Audiophoolery - Nov 09 Nuts and Volts magazine - Editor comments

[WA9UDW]

Audiophoolery update... here are some interesting comments by Bryan Bergeron, Editor, in the November 09 issue of Nuts and Volts magazine: http://www.nutsvolts.com/index.php?/blog/post/speaker_break_in/

Cable break-in service available here: http://www.morrowaudio.com/breakinservice.htm

Terry 

[w3jn]

Ah, jeez... and I thought the biggest scam going was the high-grade power cables and 120V outlets.

The inconvenience of cable break-in:

Brand new cables require up to 400 hours to properly settle down sonically and "break-in". This process and why it happens is a mystery not yet fully understood, but is in great evidence amongst experienced audiophiles.

Cable break in service.  Ayuh.

[Ott]

According to these specifications a cable can be broken in with a just couple of nights use on 75 meter am...

"a combination of wide band noise and variable frequency amplitude modulation – was developed to provide a maximum combination of both low and high frequency content without being repetitious in any way."

http://www.morrowaudio.com/breakinservice.htm

[k4kyv]

What about this:

Just as musical instruments sound better over time, so do audio cables. We believe it has to do with the electron lineup within the wire conductor, electrostatic charges within the cable and the properties of the dielectric changing from the magnetic fields that are around the wire as the signal flows through it.

Magnetic fields affect changes in the non-metallic dielectric (insulation) covering a wire?   

[W3SLK]

Remember: An (audio)phool and their money are soon pharted! 

[N4LTA]

I have a sort of hobby of trying to get a small understanding of Quantum  Particle Physics. It is really tough to get any kind of grasp of what happens at the atomic and subatomic level because things are really wierd. Thinks like particles being in two places at the same time,

But I'll guarantee you one thing - electrons don't get lined up like little marbles when the copper gets broken in.

It seems like the higher the technology gets - the more idiots there are believeing in pseudo science.

Uh - I hear something humming outside. I better check  - it may be that UFO that I saw on the Discovery Channel.

[WB2CAU]

I subscribe to N&V and have read similar bizarre statements from that editor.  I wonder how long before the publisher realizes his editor's knowledge is based upon the supernatural instead of science.

His credibility is highly questionable.

[W3SLK]

Eric said:

I subscribe to N&V and have read similar bizarre statements from that editor.  I wonder how long before the publisher realizes his editor's knowledge is based upon the supernatural instead of science.

His credibility is highly questionable

I didn't think he was condoning this stuff at all. I feel he was trying to be as objective, and non-biased as he could be. If you read the last line, he pretty much dislikes the fact of people trying to sell snake oil. "... have no problem with someone trying to make a living by offering products and services that, while questionable, don’t actively harm anyone. However, it’s a disservice to well-meaning salespeople and the general public to popularize voodoo electronics...."
The only leaning I see by him is the 'breaking in of speakers' and there he references a speaker company by name.

[Opcom]

The reason the listening rooms in the stores and boutiques have carpet is to prevent falls due to customers slipping on the snake oil.

[W2VW]

Eric said:

I subscribe to N&V and have read similar bizarre statements from that editor.  I wonder how long before the publisher realizes his editor's knowledge is based upon the supernatural instead of science.

His credibility is highly questionable

I didn't think he was condoning this stuff at all. I feel he was trying to be as objective, and non-biased as he could be. If you read the last line, he pretty much dislikes the fact of people trying to sell snake oil. "... have no problem with someone trying to make a living by offering products and services that, while questionable, don’t actively harm anyone. However, it’s a disservice to well-meaning salespeople and the general public to popularize voodoo electronics...."
The only leaning I see by him is the 'breaking in of speakers' and there he references a speaker company by name.

Looks like he was hinting that this stuff is lame instead of directly saying someone is full of you know what.

[k4kyv]

My first encounter with audiophoolery was in the mid 70's in Cambridge, MA.  One of the university radio stations had a weekly Saturday morning call-in talk show about high fidelity and stereo.  The subject of RFI, rectification and transmitters getting into solid state stereos came up.  I called in and reminded them that two stereo speakers connected to an amplifier with the typical length of speaker cable in an apartment, was a near perfect dipole receiving antenna with the speakers providing end-loading for even greater effectiveness in receiving unwanted signals, and that was how rf was finding its way into the amplifier to be rectified.  I suggested placing a .001 mfd ceramic by-pass capacitor across each speaker output terminal in parallel with the load.  I  had used that trick on my own stereo amplifier to kill the  rf from my transmitter.  It worked, and .001 mfd across an 8-ohm load made absolutely no detectable difference in the output.  Just to make sure, I even tried running a signal generator through the amplifier while monitoring the output on a scope, and the capacitor made no difference whatever up to the point to where the amplifier response began to roll off, somewhere in the 30 kHz range.

