Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems Power cables into DSP's...not the snakeoil or fact question

Mark

What do you mean by setting up two systems in parallel? That sounds suspiciously like hidiously expensive!

I just listen to a couple of tracks, swap over the cables and listen again. Repeat as necessary. So far, since my upgrade path has been so steep, it has only taken one listen to realise the difference. If it gets any harder that that, I simply won't buy the upgrade since it couldn't be worth it.

What do you do?

Hi Nick

Excellent question to pose, and you are doing a sterling job of chairing this debate!

A few thoughts, offered as conjecture and nothing more.

*Varying degrees of RF shielding from each of the cables.

*Varying degrees of containment of EM field from each cable to reduce any effects on other nearby system cables (analogue, digital, mains)

*The final 6ft of cord to your components is the crappiest, thinnest cord in the entire chain from power station to hifi component. Your street gets 415V in armoured cable to the substation, your house gets 240V armoured cable to the fuse box, your ring circuit or spur gets 30A (2.5mm twin & earth) rated cable to the sockets, then you put on a stock manufacturer's cable (3x1mm cores in the case of Meridian) which is probably good for 10A (bearing in mind that we're not allowed above 13A due to fusing anyway.) I don't find it too surprising that replacing that final 6ft worth with heavier duty rated cable makes a difference. It may be a duff analogy, but if you use a power washer to clean your car/patio etc and use a skinny little hose, you may find that the washer stutters on and off, as it's supply requirement is not being met by the restrictions of the hose. Put a wider hose on, and the machine works properly and consistently. Same water supply, same end equipment being used. We all accept that massive torroidal transformers in amps are a good thing to supply ample, fast power when required, so why wouldn't the same logic apply to the cable feeding the transformer? The transformer acts as a reservoir in some respects, so the faster it can be replenished, the better? I'm not proposing changes in the speed of electrons here, I'm proposing changes in the quantity of electrons moving at the same speed. (doubtless hokum )

*Perceptual issues wrt our brains! Once any of us have learned a thing, it is very difficult to unlearn. In our hifi systems, we interpret the sound, paying particular attention to certain aspects of the sound, and less to others. The first time you listen to something, your mind has "made sense" of it, and further listening will tend to follow that initial interpretation which you have (unconsciously) made. Changing cables (any variety) can cause your mind to reinterpret, and certain aspects of the presentation may now be "attended to" where they hadn't previously. The same information was there all along, just that your attention has now been drawn to it. We may well prefer a particular one of those interpretations, hence the perception of having upgraded. It's rather like using yellow, orange, red or blue filters in black and white photography. The same image is in front of the camera, but changing filters dramatically alters how we perceive that image.

Right, I think I'm satified now, having put a foot in both camps: "Yes, they do make an objective difference and here's why"; and "No they don't make an objective difference and here's why"

How was that Nick?

Cheers

George

PS Isn't it great when the rest of the family are out on a Sunday afternoon, and you have time to indulge such whimsy?!

Phew!!!!!!!

Well Sunday morning and I read most of that.

My brain Hurts now, which won't help my listening.

I reckon that I will upgrade Mains leads when you hardy souls come to some concensus.

If the people who make em dont know how they work, what chance do I have.

If you must do it, you should get some high quality cable and make them up yourself.

You should see the qaulity of the "off cut" my nieghbour used to wire in an outside socket for me. WOW!
He is an electician in fitting office IT cabling. I need to get some details of how I can get more of it to try in my system. At minimal cost of course! What else would you expect from me.
Your local electrical wholesaler could be a good visit.
There thoughts may lean to the words of "Manuel" in "Fawlty Towers", " Where are your Ears you Half witt?" But why should they understand.

Cheers Chris

Clean, unlimited power benefits any equipment.

Dedicated lines, Super quality powercables, outlets and power distributors helps keep this available in the system.

Mr Meridian,


It looks like you only have a very naive idea on how electricity passes through a wire. The model of water in a hose is a useful model for basic circuit analysis, something like adding an outlet in your home.

As far a power cable quality, you are imaging a general attribute of quality, the armored cable purchased by the utility, the crappy cable purchased at a local store.

