Bogus science in YOUR COMPUTER'S PROCESSOR!
Edward Rice
In article <1996Aug27.1...@hpal02.isd4.tafensw.edu.au>,
Roger....@tafensw.edu.au (Roger Douglas) wrote:
> lsto...@pyrtech.mis.pyramid.com (Lon Stowell) expostulated:
>
> >In article <4vkflr$l...@natasha.rmii.com> afe...@rainbow.rmii.com (Adam
Felson) writes:
> >>
> >>Reminds me of the Tice clock, which was a $20 radio shack alarm clock
sold
> >>for $495 and was supposed to rearrange the electrons in your mains
power
> >>to make your audio system system sound better.
> >>
> >>The most pathetic part of it was the fact that audiophile journals
such as
> >>stereophile had reviews where they thought it worked!
> >>
> > Don't forget the Bedini "Clarifier" which claims to demagnetize
> > your CD's. Kinda quaint, given that the aluminum layer in a
> > CD is not only very very thin but aluminum can be magnetized
> > only about as well as ordinary air.
> > And then there is the CD that if you play it will "demagnetize"
> > your stereo system.
>
> This reminds me of the lengthy troll on one of the newsgroups (possibly
> alt.folklore.urban) last year about speaker cables with arrows on them
to make
> sure you connected them the right way round "because the electrons
flowed
> better one way than the other".
I saw some Monster (brand) cable in a store the other day, complete with
the arrows showing intended direction of signal flow. I asked what
possible difference this could possibly make -- this was cable, without
even connectors. I was told, of course, "The signal just goes better in
that direction."
I think (anybody here work for Monster?) that there MIGHT be another
explanation. It may be that Monster puts the arrows on in a consistent but
arbitrary direction, so that any /user/ of the cable who wishes to do so
can use the arrows as documentation. I know I have problems, with my arm
wedged in between the shelf and two pieces of stereo gear, in figuring out
whether I've got the receiver-to-tape-deck cables or the
tape-deck-to-receiver cables, and perhaps using the arrows as documentation
is the simplest solution.
As long as they don't sell green Magic Markers, I'm not ready to write off
Monster as a sham just because their cable has some markings nobody in the
store understands.
Joachim Lous
Edward Rice (ehr...@his.com) wrote:
: I saw some Monster (brand) cable in a store the other day, complete with
: the arrows showing intended direction of signal flow. I asked what
: possible difference this could possibly make -- this was cable, without
: even connectors. I was told, of course, "The signal just goes better in
: that direction."
Yes, this was up in AFU a year or two ago. I believe the consensus
was, after much heated debate and some really extraordinary catches
(ah, those were the days), that the cables exist and that the arrows
DO have a rational purpose:
The shielding is supposed to be connected to the plug only at one
end of the cable, in order to avoid ground loops, and this end should
go into the <amp/speakers, can't remember which>.
This has never kept audio dealers from bullshitting their customers
about 'better signal flow' though.
I don't know the details well enough to vouch for this theory myself,
but I can't remember any serious protest against it.
--
------------------------------------------------------------- --^--
Joachim Lous Norsk Regnesentral ---^---
joa...@nr.no Norwegian Computing Center ---^---
This sig is Lynx enhanced. --^--
Rod Stites
snopes wrote:
> Lunacy or not, vacuum tubes aren't going away any time soon: They make up
> at least 25% of the high-end audio market and were among the most popular
> items at the last two Consumer Electronic Shows in Las Vegas, Brunner says.
In addition, the antiquated air-traffic computers functioning
(nominally) at many centers still require vacuum tubes. These tubes are
so hard to come by that the FAA imports a number of them from Hungary.
Paul Walukewicz
In <504mup$t...@news.service.uci.edu>, jcro...@rigel.oac.uci.edu (Jeremy Michael Crosbie) writes:
[snip]
>The Monster cable is polarized so that electrons enjoy the least resistance
>and thus less loss of signal. Monster has been around for many years and is
>an innovator in cableing. Traitional speaker cable is no different than lamp
>wire.
Its been a long time since I've studied the electric properties of materials, but
I remember copper as being a conductor, not a semi-conductor, of electric current.
It has the same resistance to current flow in either direction.
In any event, the signal generated by an audio amplifier is an alternating current,
and therefore spends half its time flowing in one direction, and half its time
flowing in the other.
I also seem to remember that the resistance of a wire is proportional to the
cross-sectional area of the wire. Therefore, fat wires (monster cables) have less
resistance per foot than thin wires (lamp wire). Fat wires deliver more power to
the speakers because they waste less power heating themselves.
>If anyone reads the alt.guitar newsgroup, they will read discussions about
>Eric Johnson and his tone obsession. One of the ways he achieves his tone is
>through polarized cabling. Trust me, you will hear a difference if you switch
>the cable the wrong way.
Its misleading to think of the polarity of speakers and amplifiers in the
same way as the polarity of a battery. Rather, the (+) and (-) terminals help you to wire
both speakers so the current flows in the same direction in both. You want the
speaker cones to be moving in the same direction at the same time. Otherwise,
the sound waves generated by the two speakers can reduce the amplitude of
or cancel frequencies (or ranges).
If monster cables have two conductors, like most other speaker wire I've seen,
then perhaps the markings help you identify the "red" wire.
Paul
pau...@colum.mindspring.com
Carl Fink
In all actual tests I'm aware of (two) audiophiles CAN'T TELL THE
DIFFERENCE between tube and transistor sound.
"There's no difference, but nevertheless I like the expensive one."
The appeal is obviously the same as wearing flashy jewelry --
conspicuous consumption.
--
Carl Fink ca...@panix.com madsci...@genie.com
Dueling Modems Note new URL! http://www.dm.net
"All generalizations are dangerous, even this one"
Alexandre Dumas fils
Hal Mothershed
At the local K-Mart, there's a sign at the cash register warning customers
not to place tapes, credit cards, _film_, or _CDs_ on the pad that
demagnetizes the security tags. Tapes and credit cards, OK, but film and
CDs?
Jeremy Michael Crosbie
In article <AE4AA4E3...@ehrice.his.com>,
Edward Rice <ehr...@his.com> wrote:
>I saw some Monster (brand) cable in a store the other day, complete with
>the arrows showing intended direction of signal flow. I asked what
>possible difference this could possibly make -- this was cable, without
>even connectors. I was told, of course, "The signal just goes better in
>that direction."
>
>I think (anybody here work for Monster?) that there MIGHT be another
>explanation. It may be that Monster puts the arrows on in a consistent but
>arbitrary direction, so that any /user/ of the cable who wishes to do so
>can use the arrows as documentation. I know I have problems, with my arm
>wedged in between the shelf and two pieces of stereo gear, in figuring out
>whether I've got the receiver-to-tape-deck cables or the
>tape-deck-to-receiver cables, and perhaps using the arrows as documentation
>is the simplest solution.
>
>As long as they don't sell green Magic Markers, I'm not ready to write off
>Monster as a sham just because their cable has some markings nobody in the
>store understands.
>
The Monster cable is polarized so that electrons enjoy the least resistance
and thus less loss of signal. Monster has been around for many years and is
an innovator in cableing. Traitional speaker cable is no different than lamp
wire.
If anyone reads the alt.guitar newsgroup, they will read discussions about
RMS
In article <504mup$t...@news.service.uci.edu>, jcro...@rigel.oac.uci.edu
says...
>In article <AE4AA4E3...@ehrice.his.com>,
>Edward Rice <ehr...@his.com> wrote:
>
>>I saw some Monster (brand) cable in a store the other day, complete with
>>the arrows showing intended direction of signal flow. I asked what
>>possible difference this could possibly make -- this was cable, without
>>even connectors. I was told, of course, "The signal just goes better in
>>that direction."
>The Monster cable is polarized so that electrons enjoy the least resistance
>and thus less loss of signal. Monster has been around for many years and is
>an innovator in cableing. Traitional speaker cable is no different than lamp
>wire.