When I mentioned this to the talk show host, he went into a tirade about how you would never place any kind of capacitor across the speaker output terminals, because it would totally ruin the the performance of the amplifier.  When I tried to question his statements and present my side of the story, he was like some of to-day's AM political talk show hosts; he got downright angry and any further discussion was like arguing with a brick wall.

And this was long before the advent of voodoo electronics involving breaking in speaker cables and the sound quality of power cords.

[WB2CAU]

Eric said:

I subscribe to N&V and have read similar bizarre statements from that editor.  I wonder how long before the publisher realizes his editor's knowledge is based upon the supernatural instead of science.

His credibility is highly questionable

I didn't think he was condoning this stuff at all. I feel he was trying to be as objective, and non-biased as he could be. If you read the last line, he pretty much dislikes the fact of people trying to sell snake oil. "... have no problem with someone trying to make a living by offering products and services that, while questionable, don’t actively harm anyone. However, it’s a disservice to well-meaning salespeople and the general public to popularize voodoo electronics...."
The only leaning I see by him is the 'breaking in of speakers' and there he references a speaker company by name.

Perhaps I did read it kind of fast, took some of it out of context, and drew a quick conclusion.  But I did glean that he endorses the breaking-in of speakers also.  I fail to find the validity of that practice.  That borders on psuedo-science.

[W3RSW]

"Breaking in" of a mechanical construct as in a speaker cone certainly does happen.  Whether it sounds "better" or "worse" before or after some 'softening' or minute alteration of the diaphragm is a matter of preference, if one's ears can even hear a difference.  

"Breaking in" of an electical conveyance device such as a wire also happens, but in a more educated world it's called aging of the insulation, oxidation of the carrier wire, etc.    In other words degradation of the physical cable or wire is much too slow a process to be discernable by any 'ears,' especially at the such low frequencies as AF or in such short time spans as a human life  

Suffice to say the listener's ears will degrade much more rapidly.
-much, much more.

[WA3VJB]

I am still trying to overclock my Mac with a bigger power supply.

[W3RSW]

Well !
The solution is simple, Paul.
Just 'up' the Hertz not the Voltas!   

(although, on my little ASRock Atom 330 used for SDR, you do have control over cpu voltage, chipset voltage, dram voltage as well as clock freq. and fan speed for overclocking.  Interesting world, huh?)

[W1RKW]

Placebo effect??

I like the green paint snake oil crap when CD's came out.  I worked as a technician in an audio video store back in the 80s when I was a JN and challenged the head salesman there that he was selling BS.  He swore up and down that it made a difference until I took a CD that had nothing but sine wave tones on it and ran it through a distortion analyzer before and after this green goop was put on the edges of the CD.  No difference on the analyzer.  

Then he and I went into the sound room playing to CDs, one with and one without the goop.  We took turns listening and swapping discs in an effort to maintian objectivity on both sides.  I listened intently for any differences.  I couldn't tell anything.  Then it was my turn to swap the CDs when I turned on my BS machine.  I played the same CD multiple times but told our sales person this had paint on it and this one did not have paint on it.  He could hear the differences in the same CD.  Go figure.

[WBear2GCR]

A few things to put in proper perspective.

- for most systems, like about 98% of all, most of these things that do actually have an effect have an effect that is not audible or unclear at best.

- speakers do break-in, and it is quite measureable with even basic test gear

- placing a capacitor of some reasonable capacitance will send some amplifiers into instability. Don, the host of the show simply had inadequate knowledge to adequate address the true nature of the problem - your small cap was a fine solution, although it would be best to be a high quality NPO type, or suitable film type.

- with suitably low distortion systems (not just simple THD) an amazing range of seemingly minor changes in things that clearly ought not make any audible difference,clearly and audibly can and do! This is quite confounding when it happens to you, as from a pure engineering point of view there does not appear to be any very convincing causal factor.

- IF your hearing has loss at HF, loss of hearing in one ear, if you are not terribly "musical", "discerning" or trained in listening it is unlikely that even if you happened to have the opportunity to be in front of a suitably low distortion system that you'll be able to hear all that much. OTOH, you might still!

- For most people none of these admittedly subtle differences matter at all. Thus the popularity of the Bose Wave Radio - AND their bogus ads that claim that that little boom box will be the eqivalent of a bona fide high quality, low distortion state-of-the-art stereo system, which are obviously total BS. But you might think that they are not BS, which is partly my point! 

There is snake oil, there are bogus claims, but there are a whole lot of things that are disconcerting audible and nearly impossible (as yet) to quantify and measure. There are those that capitalize on this and make strange claims, but that does not change the truth or reality that some things alter the sound without any good reason that anyone can come up with (yet).