The cable from your utility has a different construction than the one you buy at the store. It has a much bigger casing to protect it, this will allow it to last much longer exposed to the elements. The big difference electrically is it is made with much thicker copper strands. This is for heat, without getting into the messy details, the electrons travel on the surface of the wire, the thicker the wire, the lower the surface ratio, the wire will not melt.

With a household cable, they are for indoor use, no need for protection from the elements, abrasion resistance is important for safety. The cable will have a lot more and thinner strands, this will lower the resistance, but the cable will melt if exposed to very high current for a length of time.

The bottom line is, the wiring in the ground does not need to be very flexible, needs to be very resistant to melting and is made from thick wire, household cables needs to be flexible and not break if you bend it, will melt if not used with a breaker, but electrically it is a wonderful full product.

I would suspect that inside one of the fancy $400 a foot power cables you will actually find thinner and more numerous wire than found in your common cable.

My sources, DAC, pre-amp and other bits have multiple output/inputs so I can often set the system up with multiple routes through it and then switch inputs on the DAC or pre-amp to listen to different interconnects. For power cables I try to duplicate a bit of kit (for instance I have 3 TacT RCS systems so I go and grab one and wire it up in parallel with the source feeding both RCS which in turn both feed the DAC - I can then put different power cables into each RCS).

Things like that

When you are spending a lot of money on power cables or interconnects I feel it's worth the effort to try and set somethiing like this up. Trying to remember a sound from even a few seconds ago is very difficult to do. Being able to immediately switch between to routes removes this problem entirely.

Cheers,

Mark

OK....I think we are starting to get there.

Thin cables, multi-strand cables, surface area, resistance, purity of copper (affecting resistance), length of cable (albeit all 2m in my test), different shielding, etc etc.

Would any of these affect a) how a power amp works?, b) how the pre-amp works, c) how the DACS work ? d) anything else you can think of inside a DSP speaker that might be relevent.

Ah - I was thinking of having two sets of amps/speakers (or DSPs) just to try out a second set of power cords!

That does explain it!

Certainly I agree with one of the things - although I know what at transformer is I have no idea what a torroidal transformer is, I do know however that the one in my "little biddy" Krell weighs a ton and for the most part, all of the weight of the amp. I always figured that an amp would soak as much as it could into massive capacitors and leak current as and when required through the op amps. The faster these capacitors could achieve full charge (more expensive, larger capacitors) the better - so if you could get more current into them quicker, you would have a more even response when pushed. This could be complete hogwash, but the physics sounds good to me at least!

I'm no posting any more on here until I have heard one of these wee beasties.

Hi Sedluk, I didnt say Armoured cable. It was a very well screened cable, and you can buy it. You may have to do some research.
If i get any I will let you know.
Used in biuldings with large IT networks etc.

Cheers, Chris

Hi Sedluk

The point I was trying to make, perhaps a bit too descriptively, was that moving from the power station to your house, the thickness of copper conductor gets progressively smaller, with the smallest square section cable of all residing in that final 6ft link to your equipment. I know that a great deal of the body of an armoured cable is in the armour. If you need to move a lot of electricity around, you are going to need bigger cross sectional conductors in your cable. Otherwise I'm quite sure that the utility companies would be rather happier using something akin to the "zero" cost, off the reel, 250V mains cable between pylons than the 300,000V armoured stuff which they do...

Dmurfet, a torroidal transformer is a round one. IIRC, the idea is that you have less eddy currents circulation in the core with a ring shape (wound all the way around) than with the big old fashioned square cored type.

I'm sure someone can slap me back in my place for any or all of the foregoing!

Cheers

George

Steve H wrote in the other 5200 thread:

That's pretty much what I have been trying to do in practice. The issue I have found is that some elements of the sound change subtly for the better at the same time as worsening in other areas. So, actually concluding which I prefer is proving harder to achieve.

The good news is that they all sound very very good.

Conclusion looks like it will be stay as is and save the money....

Hi Nick

Just out of curiosity, have you tried both the Refs on your 598 and G68? I'd be curious to know how you get on with them in that respect before they go back. Incidentally, my email has now been completely down for four days and counting...

Cheers

George