Power Cable Question

Man, this thread still going....I have my Abbey Road power cables....and having had everything else in my system for months, I can hand on heart say it has made an improvement...I don't need evidence, look at any charts, measure what ever...keep things simple...if you hear a difference, and you can afford it, why not. If you are the sort that wants there to be a difference and seeing a thick colorful cable helps convince you, then so what....if it's enhanced your personal experience, where is the harm...tis not as if you need to sit down with all the folks in a forum like this and have daily debates....it's a subjective thing, and like anything else in life, there are obsessives and non obsessives...me I just wanted a system that allowed me to get the best sound for what I can afford....I have that now and I'm done with hi-fi upgrades and tweaks...I just sit back and enjoy the music.

 

I'm sorry james, but you are fooling yourself- it's scientifically impossible for power cables to make any difference, unless your old ones were so thin they were heating up.

2mm conductors are all that is needed for a 16 amp UK socket to be effectively connected with zero impedance. Anything else is just a waste.

There's no other branch of engineering that falls for such bollocks, not medical imaging, nothing.

 

Your probably right...

 

So for peace of mind you should give it to SQ

 

who's round ? i am thirsty.

 

Yours!

 

quote

what would you like, bitter or larger?

 

or copper or silver?

 

There is a very good reason for that. It's to do with screening.

Most power cables use "shunt" screening, where they place any acquired but unwanted noise directly onto the ground. The ground is the reference point of silent for your system.

Imagine a perfect ground as walking on a brand new tarmac road. Imagine your noise-ridden ground as trying to walk when the ground beneath you is moving. You'd be all over the place. This is the same case with your Hi-Fi. Of course it's on a smaller scale, think of like Jitter but volume based rather than timing.

Now, most cables and power conditioners use this "shunt" filtering, which is incredibly harmful to your sound quality. Especially cheaper ones.

The one way round this, is to make sure all your grounds are good and also even, in other words, properly shielded identical cables. The Abbey Road cable uses a Carbon screen, which picks up noise and RF and keeps it away from the earth line, instead, the carbon turns it into heat energy. If you were to line your system with these and you were to use a proper mains conditioner, you would notice a big difference, given that timing and volume are both correlated to the perfectly noise free ground.

So 'sq225917'. James isn't fooling himself at all . The Abbey Road cables are actually designed by and based on the principles used by the guy who wired up Abbey Road. Home Hi-Fi does have one or two things to learn from professional audio, much the same way professional audio has a lot to learn from the Hi-Fi industry (like how to make a good pair of speakers).

 

Practically all electronics shunts unwanted signals to the 0V line and then to ground. Any line level filter for example. You simply can't get away from it. Worrying about it in your power cable screening is rather silly IMO.

Can you please elaborate on how the carbon screening turns the RF noise into heat?

I suppose you are talking about the resistivity of carbon. In that case, the RF noise will take the most direct route to ground and that will be via another path, probably through your equipment and less than ideal grounding route. If there is no direct route to ground, you have serious safety issues.

I know you are trying to help, but you have basically just posted some marketing blurb.

 

I'll be honest, I've not looked into the exacts of how the carbon screen works. All I know is that I've seen it work in person with an RF generator and I know it's exactly what is used to absorb sonar in marine applications. It does work though, as if you fire the rf generator at a certain part of the cable, it will actualy heat up more than a bit about a foot away. When I was testing the cable with the generator, my oscilloscope was picking up nothing from either that cable, or the mains block it was attatched to.

If you were to use all carbon screened mains plugs and unscreened interconnects and speaker cable, you would notice a considerable difference.

 

Yup, I got the same marketing blurb...and to my non engineering ears went right over my head....and tbh, I could not give a flying you know what about any of that...I just want the goods. And as I've said before if you can't hear a difference, don't spend the money.....I have a very good local dealer, and they have lent me all the kit I've bought from them, and I have given stuff back !.....with the exception of the speakers which I bought from an in store dem. So with the cables...after having had the rest of my system in place for some time was the last thing I wanted to try before I buy....and trust me...I would not have spent £210 a power cord if I could not hear an improvement....and the hi-fi dealer would not lend kit unless it was confident it's customers would not pick up improvements and purchase, that said customers who buy decent hi-fi are probably more prone to these sensitivities than say ones wife who says she can't tell the difference between the radio in the car and my hi-fi....

 

Firing radio waves at carbon fibre is the same as putting lightbulbs into the microwave, it has nothing to do with the transmission of electricity. Power cables don't pick up RFI from the air, they pick it up off your fridge and half wave rectifiers on the mains. It's a neat trick that shows an effect but not the claimed effect.

The term shunt implies the use of active components, otherwise it is simply referred to as grounding. Power cables and ic's do not use shunting, a shunt regulated voltage regulator uses shunting, a power cable uses grounding where the third wire is a drain to earth.

If you don't know 'anything at all' about electricity or electronics you'd probably be better off keeping your mouth shut so you don't make yourself look stupid by simply repeating bullshit off the internet.

Just because 'Harris' received their 2010 patent application for carbon susceptor heating doesn't make it a more useful material to absorb RFI than metal braid or foil.

 

All this talk about grounds is very interesting to me.
The only ground connection in my entire system is the one from the SME cable to the ground tag on the main amp.Funny thing is that neither the main amp or the tuner or the CD recorder or the SACD player have even a single ground connection between them.Everything connects to the mains via two pin live and neutral plugs.
Still sounds good to me and no hums or unwanted noise etc.

 

It is grounded via the RCA connections.

 

What about "nordost Odin" certain mags rave about them?

 

I accept that one side of each line in/out is commoned via the RCA connections but these are not directly connected to mains ground since there is no ground connection to the mains supply socket.I believe that the neutral and earth connections are commoned at the sub-station. Perhaps someone on here with a better knowledge of AC distribution could comment on this. In these days of double insulation construction when the earth pin is eliminated I cannot see a path to earth.

 

Well if we are being pedantic, unless your casework is earthed to a 3 pin plug your system has no direct ground, in the true sense.

 

Yes I admit to that, I am being pedantic but in all seriousness I think that it pays to be when dealing with 230V.A.C.

 

Indeed it does, I gave myself 240v last week closing the case of a power supply while it was turned on. Forgot to shroud the pins on the back of the IEC and spanned them with my fingers.

ZZap.