FFRC redux

Konnichiwa,

Yes and no. I come mostly (in my younger years) from the Pro-Audio side of the fence, having designed at some point in time mixing desk modules for the east german radio/tv as well as other pro-audio gear plus work as recording and live sound engineer.

The system is just one I picked up when my Girlfriend moved in for a while (she's currently being refused a British Visa), to put in the bedroom. The Micro System looked good, no frivolous features, plain Radio, CD, Volume and a 2 position EQ, but the rest a cut or two above the really cheap stuff, pretty heavy too for 2W RMS rated power output. It was in a 2nd hand shop and I disliked the speakers that came with it immediatly (nasty little critters). Looking on the "junk" shelf I noticed a pair of old JVC speakers, single cone, no whizer 6.5" Driver. I had them connect the stuff up - fine.

As said, I did apply mods, but very basic ones. The straightforward signalpath and simple Amp together with reasonable speakers simply have natural tones for instruments, a better soundstage than wallhanging should manage. There is a lot of the "47 Labs" and "Final Labs" sound about this system. Funnily, it makes most High End systems sound congested, opaque and edgy.... All that for 40 damp squid at the shop, 15 Squid for Caps and a silly amount for the amount taken from the industrial size 0.25l bottle of C37 lacquer....

Of course, once I go and turn the downstairs system on, with 15" Tannoy alnico magnet coaxials in corner enclosures, valve amp's (at the moment Shanling SP-80, EL34 PP), digital room correction (at the moment Behringer DEQ2496), MF Audio transformer based passive preamp, Shanling CD and SACD Players as digital sources and killer LP frontend I suddenly am aware what the Bedroom system is missing (dynamic range and bandwidth especially). Yet the bedroom system makes listening to radio in the morning for wakeup WAY too nice to make getting up easy. Maybe I need to switch to the Capital punishment?

If most gear and cables where truely NEUTRAL (such as is the case with better and high end studio gear not deliberatly aimed at altering the sound), then synnergy would be less of an issue. Hence my believe that shortcomings of a given piece of equipment should addressed, rather than hidden behind the shortcomings of others.

I never just employ one methode whereever possible. The "bypass" test comes from pro audio. The "preference" test I use comes from there too, but is common also with the Audiophile side of the fence.

Sayonara

 

You may not be able to convince me over the speaker cable in series test. But as previously stated I'm in genral agreement with many of your comments.

Now if you could switch between the two cables, having only one of them in the curcuit at a time!

 

Konnichiwa,

I can do so (and do so) readily.

My current reference is the very latest UBYTE (still the same moinker), which combines air dielectric uncoated silver wires (whose diameter relates to the copper conductor also empoyed according to an occult ratio) with soft plastic coated copper (fully symmetrical cable as well), full length battery biased (36V) 100% coverage screening with low impedance to the (low inductance) "drain" wire which is intended to ground the chassis / other metal parts which makes the cable impervious to most forms of airborne and inherent noise (RFI/EMI/MDI). I also (of course) incorporated networks to make the whole cable a straight transmission line. As said - "Usually Beats Your Terrible Engineering".

(Maybe for the series production cable [which will come eventually - but currently I prefer to concentrate onto real products] I'll follow Max's lead [we know each other quite well] and get the whole wires cryo/heat cycled first).

Compared to the latest UBYTE the "old" UBYTE (as described at TNT-A) is gaslight (to quote Karajan). I have a matching interconnect too.

In that system the FFRC (or shall I say "MY" FFRC - as in the exact specified construction) remains "neutral" apart from a shrunken soundscape, less fine detail and generally a slight grey haze all across the sound. So, it is subtractive, notably so, but it does not (the least) screetch.

Now, if the speakers I have coocking are at least 30% as transparent than my cables I shall be happy.... All of this gear will EVENTUALLY appear commercially, when I feel it's good enough to be "ready".

Sayonara

 

Looks like you've taken the U-byte further than anyone ?

I was looking at biasing the screen of cables but it seemed overly complicated. I'd be very intrested to see a simplified version/implimentation.

The IC's your using are in effect cross linked coax too ? I tried a version but was not impressed, so I probably used the wrong type of coax. All I had available at the time was a solid core SPCCS with SP copper braid all PTFE insulated.

I think you need to rename the FFRC as it seem's to bare only slight resemblence to the original !

 

Konnichiwa,

Tried to answer twice and the system seems to have swallowed my posts, I give up....

Sayonara

 

Try and pm me!

 

your Ubyte sounds interesting
where can i find the raw cable for it?

 

I wonder what happened he wanted to discuss everthing else ?

 

Konnichiwa,

No time right now and no - I did not want to discuss everything, I just wanted to comment on some misapprehensions about the FFRC.

Sayonara

 

Konnichiwa,

Please see the TNT Audio article. I get mine from Maplin.

Sayonara

 

Thats ok ........just seemed you'd suddenly disapeared !!