>
>If anyone reads the alt.guitar newsgroup, they will read discussions about
>Eric Johnson and his tone obsession. One of the ways he achieves his tone is
>through polarized cabling. Trust me, you will hear a difference if you switch
>the cable the wrong way.
>
that promise improved sound quality. Many of these improvements have no
basis in fact. During A/B test of deluxe cable versus zip line of half
the gauge, the "experts" found that they couldn't hear the difference.
The same for gold plated connectors.
In studio equipment where the s/n must be higher, using differential signals
is sufficient for the improvement. This is because of noise buildup
over generations of sound on sound. If it made _any_ difference in
playback don't you think someone would have incorporated differential
signals in commercial equipment by now. The increase in cost would not
be prohibitive.
As for tubes, they add distortion, it is just that some people like
the even harmonic distortion. I prefer to leave it up to the recording
engineer/artist to decide if it should be there or not. For guitar
pre-amps, many include a tube/distortion stage that can be switched in
or out as required.
As for audio frequencies going better in one direction on a conductor
than the other, this is absolute crap. Next time someone tells you
this type of voodoo science ask them to prove it. Ask them to let
you set up a blind A/B comparison that is not rigged. If they can't
tell the difference then there is no difference, except price.
For long runs, especially to 4 or 2 ohm stacks, you need big cable.
Amplifiers, well good ones, will tell you how much damping factor you
need and how to calculate it. This tells you how big the cable needs
to be based on run length. For very long runs, use step up transformers.
For your typical home system 16 gauge zip cable is good enough.
Salesmen produce lots of folklore, but much of it is bogus.
"Never believe anyone who stands to profit based on what they say".
RMS
Joe Heinrich
>
> What's more, Brunner maintains, the difference is "audible to even the
> casual listener and untrained ear in terms of ease of listening..."
>
It's audible, all right. Audiophiles refer to it as
"a loss of fidelity."
--
Joe "Joe" Heinrich {Silicon|Graphics|MTI|HWwriter}
jo...@sgi.com 415.933.4347
ping:150.166.96.48 for 56 free data bytes http://www.altavista.digital.com/cgi-bin/query?pg=q&what=web&fmt=.&q=%22joe+Heinrich%22
Rick The Notes Guy Dickinson
Sharing the wisdom of the ages with those of us reading
alt.folklore.urban, jcro...@rigel.oac.uci.edu (Jeremy Michael
Crosbie) wrote:
>In article <AE4AA4E3...@ehrice.his.com>,
>Edward Rice <ehr...@his.com> wrote:
>>I saw some Monster (brand) cable in a store the other day, complete with
>>the arrows showing intended direction of signal flow. I asked what
>>possible difference this could possibly make -- this was cable, without
>>even connectors. I was told, of course, "The signal just goes better in
>>that direction."
<snip>
>The Monster cable is polarized so that electrons enjoy the least resistance
>and thus less loss of signal. Monster has been around for many years and is
>an innovator in cableing. Traitional speaker cable is no different than lamp
>wire.
"Monster" cable, or almost any other speaker wire, has polarization
markings for one, and only one, reason: To allow the installer to
insure that the left and right speaker channels are wired "in phase".
In other words, if the same AC signal is sent to both speakers, they
should both be moving in at the same time, and both should be moving
out at the same time. If they are not, then the sound waves from the
speakers will tend to cancel one another, with the "peaks" of the
sound wave from one speaker coinciding with the "valleys" from the
other.
Due to the longer wavelengths, the cancellation is more prominent in
the lower frequency ranges. Thus, depending on your position in the
room, relative to the two speakers, you will tend to notice reduced
bass in music played through speakers with mismatched phase.
The advantage that "Monster" cable offers over traditional speaker
cables are twofold:
The primary advantage is reduced resistance due to the larger physical
size of the wire. This results in better power transfer to the
speakers, and, indirectly, can result in reduced distortion and,
therefore, and objectively "better" sound.
I say "indirectly", because the reduced resistance _itself_ has little
to do with the improved THD (total harmonic distortion) specs. The
improvement occurs primarily because speaker wires with less loss
allow you to operate your amplifier at lower settings to obtain the
same sound intensity from the speakers. An amplifier produces its
"most linear" output towards the lower part of its power range. In
layman's terms, the higher you crank it, the worse the fidelity.
The second, in my mind somewhat doubtful, advantage to "Monster" cable
is attributed to the braiding of the strands making up the cable
rather than merely twisting them together. The theory behind this is
that, if you look at the individual strands, each one is twisted in a
"corkscrew" fashion down the length of the wire. Any coil of wire
will exhibit some degree of inductance, and will have an inductive
reactance that increases as the signal frequency increases. Thus,
standard speaker wire may have some high-frequency losses due to this
effect.
"Monster" cable's braided wires have strands that circle in opposite
directions, thus, the electromagnetic effects should cancel out, and
it should exhibit much lower inductance (if any), resulting in less
loss in the upper frequency registers than standard wire of the same
gauge.
My objections to this theory are numerous, however. First, it assumes
that the strands of wire are only connected electrically to each other
at their ends. This is clearly not the case, however, as they touch
each other along their entire lengths. Thus, they are not isolated
coils all lying near one another. Also, even if they could be treated
as seperate coils, the inductive effects of "coils" with such a huge
turn spacing would be nearly negligible at audio frequencies.
It would be interesting to perform side-by-side comparisons of the
inductance per meter of "Monster" cable and standard speaker cable of
the same guage.
>If anyone reads the alt.guitar newsgroup, they will read discussions about
>Eric Johnson and his tone obsession. One of the ways he achieves his tone is
>through polarized cabling. Trust me, you will hear a difference if you switch
>the cable the wrong way.
Well, yes, this is true, as mentioned above. However, the difference
is due to signal phase, and not due to signals flowing "better" in one
direction or another down the wire. The fact that audio signals are
AC should put that notion to rest.
- Rick "Stick this in your Audio File" Dickinson
Enterprise ArchiTechs | Views expressed on topics unrelated
http://www.eArchiTechs.com | to Lotus Notes are not those of my
email: r...@notesguy.com | company, and may not even be mine.
Bob Beck
In 1980 or '81 a fighter jet (probably as antiquated as vacuum tubes)
crashed at Uplands Air Base in Ottawa. Among other things, the
investigation revealed that the control tower equipment used tubes --
which the armed farces been buying from, yes, the Soviet Union. The
military of a NATO country, in the nation's capital no less, at a time
when the Cold War was heating up again... many observers claimed to be
shocked and appalled, but as a budding peacenik I was greatly amused.
Bob "ah, for the days of anti-Cruise protests" Beck
--
Bob Beck, Fool for Love rb...@unixg.ubc.ca
"Ive no ammunition. What use are cartridges in battle? I always carry chocolate instead."
-- Arms and the Man
ANDREW GRYGUS
In <504r3r$6...@nntp1.best.com> snopes <sno...@best.com> writes:
>
> Los Angeles Times
> April 9, 1996
>
>MUSIC LOVERS CRAVING VINYL-QUALITY TONES IN A CD-DOMINATED WORLD ARE
HAILING
>THE RETURN OF VACUUM-TUBE TECHNOLOGY
>
>By: CHRIS RUBIN
>
> When digital sound arrived on the consumer scene a little more than
a
>decade ago, it was hailed as the second coming, the age of
enlightenment in
>audio. But from the day of digital's debut, audio magazine writers and
others
>have carped about sound quality.
<massive cut here>>
> Zelin says there is no sonic advantage to vacuum tubes, and if
tubes were
>truly better, everyone would be using them. "It's virtual lunacy to
say that
>a small company can come up with a better technology than Philips."
Not so. Vacuum tubes are too expenive - because they require high
voltage power supplies and heavy (expensive) transformers for impedence
matching. Even if markedly superior they would be used by few.
> Lunacy or not, vacuum tubes aren't going away any time soon: They
make up
>at least 25% of the high-end audio market and were among the most
popular
>items at the last two Consumer Electronic Shows in Las Vegas, Brunner
says.
Long before "digital sound" transistor "high-fi" equipment hit the
market because of its obvious manufacturing economies. This early
equipment suffered from massive amounts of intermodulation distortion.
