Power Conditioners Necessary?

[[email protected]]

There was an article I saw linked on engadget.com the other day. Someone did
a double blind test with monster cables vs. wire coat hangers with
connectors soldered to the ends. The audiophools they had listening couldn't
tell the difference. What a joke.

Coat hangers?!?!?! Man, that's about equivalent to 12 ga. solid wire.
THAT oughta carry ANTHING!

 

[[email protected]]

Sometime changing cheap cables can make a difference; I explain: where I
leave everytime I listen to my hifi equipment I pickup noise from an
Indian radio station (this is worst if I try to listen to LP). All this
stop when I change these cheap cable for 1 monster cable (that I got on
sale at 20$) and 1 "high-end" cable that I got from RadioShack on sale
at 10$. Also for the conditioner I compare a Monster HTS-1000 (retail
280$ in Canada) with a PURE AV ISO 4720J (50$ on sales at the Source)
and the PURE AV ISO 4720J was way better than the monster. True I could
not hear audio difference except when listening to LP where the sound
became more define with a bit more depth (when I say a bit more it is
really a bit more is subtle but really there is a difference. By the way
I tried a cheap power bar, the monster way to expensive and the pure
A/V. While I could not find any difference between the el-cheapo
powerbar and the monster there was a difference with the Pure A/V. So
yes there is no real advantage to go with a high price Conditioner there
is one with the Pure A/V (Beside the 12" power cord and the 10 power
outlet)

Jocelyn
Proud Son of Leo Major DCM & Nar
To know why I am so Proud go there: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Major

If you're picking up a radio station via your "phono" connection (or any
other connection NOT connected to a tuner), that typically indicates
corrosion at the connector. Of course, changing the cable/wire would
eliminate one possible source of the corrosion (the other being the
connector itself). Thus by reducing or eliminating corrosion at the
connection, you remove the ability to pick up the RF signal. Kind of
like an accidental "crystal set". (Anybody around here old enough to
remember those?)

 

[[email protected]]

I have my JBL speakers sitting on small cardboard boxes. They do a
good job isolating the speaker from the floor. Foam is probably
better, but not much.


Huh? Is that like microphonics in the FM tuner? Easy to see if it's
a problem. Just bang on the tuner with the volume turned up. Hear
anything from the speaker? If not, don't worry about microphonics.


If you watch the NASA channel, you sometimes get bits of the music
they play in Skylab. Due to weight considerations, it's probably
something like a single, mono, 4" loudspeaker hung off of one of the
computahs.


My cardboard boxes were free.


When I was going to kollege in the 1960's, I worked for Federated
selling hi-fi on commission. It didn't take long to notice that the
commission on speakers and accessories was much higher than the
commission on stereos and tuners. So, I sold speakers. I would
connect a really cheapo 6 transistor AM/FM portable radio to the best
speakers on the floor. The customers would walk in and eventually ask
which tuner was playing, I would pull out the cheapo radio by the
leads from behind the speaker and explain that it's the speaker that
makes the sounds, not the electronics. I sold quite a few expensive
speakers and cheap tuners that way. Don't waste your money on foam
rubber band-aids. Get a decent speaker system.

Agree there, Jeff. I tell everyone who comes to me for advice on sound
systems to buy the best speakers they can afford, and that almost any
electronics will do a decent job.

 

[Jocelyn Major]

Michael A. Terrell a écrit :

There is a difference between cheap, and defective.

Yes I do know that but to have all defective cable? I did have a box
full of rca cable and they all pick-up that indian radio station.
Probably the monster and the "High End" ratshack cable have better
shielding because as soon as I change to these cable the radio was
finally gone. Also it was not cause by my amp because it make that noise
on both my Technics and my Denon amps. What I find out was that
el-cheapo cable have 1 conductor and 1 shield while the monster and the
RatShack cable both have 2 conductor and 1 shield.

Jocelyn

 

[William Sommerwerck]

I'm talking about salespeople who could talk an entire morning
about how a pair of speakers sounded, never using terminology
that approached anything that could be measured by a technician.

Would _you_ select a loudspeaker solely on the basis of its measurements?

These folks could supposedly discern the difference in sound
quality of a *tonearm* (not the cartridge, not the turntable, not
the connecting cables, but just the tonearm, for heaven's sake).

You could, too. It's not difficult. The arm is mechanical system, and
number, strength, and damping of its resonances affect the way it colors the
sound. If you don't believe this, mount the same pickup in a modest arm
(such as a Dual) and in a really good arm. You should easily hear the
difference on pops and clicks.

With no special equalization in play and at moderate volume, the
difference between the ordinary speaker cord and the Monster
cables was marked, even to my untrained, non-audiophile ears.
I was shocked... I even returned to relisten periodically just to make
sure I wasn't hearing things myself. I even took the display switch
apart to make sure they weren't cheating.

