Audiophile power cords vs. the cables in your walls
- Thread starter Al M.
- Start date
Removing connection points is always a benefit. Solder has pro and con. Blue Jean with Iconoclast cables uses a pressure and friction device to weld pieces. No solder. I believe that is amazing and superior. A friend is in charge of crews doing as such at Blue Origin with rockets.
It sucks to have a fuse, but they are a safety necessity. I think swiss digital is onto something.
A large isolation transformer is how I feed my system. Multiple branches from it to the room.
I would love to use a fuse panel. I tried it at Freners. Amazing. But not NEC compliant.
The one feeding the RM20 is a Beta cord I asked to be made to replace the stock cord. I am a Torus dealer. The power cord feeding a Torus is something I believe can be improved. The Found Music cord is 12 awg via multi conductor as well as pure copper connectors with gold plating and cryo treated. Its much better than stock.
It sucks to have a fuse, but they are a safety necessity. I think swiss digital is onto something.
A large isolation transformer is how I feed my system. Multiple branches from it to the room.
I would love to use a fuse panel. I tried it at Freners. Amazing. But not NEC compliant.
No Found Music cords came later. Their about $500 to $2000 each. Depends on what model you get.
The one feeding the RM20 is a Beta cord I asked to be made to replace the stock cord. I am a Torus dealer. The power cord feeding a Torus is something I believe can be improved. The Found Music cord is 12 awg via multi conductor as well as pure copper connectors with gold plating and cryo treated. Its much better than stock.
After reading some of the theories on power cables in this and other threads, I’ve been wondering why:
- for the IEC connector audiophile power cable makers don’t implement something like the IEC lock (https://ieclock.com/ ) that is used in the IT world. Common sense suggests such a lock guarantees a far more solid contact between the IEC inlet and the power cable.
- we see so little experimenting from audiophile power cable makers with alternatives for US, UK and Shuko plugs, such as IEC or Neutrik powercon used in studios and PA systems. Alternative power connectors of course are less versatile and might require a change of wall sockets and power distributors, but if the advantages are large enough, this seems a small price to pay.
Any insights from members with more knowledge on this are appreciated.
I like M101's cables very much - specifically, their Ethernet and power cables. Lubomir Dostal, the PhD inventor and proprietor of the company is not afraid to A/B his cables at audio shows, and I've been sufficiently impressed to include five of his cables in my system.
I looked up his patent on power cable design, and the abstract reads as follows:
The resistance of the electric cable of the present disclosure is surprisingly decreased despite a reduction in the cross-sectional area of the conductor when at least one metal slug is positioned at an end of the cable. Conductor wires, which may or may not be individually insulated, may extend around a metal slug or through an aperture of the slug. In combination with at least one metal slug, the cross-sectional area of individual wires or the amount of wires within a stranded wire cable may be substantially reduced without seeing an expected proportionate increase in electrical resistance, and surprisingly, a decrease in resistance may be observed.
Now specific design applications obviously go far beyond "positioning" a "metal slug" at "an end of the cable." But the two points that I find fascinating are his repeated use of the word "surprisingly," which indicates to me that a scientific explanation eludes him (and he's a scientist); and secondly, that there is an actual decrease in resistance observed as a result. In other words, an outcome occurred which was not predicted by presently accepted thinking.
One of mankind's greatest follies throughout our history is thinking that our present state of knowledge is the endpoint. It was not much more than 100 years ago that the Michelson–Morley experiment was finally ending the almost universal belief in the scientific community that the "aether" pervaded the universe and accounted for wave transmissions. I will use theory and past observations to guide my actions, but I am absolutely comfortable accepting that there are also phenomena that can be experienced but not presently explained, and I won't shut those out just because I don't understand them.
I looked up his patent on power cable design, and the abstract reads as follows:
The resistance of the electric cable of the present disclosure is surprisingly decreased despite a reduction in the cross-sectional area of the conductor when at least one metal slug is positioned at an end of the cable. Conductor wires, which may or may not be individually insulated, may extend around a metal slug or through an aperture of the slug. In combination with at least one metal slug, the cross-sectional area of individual wires or the amount of wires within a stranded wire cable may be substantially reduced without seeing an expected proportionate increase in electrical resistance, and surprisingly, a decrease in resistance may be observed.
Now specific design applications obviously go far beyond "positioning" a "metal slug" at "an end of the cable." But the two points that I find fascinating are his repeated use of the word "surprisingly," which indicates to me that a scientific explanation eludes him (and he's a scientist); and secondly, that there is an actual decrease in resistance observed as a result. In other words, an outcome occurred which was not predicted by presently accepted thinking.
One of mankind's greatest follies throughout our history is thinking that our present state of knowledge is the endpoint. It was not much more than 100 years ago that the Michelson–Morley experiment was finally ending the almost universal belief in the scientific community that the "aether" pervaded the universe and accounted for wave transmissions. I will use theory and past observations to guide my actions, but I am absolutely comfortable accepting that there are also phenomena that can be experienced but not presently explained, and I won't shut those out just because I don't understand them.