Also, a speaker damping factor of 4 was considered ideal, but
transister finals couldn't get anywhere close.
Did this slow down the marketing guys? Of course not. Since the
transister units sounded different from vacuum tube equipment
(obviously), they headlined "COME IN AND HEAR THE NEW TRANSISTOR
SOUND!!" Newer is better, right? Not long ago I saw an add for an amp
still using the phrase "Speaker damping factor over 100!" Bigger is
better, right?
The golden age for both automobiles and high fidelity was the 50's and
60's. Today's youth can never know . . . .
Andrew Grygus - California Republic
--------------------------------------
Resist Microsoft!
ANDREW GRYGUS
In <rbeck-29089...@port29.annex2.net.ubc.ca> rb...@unixg.ubc.ca
(Bob Beck) writes:
>
>In 1980 or '81 a fighter jet (probably as antiquated as vacuum tubes)
>crashed at Uplands Air Base in Ottawa. Among other things, the
>investigation revealed that the control tower equipment used tubes --
>which the armed farces been buying from, yes, the Soviet Union. The
>military of a NATO country, in the nation's capital no less, at a time
>when the Cold War was heating up again... many observers claimed to be
>shocked and appalled, but as a budding peacenik I was greatly amused.
That's nothing. For much of the cold war, the titanium used to build
our military aircraft was purchased from the Soviet Union. It was
perfectly good titanium and real cheap. This ended when they decided
they needed it all to build titanium submarines - U.S. titanium prices
soared. Then they went broke, so neither of us needs all that titanium
now.
So much for Lenin's "The capitalists will sell us the rope with which
we will hang them."
Andrew Grygus - California Republic
-------------------------------------
Resist Microsoft!
Alexandre Pechtchanski
snopes <sno...@best.com> wrote:
> Los Angeles Times
> April 9, 1996
>MUSIC LOVERS CRAVING VINYL-QUALITY TONES IN A CD-DOMINATED WORLD ARE HAILING
>THE RETURN OF VACUUM-TUBE TECHNOLOGY
>By: CHRIS RUBIN
[ hail the tubes, bringing you ack warm "live" musical sound -- snipped ]
> But not quite everyone is ready to plug in to the bandwagon.
> "The electrons don't know the difference--they don't understand
>marketing," says Ken Zelin, co-owner of House of Music, a high-end audio
>store in San Francisco that sells absolutely no vacuum tube equipment. He
>attributes the move backward to tubes to a "romantic feeling about the retro
>look. People like the concept of tubes because they're old, and they remind
>them of the '60s music they like."
> Zelin says there is no sonic advantage to vacuum tubes, and if tubes were
>truly better, everyone would be using them. "It's virtual lunacy to say that
>a small company can come up with a better technology than Philips."
> Lunacy or not, vacuum tubes aren't going away any time soon: They make up
>at least 25% of the high-end audio market and were among the most popular
>items at the last two Consumer Electronic Shows in Las Vegas, Brunner says.
So, the technology closes the circle again. I wonder how long it will be
until somebody'll come up with new version of the old "multi-transistor set"
sham: installed some non-connected (except to filament [?] voltage) tubes into
otherwise silicon set and started selling it for "serious four-figure prices"
(almost quote from snipped part). I bet quite a few of audiofiles will hear
"marked improvement of sound quality - warm, real sound instead of shrill
notes from cheap digital stuff" from these sets.
(from alt.folklore.computers)
Alexandre Pechtchanski, GCRC system manager sys...@vaxa.crc.mssm.edu
Malcolm Austin
Rick The Notes Guy Dickinson wrote:
>
> Sharing the wisdom of the ages with those of us reading
> alt.folklore.urban, jcro...@rigel.oac.uci.edu (Jeremy Michael
> Crosbie) wrote:
>
> >In article <AE4AA4E3...@ehrice.his.com>,
> >Edward Rice <ehr...@his.com> wrote:
>
> >>I saw some Monster (brand) cable in a store the other day, complete with
> >>the arrows showing intended direction of signal flow. I asked what
> >>possible difference this could possibly make -- this was cable, without
> >>even connectors. I was told, of course, "The signal just goes better in
> >>that direction."
>
> <snip>
>
> >The Monster cable is polarized so that electrons enjoy the least resistance
> >and thus less loss of signal. Monster has been around for many years and is
> >an innovator in cableing. Traitional speaker cable is no different than lamp
> >wire.
>
> "Monster" cable, or almost any other speaker wire, has polarization
> markings for one, and only one, reason: To allow the installer to
> insure that the left and right speaker channels are wired "in phase".
>
Wrong, wrong, wrong. So many errors. Where to start?
Speakers become out of phase if you mix up the positive and negative wires.
Attaching speaker wire "the wrong way" is meaningless.
"Directional" cable, with an arrow showing which way to connect it, applies
only to interconnects, not to speaker wire. Interconnects connect different
audio components together, such as a CD player and an amplifier, or a
pre-amp to an amp. Typically, they are terminated with RCA plugs.
Some interconnects are shielded, which means the signal carrying wires
are surrounded by one or more layers of metal (foil and/or "braid")
which protects the signal from errant electrical fields. The shield
is grounded to the plug at one or both ends.
And finally we arrive at directional cables. A direction cable is an
interconnect in which the shield is grounded to only one plug--not the
other. I've heard different theories on whether you should ground to
the origin of the signal or its destination, but I believe the orthodox
view is to ground to the origin. That way, the destination receives
the signal free from any noise in the ground of the origin component.
So *that's* why some high-end cable products, including some Monster cable,
has arrows on it to indicate which way to attach the cable. "Polarization,"
"electron flow," and the like have nothing to do with it. Conceivably
speaker wire could be shielded, but I haven't seen such a product.
For more information, and even wackier theories about audio equipment, check
out rec.audio.high-end.
Malcolm "writing this with my green pen" Austin
--
= Malcolm Austin == w:(212)762-2171 == h:(914)944-0956 == ma...@morgan.com ===
" . . . at least, that't what the Germans would have us think."
James Linn
> In all actual tests I'm aware of (two) audiophiles CAN'T TELL THE
> DIFFERENCE between tube and transistor sound.
>
> "There's no difference, but nevertheless I like the expensive one."
>
> The appeal is obviously the same as wearing flashy jewelry --
> conspicuous consumption.
I visited Walt Disney World's Epcot centre, and one of the smaller
exhibits in the Innoventions centre was a listening test between a $1000
stereo system and a $10,000 stereo system(okay its been a couple of years,
the numbers may be way off but you get the idea).
At the end of the test, you picked which one you preferred and which one
you thought was the expensive one was. Most people picked the cheaper
system for both. The rationale stated was that the cheaper system was
built to reproduce sound to the average users perception of what sounds
good, versus the more expensive set being designed for sonic purity, not
pleasing sound.
Something to think about.
I'm sure there are lots of audiophiles who couldn't tell the difference
between tube and transistor. Thats why reviews in stereo magazines are
filled with charts and graphs from machines, not listeners perseptions.
For the most part, the big bang for the buck in sound is in speakers. They
have the most impact on what you perceive. Take about half the money you
have to spend and take lots of time shopping speakers. Then find an amp to
drive them, along with the other components. And the honest reviews of CD
players I've read have said pretty much the same thing - most CD players
are remarkably similar in sound quality, so buy by the features you want.
For the record, I was at one time a somewhat amateur audio engineer, and I
am a choral singer (the music for the test was the amazing soundtrack for
the movie "Glory"). Point being, I'm not the average, not that I am any
better. I found the difference between the two much smaller than I thought
they would be. Nonetheless, I could tell which was the more expensive
system when chills ran down my neck.
James Linn
My opinions are MINE,MINE,MINE!!!
Pete Spomer
Actually there is a difference between tube and silicon audio signals.
It's measurable, although I don't know how hear-able it is. Both will
produce some level of harmonic distortion, and tubes tend to produce
even harmonics, while silicon tends to produce odd harmonics. People
perceive even harmonics as less irritating than odd ones; listen to a
1kHz square wave and a 1kHz sine wave to see what I mean. Maybe the
argument that tubes are better really means that their distortion is
less irritating to those who can hear it.