Let me stand on the other side of the issue. Did you try listening blind?
For example, have another employee pick regular or Monster cable without
your knowing, then listen to a few recordings to decide which was in use. If
the Monster cable had a distinctively different "sound", you should be able
to recognize its sound, even without direct comparison.

I've yet to be convinced about speaker cables. I saw one case where a weird
speaker cable (Polk Cobra) interacted pathologically with an oddly designed
amp (Berning), producing gross overshoot and ringing, which was both plainly
audible and visible on a 'scope. But that's a different situation.

 

[Arfa Daily]

If you're picking up a radio station via your "phono" connection (or any
other connection NOT connected to a tuner), that typically indicates
corrosion at the connector. Of course, changing the cable/wire would
eliminate one possible source of the corrosion (the other being the
connector itself). Thus by reducing or eliminating corrosion at the
connection, you remove the ability to pick up the RF signal. Kind of like
an accidental "crystal set". (Anybody around here old enough to remember
those?)

In general, I'd agree with you, but it ain't quite always the case. Many
years ago, when I was a young apprentice in the TV repair business, we used
to have endless problems with a very high powered AM BBC transmitter at a
place called Daventry. As I recall, it was 200kW during the daylight hours,
and 470kW at night. We had instances of radio pickup on new systems. This
could often be cured by making up new interconnects using better twin
screened cable. My college lecturer told me that what was happening was that
a very strong RF signal was being picked up on the interconnects, and with
the high bandwidth of 'modern' transistorised amplifiers, was causing
saturation of the input preamps, driving them into non linearity, and
causing them to behave as a detector, similar to the old 'anode bend
detector' used in some old valve (tube) radio sets. The demodulated signal
thus appearing at the collectors of the preamp transistors, then went on to
be amplified as a normal audio signal.

As others have stated, the 'esoteric' advantages claimed for these cables,
just would not stand up to double blind testing, but that's not to say that
cables never have an effect on anything. Here in the UK, we use an
interconnect system between video equipment, called scart. If you use a
'pound shop' cable in some situations, you can get video edge ringing, and
even ghost images floating about from other equipment that's in the chain,
and set to a different channel. This is totally cured (usually!) by fitting
a good quality and much more expensive cable. It may look the same from the
outside as the cheapo, but internally, the cores are individually screened
before the overall screen. The cable chosen to be carrying the video signals
is also low capacitance.

A friend of my son's used to work in one of the electrical barns during his
college holidays, and he was taught to push the Monster cables purely
because of the profit margins for the store, and the commission rates for
himself ,,,

Arfa

 

[Mr. Land]

Would _you_ select a loudspeaker solely on the basis of its measurements?

Of course not. What I meant to convey was a basic difference in
approach
that seemed to exist between the salesmen and the technicians. I
could have
given a better example - perhaps that of a saleman bringing us a
receiver of one
of his more affluent customers and telling us to fix it because its
"imaging" is
off. Right. Let me get my "imaging" meter...

You could, too. It's not difficult. The arm is mechanical system, and
number, strength, and damping of its resonances affect the way it colors the
sound. If you don't believe this, mount the same pickup in a modest arm
(such as a Dual) and in a really good arm. You should easily hear the
difference on pops and clicks.

Pops and clicks aside, and speaking only of the tonal quality of the
music, I
don't doubt for a second that the mechanical characteristics of a
tonearm
would have some non-zero effect on how the overall mass (arm,
cartridge) reacts
to movements of the stylus - but I can't imagine these differences
from one
arm to the next being more than very subtle. I know that I myself
could never
audibly discern the characteristics all the salemen discussed - nor
could any
of my colleagues.

Let me stand on the other side of the issue. Did you try listening blind?
For example, have another employee pick regular or Monster cable without
your knowing, then listen to a few recordings to decide which was in use. If
the Monster cable had a distinctively different "sound", you should be able
to recognize its sound, even without direct comparison.

We sure did! We tried different audio sources, different volumes, and
different
test subjects (all skeptics like myself.) All blind tests. As I
said, the
difference was quite discernable, to everyone.

As I said, I was shocked. If I hadn't heard it (repeatly) with my own
ears, you
could never have convinced me that the speaker wire could make any
difference.

As to the article comparing Monster cable with a coat hanger - I can't
recall
ever using coat hangers as speaker wires, nor placing my speakers a
coat
hanger's distance away from the receiver. But if I ever do, I won't
waste
my money on Monster cable.

 

[mm]

When I was going to kollege in the 1960's, I worked for Federated
selling hi-fi on commission. It didn't take long to notice that the
commission on speakers and accessories was much higher than the
commission on stereos and tuners. So, I sold speakers. I would
connect a really cheapo 6 transistor AM/FM portable radio to the best
speakers on the floor. The customers would walk in and eventually ask
which tuner was playing, I would pull out the cheapo radio by the
leads from behind the speaker and explain that it's the speaker that
makes the sounds, not the electronics.

