I've seen plenty of burned out cables but never a burned in one!!
BTW I thought everyone knew that fuses have to be fitted with the writing up the right way. I'm slightly confused though as a bought a fuse today with the writing going length ways instead of around. Which way should i fit it and why dont they mark which end is which?
F***k**g confusing I know, but if fuses have to be the right way round then I'm sure they would have arrows on them like all 'snake oil' cable, but they don't, and like cables , does it matter, and am I boffered, and do I give a toss.
Have spent the last couple of hours listening to a sound system that I can only describe as 'stunning', what more can one expect from a CD player, not expensive, no 'snake oil' but a good input of solid engineering principles, class 'T' amp and Magnat Vintage 650 speakers.
Results, better than I have ever heard at any 'show', better than I ever expected, better than I have ever heard in my life, and I'm getting on a bit.
So forget all this cable nonsence, concentrate on the 'technology' that is where the results are, whatever a salesman may say.
Richard Black is a hi-fi writer who has contributed articles to AVReview, although none for a while. I don't believe he's ever posted on the forum, but you can find one of his features here:
I think you're missing the point. It isn't true that the mains supply holds at 230volt 50 hertz 24 hours a day, every week every year. Not only does demand & capacity run very close to each other (the supply is automatically monitored to match demand but also each household/user interacts with one another & all together). If you take electricity from the mains you put equal pulses of demand on the supply. This was Newton's Action & Reaction Law & applies equally to an electrical system as a mechanical one. So as demand inceases the mains voltage & frequency falls
Your house is supplied from a transformer at the substation along with perhaps another 100 in single phase (1 live & 1 neutral) at 230 volts The substation is supplied with three phase 11,000 volts & distributes the load to consumers by balancing demand across all three phases. As more power is used a phase can become overloaded (as in all the kettles in the country being switched on after Corrie finishes) then that phase gets overloaded the voltage & frequency sag below the permitted limit - between 216 volts & 253 volts with frequency maintained between 49-51 Hz here in the UK
I used to live in a house where the voltage around Sunday lunch would drop to around 219 volts. So what I hear you saying..well at 219volts my power amp was delivering only 50% of its rated output with a very large increase in distortion as the amps feedback & protection circuits tried to cope with the problem. Don't let's forget that we are considering a highly complex sytem (the hi-fi) carrying a very complex & dynamic signal(music)
Hope this helps, if you like I can explain how mains distortion, RFI, EMF, poor mains cabling & co-ax & other signal cables cause absolute havoc on the hi-fi system, but I see your eyes glazing over so another time maybe?
Dear Kenneth, no my eyes don't glaze over at your quasi scientific reply, maybe over your nievety and non comprehension of the power supply system in this country, in reply to the statement:
Hope this helps, if you like I can explain how mains distortion, RFI, EMF, poor mains cabling & co-ax & other signal cables cause absolute havoc on the hi-fi system, but I see your eyes glazing over so another time maybe?
No you would find it difficult the explain the subjects you mention, as for the most part they do not exist.
1] Mains distortion, the mains supply is approx 680 Volts peak to peak, in any PSU this gets redueced to some 12V for a CD player, maybe 48V to a power amp etc. just as the remaining 100Hz component gets reduced to inaudibility so do all the harmonics.
2] EMF, I think you are referring to EMI here, again completely removed by decent PSU design.
3] Poor mains cabling, sorry 'what is that' a cable so bad that it doesn't get 240V to the equipment?
4] co-ax & other signal cables cause absolute havoc on the hi-fi system.
No they don't, all cables have zero distortion, most have NO effect on the response.
So what are you saying here, I don't have a clue, so you know things that I don't, that your listening experiences are more valid than the best academics in the field, or the top professionals in the field, maybe your right but please offer some valid reasons.
And here's me with an Honours degree in Electrical Engineering, twenty years as chief engineer in large power stations here & abroad, and I'm still quasi scientific. It's back to school for me & resignation on Monday!
Thought I had offered some valid explanations. I'm sorry if I came across as a know it all. I'm not, never claimed to be, at least not recently. My first love in all of this is music & not equipment, nor scientific tests. It's just that if someone states as fact that the domestic power supply is infinitely stiff then I feel free to come back to explain that it isn't.
PS
EMF or more properly in an amplifier stage back EMF (electro magnetic force)
PPS
As I said you can't look at a system by isolating only the cable... oops there I go again
Come again EMF = Electro Motive Force, no particular connection with amplifiers, more of a voltage thing.
I'm sure I could discuss the intracasies of electronics with you for many hours, and that in itself wound be rewarding and stimulating, but I think we both see these issues from 'the samme side' therefore no real outcome would be possible.
Whilst I don't have your 'degree' status, I do believe that I understand the subject as well or better than any qualification could grant me. I have spent my life designing systems, circuits and gizmo's for AV problems
The reason i'm reluctant to try your test is that i really dont have the time to try something which has no scientific basis. Which fuses are you suggesting i try anyway?? Just the one in the plug?? What about the internal mains fuses?? How far back up the supply chain do you suggest i go?? What about the breakers in my consumer unit??
I see no possible way it can make any difference. A fuse is, after all, just a bit of wire in a ceramic or glass tube. It has no directional properties, the most any two terminal in-line component could do in terms of directionality is to behave like a diode. Even if a fuse were to behave in this way (which is pretty much impossible), it would cause major problems whichever way it was fitted as your equipment would basically be fed with interrupted DC, it would probably blow said fuse as the mains transformer would saturate!!