Pete
--
The opinions expressed here are not those of anyone, including myself.
No gerbils were harmed in the making of this message. Your mileage may
vary.
Michael D. Painter
Carl Fink <ca...@panix.com> wrote in article
<lcjJygen...@panix.com>...
> In all actual tests I'm aware of (two) audiophiles CAN'T TELL THE
> DIFFERENCE between tube and transistor sound.
>
> "There's no difference, but nevertheless I like the expensive one."
>
> The appeal is obviously the same as wearing flashy jewelry --
> conspicuous consumption.
I've always heard the "analog is better" argument. I would tend to agree
that in a real double blind you could not tell the difference. (Note I said
you, I KNOW I couldn't<G>). In any event this post shows it would be some
effect the tube had, since a digital object is the starting point.
Pete Spomer
Bob Beck wrote:
> >In addition, the antiquated air-traffic computers functioning
> >(nominally) at many centers still require vacuum tubes. These tubes are
> >so hard to come by that the FAA imports a number of them from Hungary.
>
> In 1980 or '81 a fighter jet (probably as antiquated as vacuum tubes)
> crashed at Uplands Air Base in Ottawa. Among other things, the
> investigation revealed that the control tower equipment used tubes --
> which the armed farces been buying from, yes, the Soviet Union. The
> military of a NATO country, in the nation's capital no less, at a time
> when the Cold War was heating up again... many observers claimed to be
> shocked and appalled, but as a budding peacenik I was greatly amused.
I recall reading a discussion about tubes used in many military
applications. The theory was that tubes have better survivability
against EMP than silicon, so they would be logical to use for some
things. Anybody remember anything more specific about this?
Brett Coon
> In article <504mup$t...@news.service.uci.edu>, jcro...@rigel.oac.uci.edu
> says...
> >In article <AE4AA4E3...@ehrice.his.com>,
> >Edward Rice <ehr...@his.com> wrote:
> >
> >>I saw some Monster (brand) cable in a store the other day, complete with
> >>the arrows showing intended direction of signal flow. I asked what
> >>possible difference this could possibly make -- this was cable, without
> >>even connectors. I was told, of course, "The signal just goes better in
> >>that direction."
> (...)
> >The Monster cable is polarized so that electrons enjoy the least resistance
> >and thus less loss of signal. Monster has been around for many years and is
> >an innovator in cableing. Traitional speaker cable is no different than lamp
> >wire.
> As for audio frequencies going better in one direction on a conductor
> than the other, this is absolute crap.
The explanation I heard (and believe) is that if the cable is
shielded, the shield is only connected to the plug ground on one
end. You want this end to be the end connected to the
amp/receiver, since it most likely to be well grounded.
The other explanations, such as polarization, phase of moon, etc,
are lunacy.
There is a good audio FAQ available online somewhere (check the
audio newsgroups) that has a pretty good ratio of fact to
fiction.
Some of the ridiculous claims made by audiophiles are truly
classic. Some people claim they can _hear_ the delay introduced
by having mismatched speaker wire lengths.
-Brett
Keith M. Ellis
Ed Westemeier (ed.wes...@sdrc.com) spake thusly:
: I believe you can avoid an out-of-phase signal to the speakers by
: simply using the exact same length of wire from the amplifier to
: each speaker.
Before I or anybody else tries to correct you on this, I think you should
be given an opportunity to more fully say what you mean. What do you
think "phase" means? What do you think differing wire lengths does?
-Keith
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Tom Watson
In article <AE4AA4E3...@ehrice.his.com>, ehr...@his.com (Edward
Rice) wrote:
<<<deletia about bogus science>>>
>
> I saw some Monster (brand) cable in a store the other day, complete with
> the arrows showing intended direction of signal flow. I asked what
> possible difference this could possibly make -- this was cable, without
> even connectors. I was told, of course, "The signal just goes better in
> that direction."
>
The really sad part about all of this is that one vendor put the arrows on
the cable, and claimed it was better. Sales increased because there are
fools everywhere. Other vendors just started putting arrows on cables
just to get back market share. The other vendors knew better, but they
were just making "idiot" customers happy.
Usually the "arrow" marking was followed by a price increase (better
cable, you know) but the only added cost was the ink used in the marking
operation.
Some of this reminds me of my dog I had in my "youth". We would serve him
hot food, and when it was too hot to eat, he wanted it cooled down. Now
humans unserstand cause and effect, so if it were something like hot soup,
we would blow on it to cool it down (makes sense). My dog was different.
The first time he encountered the hot food, he barked at it, went back and
sniffed at the food. After repeating this operation a few times (he was
probably hungry, and wanted to eat!), the food did cool down. The second
time he encountered hot food, he repeated the process, and it worked (why
not, it really did). Since this method of cooling down his food worked so
well, he continued the operation till his dying day (about 20 years ago
now).
The cause/effect for the "stereophile crowd" usualy is I paid good money,
it must sound better..... and
If you want to know, I read it in <insert title here> they must know what
they are doing.
All bogus!!
Moral of the story:
Use zip cord, works as well as anything, and is MUCH cheaper!!
--
Tom Watson
t...@3do.com (Home: t...@johana.com)
Clark Geisler
I remember reading a study of this in Stereo Review a few years ago. They
found that there were real, audible differences between tube and
transistor amps working into certain speakers. The explanation: a tube
amp has quite a bit higher output impedance than a transistor amp, and
this impedance is in the same order of magnitude as the speaker's input
impedance. For speakers with a fairly flat impedance vs. frequency
characteristic, this doesn't matter. But for those with really bumpy
impedance vs. freq. curves, the tube amp delivers less power in the
peaks, more in the dips, creating "tube sound".
The article remarked that "tube sound" could be approximated with these
speakers by hooking them up to a transistor amp with *thin* (i.e. higher
impedance) speaker wire!
---
Clark Geisler, Test Engineer
Nortel, Broadband Networks, Lentronics division
Burnaby, BC, Canada
mailto:Clark_...@nortel-nsm.com ESN: 764-8615
Rick The Notes Guy Dickinson
Sharing the wisdom of the ages with those of us reading
>Rick The Notes Guy Dickinson wrote:
>>
>> Sharing the wisdom of the ages with those of us reading
>> alt.folklore.urban, jcro...@rigel.oac.uci.edu (Jeremy Michael
>> Crosbie) wrote:
>>
>> >In article <AE4AA4E3...@ehrice.his.com>,
>> >Edward Rice <ehr...@his.com> wrote:
>>
>> >>I saw some Monster (brand) cable in a store the other day, complete with
>> >>the arrows showing intended direction of signal flow. I asked what
>> >>possible difference this could possibly make -- this was cable, without
>> >>even connectors. I was told, of course, "The signal just goes better in
>> >>that direction."
>>
>> <snip>
>>
>> >The Monster cable is polarized so that electrons enjoy the least resistance
>> >and thus less loss of signal. Monster has been around for many years and is
>> >an innovator in cableing. Traitional speaker cable is no different than lamp
>> >wire.
>>
>> "Monster" cable, or almost any other speaker wire, has polarization
>> markings for one, and only one, reason: To allow the installer to
>> insure that the left and right speaker channels are wired "in phase".
>>
>> [more snip]
>Wrong, wrong, wrong. So many errors. Where to start?
>Speakers become out of phase if you mix up the positive and negative wires.
>Attaching speaker wire "the wrong way" is meaningless.
I am not sure why you say "Wrong, wrong, wrong." in response to *my*
post, as I was making, essentially, the exact same point you just
made, specifically, that mixing up the "positive" and "negative" wires
on one of a set of two speakers will result in the speakers being "out
of phase". Unless, of course, you were responding to Edward Rice's
comments, in which case it would have been nice if you had made that
clear in your response.
On a pedantically related note, I would like to point out that,
although technically incorrect, the "positive" and "negative"
apellations do serve admirably well as easily-remembered reference
designations for the individual conductors, and have been historically
used by both speaker and amplifier manufacturers. Thus, I have used
them, myself, and shall refrain from further comment upon your use of
those particular designations.