Absolutely. I noticed that myself in college, also in the 60's. It's
pretty amazing, and it's why for example, I usually have my cheap
little tv's with a better speaker plugged in.

When I had NO money, no space, and couldn't afford even cheap hi-fi
equipement, I also used to use the 3 inch carboard tube speaker, about
12 inches long, gold color with plastic grills at the ends, if you
remember them. I should still have that somewhere.

I sold quite a few expensive
speakers and cheap tuners that way. Don't waste your money on foam
rubber band-aids. Get a decent speaker system.

If you are inclined to email me
for some reason, remove NOPSAM

 

[Jocelyn Major]

[email protected] a écrit :

If you're picking up a radio station via your "phono" connection (or any
other connection NOT connected to a tuner), that typically indicates
corrosion at the connector. Of course, changing the cable/wire would
eliminate one possible source of the corrosion (the other being the
connector itself). Thus by reducing or eliminating corrosion at the
connection, you remove the ability to pick up the RF signal. Kind of
like an accidental "crystal set". (Anybody around here old enough to
remember those?)

Yes I know (and I remenber the Crystal set ;-) ) but since my technics
was in mint condition and the Denon was also in mint condition neither
have corroded connector. It was simply the cheap rca cable that where
giving the trouble.

 

[James Sweet]

Yes I do know that but to have all defective cable? I did have a box full
of rca cable and they all pick-up that indian radio station. Probably the
monster and the "High End" ratshack cable have better shielding because as
soon as I change to these cable the radio was finally gone. Also it was
not cause by my amp because it make that noise on both my Technics and my
Denon amps. What I find out was that el-cheapo cable have 1 conductor and
1 shield while the monster and the RatShack cable both have 2 conductor
and 1 shield.

Jocelyn

There's also a difference between good quality and snake oil. A well made
$10 cable may work better than a $1 cable, but it's unlikely that a $500
cable will work any better than a $10 cable.

 

[Michael A. Terrell]

Michael A. Terrell a écrit :
Yes I do know that but to have all defective cable? I did have a box
full of rca cable and they all pick-up that indian radio station.

SO? All that means is they didn't work for your application. I have
seen entire shipments of bad cables.


I have tossed a lot of expensive phono (RCA) cables into the scrap
barrel because they were crap. The type of shielding is important, and
for anything critical I used metal cased Switchcraft connectors, with
foil shielded Belden audio cable. I worked as a broadcast engineer
where the transmitter was ten feet from the turntables, and the main
tower less than 100 feet away. None of those pretty, and overpriced
cables worked worth a damn, because the braided shield was less than
100%.


More likely, the connectors were clean, and made a better ground
connection.

Probably the monster and the "High End" ratshack cable have better
shielding because as soon as I change to these cable the radio was
finally gone.


Also it was not cause by my amp because it make that noise
on both my Technics and my Denon amps. What I find out was that
el-cheapo cable have 1 conductor and 1 shield while the monster and the
RatShack cable both have 2 conductor and 1 shield.

So? All that would do is cut the resistance of the center conductor
in half. Wait a while for the shield to oxidizes inside the jacket, and
the problem will be back.


--
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Add this line to your news proxy nfilter.dat file
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http://improve-usenet.org/index.html

 

[Mr. Land]

Of course not.  What I meant to convey was a basic difference in
approach
that seemed to exist between the salesmen and the technicians.  I
could have
given a better example - perhaps that of a saleman bringing us a
receiver of one
of his more affluent customers and telling us to fix it because its
"imaging" is
off.  Right.  Let me get my "imaging" meter...



Pops and clicks aside, and speaking only of the tonal quality of the
music, I
don't doubt for a second that the mechanical characteristics of a
tonearm
would have some non-zero effect on how the overall mass (arm,
cartridge) reacts
to movements of the stylus - but I can't imagine these differences
from one
arm to the next being more than very subtle.  I know that I myself
could never
audibly discern the characteristics all the salemen discussed - nor
could any
of my colleagues.



We sure did!  We tried different audio sources, different volumes, and
different
test subjects (all skeptics like myself.)  All blind tests.  As I
said, the
difference was quite discernable, to everyone.

As I said, I was shocked.  If I hadn't heard it (repeatly) with my own
ears, you
could never have convinced me that the speaker wire could make any
difference.

As to the article comparing Monster cable with a coat hanger - I can't
recall
ever using coat hangers as speaker wires, nor placing my speakers a
coat
hanger's distance away from the receiver.  But if I ever do, I won't
waste
my money on Monster cable.

Yikes, and I thought the Monster speaker cables were pricey:

http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volume_9_3/nordost-valhalla-cables-7-2002.html