2 I’ll go into more detail about the first 3 terms, the 3C’s (Cohesion, Coherence, Coupling) along with the consequences of improvements to these sonic aspects.


JJ

Before I post part 2, I wanted to report on my latest experiment.


So is anyone else using the Sonarworks Plug-in?

I've been fussing with the controls for a bit now and after this last set of 'adjustments', this is THE BEST I have ever heard my 800's.
Period.

Their plug-in requires DSP to run so a s/w player is needed (I use Jriver) and the Ref 3 plug-in comes with 25 other headphone "average" compensation curves, along with several other Senns such as the HD650, HD600 and a few others.
Check out the full list on their site if interested.

They can also measure your HP's for a 'custom curve' which is what I'm aiming for.
This custom curve actually measures each channel independent of the other for a true balancing of the output level for the entire 20-20K spectrum.
To within a claimed ±0.9dB.

If that is truly what can happen, that would be an astounding achievement, regardless of it being a speaker or a headphone.
THAT is channel matching.
Channel matching does wonderful things for the entire acoustic presentation in so many ways.

But having even this degree of FR accuracy (±3dB) on 800's is truly wonderful.
And really since my 800's are modded I can't even claim that tight of a FrqResponse match up.

I hope to perform an experiment with a modicum of measurement backing, AND wind up with hopefully Truly Flat response from 20 to 20K.

As it is you really should try this plug-in if you can.
It’s free to try for 21 days.
And I doubt many won’t wind up buying it ($66)

And no I don't work for these guys.
In fact I've been a bit of a pain in their backside, what with all of my questions.
And to cap it all off they accommodated my odd request and as a result, this is THE BEST I've ever heard my 800's.

JJ