>"Directional" cable, with an arrow showing which way to connect it, applies
>only to interconnects, not to speaker wire. Interconnects connect different
>audio components together, such as a CD player and an amplifier, or a
>pre-amp to an amp. Typically, they are terminated with RCA plugs.
>Some interconnects are shielded, which means the signal carrying wires
>are surrounded by one or more layers of metal (foil and/or "braid")
>which protects the signal from errant electrical fields. The shield
>is grounded to the plug at one or both ends.
>And finally we arrive at directional cables. A direction cable is an
>interconnect in which the shield is grounded to only one plug--not the
>other. I've heard different theories on whether you should ground to
>the origin of the signal or its destination, but I believe the orthodox
>view is to ground to the origin. That way, the destination receives
>the signal free from any noise in the ground of the origin component.
I was unaware that the designation "Monster" cable referred to
anything other than one particular brand of speaker wire,
characterized by their use of large guage wire with conductors
comprised of braided, rather than twisted, strands. However, if the
"Monster" company also makes "RCA cables" for interconnection of audio
components, it is not surprising to hear that they include features
designed to eliminate ground loops.
Having been (at one point, many moons ago) an Automotive Audio
Installation Technician (car stereo installer), I am quite familiar
with the potential for signal interference presented by ground loops.
Having also had a good deal of formal and informal training and
experience in electronics, I feel that I am also qualified to provide
technical expanations of ground loops, and the means used to eliminate
them.
In cases where amplifiers would be mounted (and grounded) non-adjacent
to the stereo equipment, it was quite common to encounter interference
due to ground loop problems, caused by differing "ground potentials"
at diffrerent locations in the car (a car frame is not a perfect
conductor). In those cases, I would install a "Ground Loop Isolator"
at the inputs to the amplifier to eliminate the ground loop.
The simplest, and least effective, were nothing more than a pair RCA
jacks with only the center conductors wired to a pair of RCA plugs.
Because they broke the ground loop, interference was reduced or
eliminated in most cases. However, the output signal of the stereo
and the input signal of the amp are now referenced to different
"ground" levels, and the cable discontinuity can cause impedance
mismatches. Thus, such "single-ended" isolation was not always
effective in fully eliminating interference.
In those cases, I would install a "balanced" ground loop isolator,
which essentially consisted of a pair of 1:1 audio transformers with
RCA connectors on both the inputs and outputs. These provided
isolation, as well as allowing the "input" and "output" signals to be
referenced to different "ground" potentials. Also, they provided
proper impedance matching. As such, they were more effective at
eliminating interference than the simpler, single-ended ground loop
isolators.
Ground loop isolators are most effective when used at the "receiving"
end, allowing the signal source's ground to be connected to the cable
shield over the majority of the cable length. This is especially true
of single-ended GLIs, such as those you have described as being
manufactured by "Monster". Thus, "directional" markings, as you have
pointed out, do make sense in those circumstances.
>So *that's* why some high-end cable products, including some Monster cable,
>has arrows on it to indicate which way to attach the cable. "Polarization,"
>"electron flow," and the like have nothing to do with it. Conceivably
>speaker wire could be shielded, but I haven't seen such a product.
The voltage levels present on the speaker wires is typically much
larger (by several orders of magnitude) than the voltage levels
present on the interconnect cables. Thus, while a given "noise" level
will greatly interfere with the low-level signals on an interconnect
cable, they will have comparatively little effect on the signals on
the speaker wires. Signal-to-noise is a ratio -- a high signal level
can be equated to relative immunity to low-level noise. Thus, it
makes sense to shield interconnect wires, but there is little or no
reason to shield speaker wires, unless the electrical "noise" levels
are extremely high.
>For more information, and even wackier theories about audio equipment, check
>out rec.audio.high-end.
>Malcolm "writing this with my green pen" Austin
- Rick "The techno-pedant" Dickinson
Michael David Jones
>Edward Rice <ehr...@his.com> wrote:
>>I saw some Monster (brand) cable in a store the other day, complete with
>>the arrows showing intended direction of signal flow. I asked what
>>possible difference this could possibly make -- this was cable, without
>>even connectors. I was told, of course, "The signal just goes better in
>>that direction."
>The Monster cable is polarized so that electrons enjoy the least resistance
>and thus less loss of signal. Monster has been around for many years and is
>an innovator in cableing. Traitional speaker cable is no different than lamp
>wire.
Well, this is at least *amusingly* incorrect.
The cable is market for *polarity*, not polarization. Polarity refers
to which speaker terminal the + amplifier terminal is connected to.
There's no doubt that connecting a pair of speakers out of phase with
each other mangles the sound, and some people think that it makes a
difference which way an *individual* speaker is connected ("absolute
phase"), but the jury's still out on that.
Oh, and a lot of people *use* lamp wire ("zip cord") for speaker
cable, but there's a lot of stuff sold as speaker cable at a
reasonable price (less than Monster Cable) that's disctinctly better
than zip cord.
Those arrows on the Monster Cable aren't there to affect the flow of
*electrons*, they're there to affect the flow of *dollars*.
Mike Jones | jon...@rpi.edu
Imminent Death of the Net Predicted. GIFs at 11.
- Carl Rigney
Rudeboy
[James Linn]
>[....] Point being, I'm not the average, not that I am any
>better. [....]
Would that not make you, then, *worse* than average?
Humbly yours,
Rudeboy
Ed Westemeier
> "Monster" cable, or almost any other speaker wire, has polarization
> markings for one, and only one, reason: To allow the installer to
> insure that the left and right speaker channels are wired "in phase".
I believe you can avoid an out-of-phase signal to the speakers by
simply using the exact same length of wire from the amplifier to
each speaker.
> It would be interesting to perform side-by-side comparisons of the
> inductance per meter of "Monster" cable and standard speaker cable of
> the same guage.
I seem to recall this being done in a technical article by Julian Hirsch
back in the late 70s in _Stereo Review_ magazine.
His measurements could find no physical reason for different signal
quality between Monster cable and ordinary lamp cord ("zip cord").
They also used a panel of audiophiles in a blind test for an A-B
comparison of a high quality system set up to use both types of
speaker wire. No significant difference noted, as I remember it.
The consensus of the editors was that they recommended you use zip
cord. Any perceived advantage to Monster cable was clearly a placebo
effect.
===============================
Ed Westemeier
==================================
Larry Suter
t...@3do.com (Tom Watson) writes:
>The first time he encountered the hot food, he barked at it, went back
>and sniffed at the food. After repeating this operation a few times
>(he was probably hungry, and wanted to eat!), the food did cool down.
>The second time he encountered hot food, he repeated the process, and
>it worked (why not, it really did). Since this method of cooling down
>his food worked so well, he continued the operation till his dying day
>(about 20 years ago now).
Sounds like one of my dogs. Once she was at the back door, and
was apparantly rather ill as she started to dry heave. None of
us wanted her chuck wagon all over the carpet, so I lept up to
let her out. She made the connection between sickness and being
let out when she wanted, so to this day whenever she wants the
back door opened she stands by it and pretends to throw up.
Works EVERY time.
--
La Yonderboy Mas Fina..!!
Edward Rice
In article <1996Aug27.1...@hpal02.isd4.tafensw.edu.au>,
Roger....@tafensw.edu.au (Roger Douglas) wrote:
> This reminds me of the lengthy troll on one of the newsgroups (possibly
> alt.folklore.urban) last year about speaker cables with arrows on them
to make
> sure you connected them the right way round "because the electrons
flowed
> better one way than the other".
Ahah. I just got a reply from Monster Cable, and it makes sense, I think:
>>>The reason for the arrows is because the cable is grounded
on one end. the reason for that is so interference wont
travel the length of the cable if it isn't connected on the
other end. the arrow should be pointing away from the
source...
So, you ground your cable to the signal source unit, don't connect the unit
which is receiving the signal to that signal ground. If noise is generated
along the cable (say, by a passing elevator), it doesn't get to the unit
that was receiving the signal. And the arrows are just a reminder of which
cable-end you grounded to the connector.