I am happy to invite most of everyone who participates here to come and visit my unusual abode - it has few amenities other than lots of of electronics stuff, and a scary good high-end system to listen to. I can easily demonstrate some of the very things that seem to be not possible, you can hear it for yourself - or not. 

                     _-_-bear

[W2VW]

A capacitor across a speaker wire pair would not do much for anything but differential mode interference.

That idea was in a lot of hambone publications. It must have worked once in a while. 

[Opcom]

Does anyone suspect their speaker cable of changing dimension between the conductors due to the magnetic fields setup by the current running through the conductors as well as having it twisting to the music in the earth's magnetic field? Nonlinear work function! The solution is printed circuit stripline on thick glass epoxy board which itself is bonded to a concrete foundation.

[WBear2GCR]

The capacitor, depending on the specific circumstances would at least make one end of the pair look like a low-Z short at RF. Without it, it might look like a high(er) Z open, and so perhaps form a tuned circus... in other words it would change/alter the way it looked at RF.

Dunno seems plausible.

[flintstone mop]

Bear Quote:
 For most people none of these admittedly subtle differences matter at all. Thus the popularity of the Bose Wave Radio - AND their bogus ads that claim that that little boom box will be the eqivalent of a bona fide high quality, low distortion state-of-the-art stereo system, which are obviously total BS. But you might think that they are not BS, which is partly my point! 

I have two Bose radios and it is a great sounding radio for its size. One was a gift from my company as an anniversary gift and the other belonged to my parents. It will fill the room with a pleasant full sound. The newer generation has a deeper bass. It won't produce chest pounding bass or high volume levels to make your ears ring, but for 3 inch 4 inch(?) speakers, it's pretty amazing.
I'm not interested in "sound-stage" unless I wear headphones. There's not enough time in the day to sit and listen carefully to music.

I also question breaking in of phono cartridges. Is this on the same plane as speakers?
Wires are a good one too. I use #20 stranded as much as I can.

Fred

[WBear2GCR]

Fred,

I don't begrudge anyone their enjoyment of music, no matter the source.

If the Bose makes your chest pound, fine...

As far as headphones go, consider the difference between a pair of Stax ESL headphones and ur basic old Koss or a modern $10 "digital" headphones?

There are problems with headphone "soundstage" but that is out of range for this forum...

Phono cartridges as any mechanical system will have some change in mechanical parameters over time. Speakers do.

Making a really good phono cartridge is akin to making a really good violin. Ever have a close up look at a moving coil and stylus assembly? I can post a closeup this weekend if anyone is interested. Ya's got ur fiddles and ya gotcha Strads and Guarnivari (sp??) too...

20 ga just is insufficient for speaker cable, unless ur running very low power levels...

Try this test.
Any decent speaker and amplifier will do...

make a speaker cable with one strand of 20ga... 6-10ft long minimum.
now make one with 8 paralleled and lightly twisted strands per conductor keep the two final condutors slightly separated...
you can also try the same thing with the 16 all run together and twisted, pull out 8 per polarity.

Listen and see if you hear anything at all different.

you might not. you might. depends...

you can also compare the second example with solid core copper of the same approximate gauge (about 12-13ga as it turns out).

easy enough and cheap enough to try... and see for yourself if anything like this matters at all. it might or it might not. depending on you, your system, and the source material too...

fun to do anyhow...

                   _-_-bear

[k4kyv]

A capacitor across a speaker wire pair would not do much for anything but differential mode interference.

That idea was in a lot of hambone publications. It must have worked once in a while. 

Actually, now that you mentioned it, I used two capacitors per speaker, each from ground to one of the speaker terminals.  This would take care of both differential and common mode interference, and effectively the capacitance across the speaker output (differential mode) was .0005 mfd, while the common mode by-passing was .002 mfd.  But the interference must have been common mode, due to something like the pin 1 problem, since most solid state stereo amps run unbalanced output to the speakers, with one side of the line grounded.

I have used the same trick with my transmitter at the 500Ω balanced audio lines between audio chain components to keep rf feedback out of the audio,  particularly on 40m .  Even at 500Ω, the .001 caps don't measurably affect the high frequency response of the system, at least up to 10 kHz or so.

[W2VW]

THAT would work. One cap to a real ground would probably suffice. A ferrite choke of proper mix on the line cord and all other leads is hard to beat though.

[WA3VJB]

Regarding BOSE -- they run commercials for their little tabletop stereo, and during the pitch they have a shot of a NICE component-style stereo, with oversized, oxygen-free hookup wire and EVERYTHING. 

I say "OOOOO, NICE system !" as their announcer says something like "why have all this?"

Then they cut to their little white plastic radio like you stick on the wall  next to the toilet.