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In addition to connectors and dissimilar metals, there's also gauge and length to consider, which of course impacts LCR. I compared a 3-foot 10AWG Icononclast AC cable with a 5-foot 14AWG Iconoclast cable. The 14Ga cable had TechFlex sleeving, not sure if that impacts sound quality. Anyway, midrange sounded identical, but the short 10ga cable had slightly more present bass and treble.
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The M101 looks like my Inakustik. I assume low inductance, more capacitance.
I have been told to try winding a cable that is grounded on one end or the other but not both, or just floating in the mix to see what it sounds like. I have not noticed much doing as such.
I have been told to try winding a cable that is grounded on one end or the other but not both, or just floating in the mix to see what it sounds like. I have not noticed much doing as such.
You forgot the more relevant part - you run a studio with proper balanced equipment that is intrinsically ground loops free!
In high-end audio each case is a particular case. General advice can be misleading.
I rarely if ever have a ground loop problem when you run in the walls and terminate the branches properly in the panels. I like to keep them all the same gauge. Although some with high power SS amps are saying they like a #6 gauge wire to amplifiers. I have not listened enough to know the sonic impact. A pair of #6 twisted about 1 twist per 2 inch with a loose #10 solid ground in a ENT tube might sound good on amps. The issues becomes the difference in impedance. Do you possibly end up with a ground loop.
When I have batteries and inverters running, its going to be interesting. You will have the utility, so to speak, right behind your gear. Your plugging directly into it. There is a module that syncs the sine wave of all the inverters. So they are all perfectly in phase. There should be no ground loop issues with such a system too. Maybe. The ground may need to come to a common bus bar on the wall, then to the earth at the utility input.
If everything were to be on the inverters, as in everything. All your digital etc, or the internet has true galvanic isolation such as a optical interface, then you could drop a rod in the yard to earth the system. Otherwise, go to the house earth.
No matter you run it, you will always have a loop when you run separate runs according some domestic codes - we can't use separate ground bars in houses. At best we could optimize wire layout for lower magnetic field induction - but even in such situation electrical codes can be a problem.
I have less issues with multiple runs than all the gear on 1 wire and the massive amount of component to component noise generated and shared on the single branch.
Europe has no code issues that are problematic to proper power to a stereo with multiple branch wires. You actually have better panels in some regard as the comb bus on CB is copper, as well as the ground and neutral bars. We have to fight aluminum in the US.
Europe has no code issues that are problematic to proper power to a stereo with multiple branch wires. You actually have better panels in some regard as the comb bus on CB is copper, as well as the ground and neutral bars. We have to fight aluminum in the US.
As I said it depends on components and strategies used to address mains noise and noise generated by equipment.
We are obliged to have an independent ground wire for each run, star grounded at the entrance board - such practice creates very large multiple ground loops, as grounding of equipment is mandatory by EC rules.
Besides we are not allowed to have separate ground points - we must use the unique building ground point.
The two strong points are that neutral is connected to earth at the electrical distribution station - mains is truly balanced - and we have 230V , so half the current and half copper losses for the same gauge wire,
BTW, I check ground loops with an audio spectrometer connected to the amplifier output - much more sensitive than ear.
That is absolutely the way you want to ground. Perfect. You should have no issues.
In fact I had them several times. We should not forget that a lot of good sounding high-end gear is improperly grounded. Cable manufacturers know about it ...
This will not guarantee immunity to a ground loop. You've simply been lucky. Ground loops are often caused by sloppy grounding technique inside the audio equipment.
In the old days when there was no safety ground on the outlets this was less of a problem. Emphasis on 'less'. There still seem to be a good number of manufacturers that don't get how to ground their equipment so its safe to use and yet won't produce a ground loop.
Using inverters and batteries will change none of that.
Grounding may not be standardized but there are regulations for how much noise and leakage current a component can generate and there are specific circuits/components meant to limit this.
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On ground loops due to multiple lines there are a couple ways to mitigate. My preference is to install a subpanel as close to the system as possible and make all runs from subpanel to receptacles the same length and gauge. Second is run multiple lines physically together for as much of the run as possible, same length and gauge.
The NEC is straitforward on derating current carrying capacity as you run wires together. 4 to 6 is 80%. I don't like that crosstalk, so I space them out.
I don't worry about length. Imagine what an antenna for emf a coil of wire becomes. I go for short and straight. I would try to avoid a drop to an amp of 5 feet and a drop to the other amp of 30 feet. But I would not worry about 15 eet to one and 25 to the other.
I don't worry about length. Imagine what an antenna for emf a coil of wire becomes. I go for short and straight. I would try to avoid a drop to an amp of 5 feet and a drop to the other amp of 30 feet. But I would not worry about 15 eet to one and 25 to the other.
Unfortunately just like everything else in audio just because theory/ measurements tells you otherwise it doesn’t necessarily make it sound better to each person and in every scenario.
In fact it may sound better one day/hour then the next.
This of course without consideration to regulations.
Absolutely. That Audion SET845 was a noisy mess due to improper grounding. Even lifting the ground with a HumX did not clear it all. It took years of work to fix the circuit. Wasted money as it's quiet, but doesn't sound so great.
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