Just Curious
Rod Stites wrote:
>
> snopes wrote:
>
> > Lunacy or not, vacuum tubes aren't going away any time soon: They make up
> > at least 25% of the high-end audio market and were among the most popular
> > items at the last two Consumer Electronic Shows in Las Vegas, Brunner says.
>
> (nominally) at many centers still require vacuum tubes. These tubes are
> so hard to come by that the FAA imports a number of them from Hungary.
Yes. Vacuum tubes are also quite popular in the illegal Citizen's
Band radio community. Many illicit linear RF amplifiers use vacuum
tubes, and some retail in the CB black market for as much as 300 USD
per copy. A 'matched pair' of linear amp tubes can sell for as much
as 1000 USD.
Of course, I have no first-hand knowledge of any illegal radio
communications - I picked this up from a 'friend.'
Just Curious
Lance Olkovick
>Works EVERY time.
My aunt had a cat that rang the door bell to get into the house.
My theory: cat was sitting on railing swatting at moths when she hit
the button, and the door opened. Next night, swatting at moths, door
opens. Every night thereafter, pretends to swat at moths, and door
opens.
A one trick pony, though: never could get the hang of a can opener.
--
lance
Jan Eric Andersson
ehr...@his.com (Edward Rice) wrote:
>I saw some Monster (brand) cable in a store the other day, complete with
>the arrows showing intended direction of signal flow. I asked what
>possible difference this could possibly make -- this was cable, without
>even connectors. I was told, of course, "The signal just goes better in
>that direction."
I was in a music store once, and the salesman tried to sell me some
gold-plated MIDI cables (I'm a musician), claiming that they would
make my synthesizers sound better.
I just laughed...
(For those not familiar with MIDI, it's a digital interface between
electronic musical instruments. The only thing transmitted over MIDI
cables is data about which note to play, patch changes and so on. The
synthesizer recieving the signal than plays the sound, and so a gold
plated cable would not make any difference)
Ok, it's not a UL, but I just had to comment...
--
Jan Eric Andersson [E-Mail: jan...@login.eunet.no]
Oslo, Norway [http://login.eunet.no/~janeand]
robert zubek
Jan Eric Andersson wrote:
> I was in a music store once, and the salesman tried to sell me some
> gold-plated MIDI cables (I'm a musician), claiming that they would
> make my synthesizers sound better.
>
> I just laughed...
similar story here - a local computer store sells gold-plated computer cabling:
parallel, serial, scsi, and other cabling for *digital* signals, for $20+ a piece!
and the saddest part is - people are buying them!
rz
Cam Mayor
>I recall reading a discussion about tubes used in many military
>applications. The theory was that tubes have better survivability
>against EMP than silicon, so they would be logical to use for some
>things. Anybody remember anything more specific about this?
Also, for EMP, you should be using core memory. Lesse, you can fit about
2kBytes into about a 3x3x3 2 pound cube. That gets pretty heavy if you
have to run that virus marketed as Windows 95.
cam
Jim Bready
In article <507s2l$e...@bcrkh13.bnr.ca>, Clark Geisler
<Clark_...@nortel-nsm.com> writes
>I remember reading a study of this in Stereo Review a few years ago. They
>found that there were real, audible differences between tube and
>transistor amps working into certain speakers.
Hmm. I remember a blind amplifier comparison test in Stereo Review
maybe seven years ago in which neither the skeptics nor true believers
(their term for golden ears audiophiles) could tell the difference
between cheap and expensive amps. The test included at least one tube
amp, a Conrad Johnson I think. Each listener was given an A-B-X switch.
A and B were different amps, X was either A or B and all the listener
had to do was determine whether X was A or B. They went to great
lengths to ensure the rest of the stereo the amps were patched into was
of unimpeachable quality so even tiny nuances in the sound would be
detectable. In the end, nobody could tell the difference between a
Radio Shack $129 receiver and esoteric high end amps, or between any of
the amps for that matter.
My experience matches theirs. Unless there's lots of distortion added,
amps just amplify. Transducers (phono cartridges, speakers, tape heads)
have huge audible differences, but most electronics do a pretty good job
of being straight wires.
--
Jim Bready
wtg
> My experience matches theirs. Unless there's lots of distortion added,
> amps just amplify. Transducers (phono cartridges, speakers, tape heads)
> have huge audible differences, but most electronics do a pretty good job
> of being straight wires.
This is simply false. Amplifiers sound different. Cables sound
different. Headshells that you mount cartridges in (for playing those
obsolete vinyl things) sound different. Turntables and tonearms (for
playing those obsolete vinyl things) sound very very different. *Better*
is a subjective issue and someone who has spent a lot of money on some
equipment may well argue that the difference is that their hifi sounds
better. *But* the difference is there.
Many years ago I was into serious hifi and shared the affliction with
several friends. We used to visit each other, bring records, and listen
to our different systems. We also used to swap components (amplifiers,
cables, cartridges, turntables....) and compare them. Changing *any*
component made a discernible difference to the sound. *Better* was where
the interesting part of the evening came in. As a result of these
evenings I had to get rid of my entire system and buy new equipment
because I hated the lousy sound *I now realised I had*. As in my
favourite recordings sounded better on someone elses hifi than on mine
(to the point where I couldn't play them at home anymore.) (And before
anyone else jumps in - yes *every single component* of my system sounded
worse (or not better over all) in any combination) (that I could keep).
My new system was /audiophile/ within a very limited budget
(compromises) so I still tinkered with the sound. I had a Rega Planar 3
turntable which came with a tonearm (this is the _old_ Rega 3) and I
used to swap the headshell that came fitted with the tonearm for a
magnesium-alloy headshell produced by a (wow) magnesium-alloy headshell
company. They sounded different. When I got fed up with the
*compromise/budget/* sound of my system I'd listen to a different
*compromise/budget* sound. On balance the Rega original sounded better,
but a change is nice. (Yes, I had to unbolt the cartridge from headshell
A, bolt it into headhell B and (of course) adjust the tracking geometry
and BTW there were probably special bolts as well...)
___
William T Goodall
w...@wtgab.demon.co.uk
Edward Rice
In article <00001E58...@nashville.com>,
hal.mot...@nashville.com (Hal Mothershed) wrote:
> At the local K-Mart, there's a sign at the cash register warning
customers
> not to place tapes, credit cards, _film_, or _CDs_ on the pad that
> demagnetizes the security tags. Tapes and credit cards, OK, but film
and
> CDs?
The new film has a mag strip to record frame arrangement and exposure and
stuff like that.
The CD concern sounds silly, unless the sensor produces heat if something
sits on it for a while. Or might induce a heating effect in a foil-heavy
package for a CD, maybe.
Jan Eric Andersson
br...@transmeta.com (Brett Coon) wrote:
>The explanation I heard (and believe) is that if the cable is
>shielded, the shield is only connected to the plug ground on one
>end. You want this end to be the end connected to the
>amp/receiver, since it most likely to be well grounded.
This doesn't apply to speaker cables, only input signals. The reason
is to eliminate a graound loop, which tends to pick up hum from the
mains.
>The other explanations, such as polarization, phase of moon, etc,
>are lunacy.
Yup!
>Some of the ridiculous claims made by audiophiles are truly
>classic. Some people claim they can _hear_ the delay introduced
>by having mismatched speaker wire lengths.
Those lengths would have to be *really* mismatched, given the speed of
electrons traveling through a copper wire!
If only audiophiles would listen to the *music* rather than the
*reproduction*, they'd save a lot of money...:-)
Jan Eric Andersson
Malcolm Austin <ma...@ms.com> wrote:
>Some interconnects are shielded, which means the signal carrying wires
*All* of them are shielded! If not, you'd really have a noisy system!
>other. I've heard different theories on whether you should ground to
>the origin of the signal or its destination, but I believe the orthodox
>view is to ground to the origin. That way, the destination receives
The important thing is to have a common grounding point for all
components and connections in the system.
