Shunyata Research develops DTCD

[RogerD]

A very interesting article.......

"DTCD being an acronym for "dynamic transient current delivery." After touring the company’s aforementioned facilities, I was taken to a room to see the DTCD prototype that’s functional but still being fine-tuned.

I was told it has run "for days without failure" and that the plan, once the device is fully operational, is to take it from the breadboarThat device is the DTCD Analyzer, with DTd stage to a finished product that will be marketed to other manufacturers -- and to reviewers or even consumers, should there be interest.

While skeptics claim you can’t measure power-cord differences, Gabriel says otherwise. He explained that the usual measurement methodology that produces capacitance and inductance figures is to get a really long length of wire on a big spool and measure it using a capacitive/inductive analyzer, dividing the result by the number of feet in the spool.

"We can actually measure in real time, very short pieces of wire and see differences," he told me, adding, "We can measure contacts, we can measure switches, we can measure fuses. Anything that conducts current in power, we can measure and we can see the differences between them. We can actually measure the differences among power cords. That’s why it’s revolutionary."

So what exactly does the DTCD Analyzer measure? As the name implies, it measures, in the context of a pulsed current draw, instantaneous current delivery in amperes and voltage drop across the device during the conduction period and the stored residual noise component rate of dissipation after the conduction period."

http://www.theaudiobeat.com/visits/shunyata_visit_interview.htm

 

[audioguy]

We can already measure the amplitude difference in sound to very small parts of a db. Can we hear that difference?

 

[fas42]

Thanks for pointing that out, Roger. This is exactly what the audio industry is, or should be, desperately screaming out for, measuring what's really happening at the time real components are doing their thing ...

Frank

 

[ack]

I've been reading and analyzing Shunyata's claims for years... I commend them for the effort, but there are always questions I can easily raise. For example:

1. It's obvious they tout high impulse-current delivery in the cords, yet they downplay the reduction of it in the power conditioners because of the alleged gain in noise reduction. The conclusion I continue to draw is that power conditioners are a shot in the dark and one must be very careful
2. What's most important to me are the promised forthcoming measurements that will include the home's in-wall wire - it's one thing to measure impulse-current delivery solely in their cords, but show me that the weakest link, as a system, isn't the wire in the wall and then you may have a viable argument; show me that I can achieve the same impulse-current delivery from the entire system that includes the in-wall wires plus Shunyata power cords vs. other power cords
3. They talk about pulse-based current drawing around the peaks and valleys of the wave, around 190A in microseconds - but the question is, can in fact the power supply (and primarily the transformer) draw as much current in such a short amount of time as well, so that the power cord can make a significant difference? And what type of device would that be? Or does the best PS draw at a much lower rate and over a longer amount of time (other than initial power-up), where the current-impulse delivery of a cord would be less significant?

Basically, their claims and measurements (which are not new, BTW, just longer in this article) are centered around _just_ one component at a time, namely the power cord/connector and power conditioner, and I have not yet seen similar claims or measurements in a much wider, end-to-end environment which would include the in-wall wires and the power supply itself.

 

[j_n]

I do not understand why they need to measure long spools of wire to determine the per foot parameters.

It is easy enough to measure a 6 foot piece to get the capacitance and inductance. Yes, they do need to know how to zero the meter, but that's pretty trivial if one reads the manual.

Even a cable of Z=8 ohms, it's 10 nH per foot give or take, my 4263A can do 250 pH with a little care..

Shunyata's test is great. Their technical presentation is not accurate. They have confused causality with correlation.

Cheers, jn

 

[Ron Party]

Their technical presentation is not accurate. They have confused causality with correlation.

A pervasive problem in this hobby, isn't it.

 

[microstrip]

Does any one have experience with the recently presented Shunyata Ztron signal cables? I liked a lot their old Antares and Orion cables but skipped the next generation as I found it too expensive.

The new lines seem much more reasonably priced. Will they have the aliveness of the old line? I still keep a set of the older ones, as although I could get cables with better bass delineation and more fluid treble I was never able to find one that could be so much involving.

Also, considering the debate we had in another thread about REDBOOK , it is one the few cables that can pass the emotional watermark of the voice of Gerald Moore singing Der Leiermann of Schubert WInterreise in CD format in my system.

 

[fas42]

Also, considering the debate we had in another thread about REDBOOK , it is one the few cables that can pass the emotional watermark of the voice of Gerald Moore singing Der Leiermann of Schubert WInterreise in CD format in my system.

"Emotional watermark", micro? That'll stir up the objectivists ...!!

But I think I know what you mean: the harmonics of the voice otherwise seem a bit "dirtied" up, don't "pressurise" the room like they should, correct?

Frank