I understand your comments about the power distribution system and the reasons behind supply voltage/frequency fluctuations. My father was a reaseach officer for the CEGB (the organisation which generated our electricty before privatisation) and was responsible for my interest and career in electronics. The point i was trying to make is that if the supply voltage is that unstable anyway, why bother about a few hundred millivolts of drop in a power cable? The fluctuations in supply voltage are many orders of magnitude greater than anything that a correctly rated mains lead will introduce. As john points out, any source equipment will regulate its internal DC supplies anyway, so as long as the supply doesn't drop below the point at which the regulators run out of headroom, the audio chain will see no change in supply voltage. I agree that many amplifiers will be unable to produce full power at reduced supply voltages as the output stages are often unregulated and the DC supplies will drop in sympathy with the mains. That said, it will still have no effect unless the amp is turned up loud enough for it to clip, its just that clipping will occur at a lower level, the drop in a suitably rated mains lead will make no difference one way or the other. If the mains supply so unstable that it causes problems, you would be better off spending your money on a decent UPS which would stabilise it rather than waste it on filters and leads which make no difference to the supply voltage.
the fact that you have an honours degree in electronics means nothing to me, if I were to go to collage I to could get a degree no problem.
What I have is a passion for the subject, an inherent love of the subject, having built a stereo amp, two channel push pull at the age of fourteen, one gets a 'feel' for the subject.
No academic qualification gives you that, having worked as a 'lab technician' at Chelsea college for some years building equipment for our PHD students I came to understand the underlying principles of getting a degree, and they were not necessarily a deep understanding of the subject, if you can memorise some detail then you would probably get one.
But understanding the subject, having an intimate love of the subject, having a 'feel' for the subject, now that does not come from textbooks, or from qualifications, but that is where I come from.
I remember a long discourse into the phase of a transformer, at the time the lecturer at Barnet college did not make sense to me, but after many discussions with a high flyer, a Doctor of electronics at Chelsea collage I did eventually persuade him that the 'text book' explanation was in fact wrong, a few years later the texts were rewritten and changed. This occurred at the age of nineteen, I don't think that I have lost the plot completely now so get the drift, I do know the subject, I do understand the problems.
Having worked from home for the past twenty years, getting up when I like, going to bed when I like, doing the jobs that I like, and earning more than I ever thought possible, whether that be from video distribution, audio distribution or control systems, I do my best to 'get there in the end', view the web site fisheproducts.co.uk this is no sales thing but a resume of my life
That to me is a better reward than all the qualifications possible.
I agree, education isn't everything, ok I have an HND in electronic engineering and an OND in general engineering, but i've had to 'puppy walk' many university students throughout my career, many of whom barely seem to know which end of a soldering iron gets hot!! I've also had 'discussions' with college lecturers, one of whom tried to tell me it was impossible to frequency modulate a crystal oscillator... He was dumbfounded the following week when i turned up with the service manuals for a transciever which did just that and had to leave rather quickly for a 'meeting' before he had to admit he was wrong.
I also agree with what you say about having a feel and a passion for the subject. I was introduced to electronics at an early age by my dad, some of it i found interesting, some i didn't, it wasn't till the operation of a transistor 'clicked' that i really developed a proper interest in the subject. Many engineers i have/do work with dont seem to have this connection and will spend forever tracing a fault in a completely irrelavent part of the circuitry, or have a very narrow field of expertise. As an example, one engineer i work with is fine with basic radio circuitry but anything outside the box and he's lost. To me it seems strange, i can make sense of most any circuit diagram at a glance and my proffesional career as an 'electronics engineer with extra's' extends from sitting at a desk writing microprocessor code to rf/audio/power supply/control circuitry design to replacing a diesel engine on a standby generator at a communications site in the middle east!!!
How many of the silver mains/speaker/interconnect lead merchants can boast a similar range of experience?? Not many i suspect so forgive me if i seem sceptical but in my experience it's a load of old bunk!!!
You've experienced the SHARP END LIKE I have, having a director inform me that waiting for my bit to work was costing £1000 a minute did not do allot for a relaxed situation.
What do you think of the 'SOUND ENHANSMENT DRUG' is that a winner or what
I think your right bunk no other words describe it.
I could think of a few words to describe it but i was being polite!
Yea i like ya scheme, much simpler than worring about how many millivolts you're losing in the mains lead or whether the speaker cables are installed the right way round, if it works well enough you wont even have to switch your gear on, thus saving on electricity costs and noise complaints from the neighbours, if fact you may not need any gear at all. Its a winner in my opinion.
I've read & re-read my inputs to this thread & at no time did I ask how badly you did at school! Why would I be bothered!!!!!????
It was John I think who accused me of making quasi scientific statements! My career experience & to a much lesser degree my education explains why I disagreed
Anyway I'm off overseas for a couple of weeks now, so au revoir
PS John, I followed the link to you product site, but there's nothing there.......
PPS Pete, it's all here in the thread mate, if you can't make the time it's alright with me
What, nothing there, maybe my mistake - url WWW.FISHERPRODUCTS.CO.UK try cut & past, at the bottom of 'home' a link to 'news' and my system!!!
John...
PS I did so badly that I was asked to leave my seconday modern at the age of 15, as the head thought I would be better off in a real job, and out of his way.
"nor does it matter if they're made of gold, silver, copper or baking foil! As long as they are capable of carrying the current without significant voltage drop and niether the inductance nor capacitance is excessive"
that statement says to me you admit cables can sound different