Jan Eric Andersson
"Michael D. Painter" <mpai...@maxinet.com> wrote:
>I've always heard the "analog is better" argument. I would tend to agree
>that in a real double blind you could not tell the difference. (Note I said
>you, I KNOW I couldn't<G>). In any event this post shows it would be some
Exactly!
The important thing how well the equipment is designed and the quality
of the components. Whether the amp/whatever uses tube or transistor
technology is of secondary importance. A well designed and built tube
amp is better then a bad transistor amp, and vice versa.
Tube amps do have an advantage: if you drive them hard enough to
distort, they distort harmonically, which sounds a lot more pleasant
than the clipping of a transistor amp. On the other hand, tube amps
are very inefficient: they use a lot of power to produce a given
output.
One thing that should be noted, though: No matter how good a system
one has, one is limited by the source signal. I'm a musician, and I've
been to several studios - and I've never seen a mixer with tubes... So
the music one listens to has been recorded on transistorized
equipment, which should negate any advantage with a tube stereo amp...
I guess any more discussion of this belongs in rec.audio.wherever...
Lance Clarke
...and as the Sun shown brightly on that new day,
robert zubek stepped forth and bestowed upon us:
Every once in a while, my video (monitor on computer) will get a bit
flakey. Generally I need to wiggle the monitor connector and it's fine.
Sometimes I need to reseat the video board. This also happens occasionally
on boot up, where I get a H/D Controller failure message and I have to
reseat my IDE controller.
Now I've >>ASSUMED<< this was caused by oxidation over time on the
connections. I've also assumed that, since gold doesn't oxidize, gold
plated connectors would take care of the problem.
Any thoughts?
____________________________________________________________________
Lance Clarke | And remember: There's always a lesson to be
Clarke Legal Services | learned from stupidity. Unfortunately, it's
American Red Cross | always the same lesson: Don't Be Stupid.
Wilmot Fire Dept. | -Imp
N9YVK | http://www.concentric.net/~clarke
ANDREW GRYGUS
In <3229bed9...@news.concentric.net> cla...@concentric.net (Lance
Clarke) writes:
>>similar story here - a local computer store sells gold-plated
computer cabling:
>>parallel, serial, scsi, and other cabling for *digital* signals, for
$20+ a piece!
>>
>>and the saddest part is - people are buying them!
>
>Every once in a while, my video (monitor on computer) will get a bit
>flakey. Generally I need to wiggle the monitor connector and it's
fine.
>Sometimes I need to reseat the video board. This also happens
occasionally
>on boot up, where I get a H/D Controller failure message and I have to
>reseat my IDE controller.
>
>Now I've >>ASSUMED<< this was caused by oxidation over time on the
>connections. I've also assumed that, since gold doesn't oxidize, gold
>plated connectors would take care of the problem.
That is true, but only if >>both sides<< of the connection are gold
plated, otherwise you could make the situation worse. This has become
a problem with SIMMs, and purchasers are advised to buy gold plated
contacts for gold plated sockets, and tined contacts for tined sockets.
In practice, this is not much of a problem here in Southern California,
except right on the coast, as the bimetal corrosion process requires
moisture in the air to proceed at a reasonable rate.
Andrew Grygus - California Republic
--------------------------------------
Resist Microsoft!
Pete Olson
Lance Clarke (cla...@concentric.net) wrote:
: Every once in a while, my video (monitor on computer) will get a bit
: flakey. Generally I need to wiggle the monitor connector and it's fine.
: Sometimes I need to reseat the video board. This also happens occasionally
: on boot up, where I get a H/D Controller failure message and I have to
: reseat my IDE controller.
: Now I've >>ASSUMED<< this was caused by oxidation over time on the
: connections. I've also assumed that, since gold doesn't oxidize, gold
: plated connectors would take care of the problem.
: Any thoughts?
You are more likely to have problems due to mismatched metals at
contact points than from having the same non-gold metal on both sides
of a joint. There was a stink about this concerning simm contacts a
while ago, with mismatched tin and gold sometimes leading to contacts
that got screwy over time. Tin to tin was fine, gold to gold was
fine, but tin to gold left you vulnerable to contact problems down the
road.
The solution? Clean it every now and then, or if absolutely error
free operation is critical to your needs, make damn sure you match the
metal types.
Rich Clancey
It doesn't matter which end of the shielding is grounded unless
you're getting massive leakage, in which case you have a different
problem.
Most people own speakers that are orders of magnitude too
large for the rooms they use em in. The audio business is worse than
the computer business for selling people on non-existing "benefits",
and the customers seem willing to pay to underwrite their own
stupidity.
By the way, speaker wire type cabling is multi-stranded to
take advantage of the "skin effect" (electrons travel on the outside
of a wire because they repel each other) whereas lamp wire for higher
voltages is one strand.
Jim Bready
In article <3228FA...@wtgab.demon.co.uk>, wtg
<w...@wtgab.demon.co.uk> writes
>
>This is simply false. Amplifiers sound different. Cables sound
>different. Headshells that you mount cartridges in (for playing those
>obsolete vinyl things) sound different. Turntables and tonearms (for
>playing those obsolete vinyl things) sound very very different. *Better*
>is a subjective issue and someone who has spent a lot of money on some
>equipment may well argue that the difference is that their hifi sounds
>better. *But* the difference is there.
I agree on transducers - turntables and tonearms are after all just the
mechanism for getting the cartridge and stylus to the record, and
therefore they can have an effect. I have noticed big differences
between tonearms with the same cartridge, and a turntable can of course
introduce bearing, motor, resonance or, God forbid, rim drive noise.
Amps, however, are just amps. I'm not stating anything new here. The
test was done, nobody could tell the difference between different brands
of amps. And I'm not talking about specs, I'm talking about real world
listening tests. Nobody, neither the skeptics who say all amps sound
alike nor the true believers who swear they can hear any change in
equipment, could tell the difference. If I'd read that article sooner I
could have saved a lot of money! If you *want* the amplifier to change
the sound - add "coloration" or "tonality" or "warmth" in the
conveniently vague language of the audiophile magazines - then that's
another matter altogether. The old pre-CBS Fender Twin Reverbs were
famous for their sound when driven to distortion, but I'm assuming
that's not what you're talking about.
>I had a Rega Planar 3
No kidding? I almost bought one of those once. I never believed their
line that the glass platter had any real advantage, but it was an
especially easy turntable to swap tonearms on. I was designing my own
low moment of inertia/low friction arm at the time. In the end I
couldn't get the delrin parts made (the machine shop said they broke
half a dozen #60 drill bits before giving up), so I bought a Denon DP62L
with a servo driven pivoted arm. Great turntable, even greater arm.
Huge difference in sound too, all for the better to my ear. However,
there was no difference in sound when I switched from a cheap 15w/ch
Sony amp to a Hafler preamp/amp combo.
--
Jim Bready
Joseph Cote
In <Dx2n3...@world.std.com> r...@world.std.com (Rich Clancey) writes:
>
>
> By the way, speaker wire type cabling is multi-stranded to
>take advantage of the "skin effect" (electrons travel on the outside
>of a wire because they repel each other) whereas lamp wire for higher
>voltages is one strand.
Actually, lamp wire is certainly stranded too. Flexibility, you know.
As for skin effect.... a true physical phenominon, but completely
negligable at frequencies less than MHz range.
Robert
In article <32287D...@nwu.edu>, rob...@nwu.edu says...
>similar story here - a local computer store sells gold-plated computer cabl
>ing:
>parallel, serial, scsi, and other cabling for *digital* signals, for $20+ a
> piece!
>
>and the saddest part is - people are buying them!
>
>rz
Well actually I prefer gold for both digital and analog signals. Gold makes a
slightly better choice as it has better conductivity than copper. Its not
enough of a better conductor for me to spend $20 on it tho.
Robert "I need a life" Alston
David Vanecek
Robert (Rom...@trader.com) wrote:
: In article <32287D...@nwu.edu>, rob...@nwu.edu says...
Ditto. It also is absolutely corrosion proof.
D Vanecek
--
A life? What's that? Do people have them?
Jeremy Erwin
In article <3225FB...@i-link.net>,
Rod Stites <RodS...@i-link.net> wrote:
>snopes wrote:
>
>> Lunacy or not, vacuum tubes aren't going away any time soon: They make up
>> at least 25% of the high-end audio market and were among the most popular
>> items at the last two Consumer Electronic Shows in Las Vegas, Brunner says.
>
>In addition, the antiquated air-traffic computers functioning
>(nominally) at many centers still require vacuum tubes. These tubes are
>so hard to come by that the FAA imports a number of them from Hungary.
Let's face it...
If an audiophile can spend thousands of dollars of his own money to buy
tube equipment, thus reducing listener fatigue, increasing tonality in
his audio system, and paying tribute to any number of crackpot ideas
about sound...
Why shouldn't the FAA, with millions of dollars to waste, spend its money
on antiquated tube equipment to reduce the fatigue of overworked Air
Traffic Controllers. Plus, having planes "disappear" from the computers
every so often, reduces the banality of everyday existance, and keeps the
controllers from getting bored.
Jeremy
"It may be thirty years old, but damn it, it WORKS... sometimes"
Erwin
--
Jeremy Erwin
<jer...@college.antioch.edu>
Paul Walukewicz
In <Dx2n3...@world.std.com>, r...@world.std.com (Rich Clancey) writes:
> It doesn't matter which end of the shielding is grounded unless
>you're getting massive leakage, in which case you have a different
>problem.
One thing that was always emphasized during my time as a ham radio enthusiast
and as an electronics technician in the Army was that proper grounding technique
required that all grounds be connected to a common point, usually the "earth ground".
This lesson is usually punctuated by at least one "hair-raising" incident, after which
you religiously check the ground cables before connecting the power cables.
Extending this rule to shielded cables would require that all shields be connected to
a common chassis, perhaps the tuner-amplifier? Of course, then you would pound a
10-foot copper rod through your living room floor for a proper earth ground!
> Most people own speakers that are orders of magnitude too
>large for the rooms they use em in. The audio business is worse than
>the computer business for selling people on non-existing "benefits",
>and the customers seem willing to pay to underwrite their own
>stupidity.
>
> By the way, speaker wire type cabling is multi-stranded to
>take advantage of the "skin effect" (electrons travel on the outside
>of a wire because they repel each other) whereas lamp wire for higher
>voltages is one strand.
Actually, the "skin effect" is seen at microwave frequencies. This is
why a hollow pipe is used to connect a microwave transmitter to its antenna.
This maximizes the conducting area (outside surface) and eliminates the unused
inner material.
Paul
pau...@colum.mindspring.com
Stefan Kapusniak
In message <3229bed9...@news.concentric.net>
cla...@concentric.net (Lance Clarke) writes:
> Every once in a while, my video (monitor on computer) will get a bit
> flakey. Generally I need to wiggle the monitor connector and it's fine.
> Sometimes I need to reseat the video board. This also happens occasionally
> on boot up, where I get a H/D Controller failure message and I have to
> reseat my IDE controller.
> Now I've >>ASSUMED<< this was caused by oxidation over time on the
> connections. I've also assumed that, since gold doesn't oxidize, gold
> plated connectors would take care of the problem.
> Any thoughts?
Don't be silly, it's just that any man-made device needs
regular applications of ritual magic to keep it functioning
correctly.
The more mission critical the device the more ritual magic
is required, and the more likely that any expensive professional
you've get in to look at when it goes wrong will not be able
to duplicate the problem.
Why do you think people who are able to sucessfully perform
these rituals are called wizards or gurus?
--
Kapusniak, Stefan M <--[22]--------------- yet another turing test failure
"Wow. You're a 17-year-old version of me." -- Andrew S. "Gurk" Damick
Geoffrey Welsh
(e-mailed and posted to alt.folklore.computers)
wtg <w...@wtgab.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>This is simply false. Amplifiers sound different. Cables sound
>different. Headshells that you mount cartridges in (for playing those
>obsolete vinyl things) sound different. Turntables and tonearms (for
>playing those obsolete vinyl things) sound very very different. *Better*
>is a subjective issue and someone who has spent a lot of money on some
>equipment may well argue that the difference is that their hifi sounds
>better. *But* the difference is there.
You missed Jim Bready's point entirely, which is that a real
difference need not be in the electronics.
Assuming that the test that he cited did in fact happen and is not
merely unfounded folklore, what it would illustrate is that even
people who hear a very clear difference when they know that something
has changed can't always identify that difference when they're
isolated from that knowledge. Only a blind test can remove 'the human
factor' from the perception of difference; in all of your fiddling,
you _knew_ and _expected_ a difference...
--
Geoffrey Welsh, MIS Co-ordinator, InSystems Technologies (gwe...@insystems.com)
At home: xenitec.on.ca!zswamp!geoff; Temporary: crs...@inforamp.net
ANYONE WHO SENDS ADVERTISING TO ANY OF THESE ADDRESSES MAY RECEIVE,
FREE OF CHARGE, A DAILY COPY OF WHATEVER LARGE FILES I CAN FIND...
ANDREW GRYGUS
In <50epko$e...@college.antioch.edu> jer...@college.antioch.edu (Jeremy
Erwin) writes:
>
>Let's face it...
>If an audiophile can spend thousands of dollars of his own money to
buy
>tube equipment, thus reducing listener fatigue, increasing tonality in
>his audio system, and paying tribute to any number of crackpot ideas
>about sound...
>Why shouldn't the FAA, with millions of dollars to waste, spend its
money
>on antiquated tube equipment to reduce the fatigue of overworked Air
>Traffic Controllers. Plus, having planes "disappear" from the
computers
>every so often, reduces the banality of everyday existance, and keeps
the
>controllers from getting bored.
I take it you are volunteering to beta test the new all Microsoft air
traffic control system? That's why they still use tubes, lack of beta
testers, so, lets get on with th
[GENERAL PROTECTION FALT ]
[From process COLISION.DLL]
[Please reboot system ]
Andrew Grygus - California Republic
-------------------------------------
Resist Microsoft!
ANDREW GRYGUS
In <50f1f1$b...@news.inforamp.net> crs...@inforamp.net (Geoffrey Welsh)
writes:
>Assuming that the test that he cited did in fact happen and is not
>merely unfounded folklore, what it would illustrate is that even
>people who hear a very clear difference when they know that something
>has changed can't always identify that difference when they're
>isolated from that knowledge. Only a blind test can remove 'the human
>factor' from the perception of difference; in all of your fiddling,
>you _knew_ and _expected_ a difference...
The problem is much more difficult than that. With human interactions,
it is very possible to sense no particular difference in an A/B test,
but to find that one system fatigues you over time, and the other doesn
not. Not only in sound, but in many other things as well.
Floyd Davidson
mma...@uiuc.edu wrote:
>In article <322742...@apple.com>, Pete Spomer <spo...@apple.com> wrote:
>>Actually there is a difference between tube and silicon audio signals.
>>It's measurable, although I don't know how hear-able it is. Both will
>>produce some level of harmonic distortion, and tubes tend to produce
>>even harmonics, while silicon tends to produce odd harmonics. People
>>perceive even harmonics as less irritating than odd ones; listen to a
>>1kHz square wave and a 1kHz sine wave to see what I mean. Maybe the
>>argument that tubes are better really means that their distortion is
>>less irritating to those who can hear it.
>
>Yes, a square has only even harmonics in it (assuming it has a perfect
>50% duty cycle), but a sine wave (if it is one) has _no_ harmonics, only
>the fundamental.
Square waves have odd harmonics, and duty cycle doesn't change that.
Floyd
--
Floyd L. Davidson Salcha, Alaska fl...@tanana.polarnet.com
Lawrence E. McKnight
cla...@concentric.net (Lance Clarke) wrote:
>...and as the Sun shown brightly on that new day,
>robert zubek stepped forth and bestowed upon us:
>
>>Jan Eric Andersson wrote:
>>> I was in a music store once, and the salesman tried to sell me some
>>> gold-plated MIDI cables (I'm a musician), claiming that they would
>>> make my synthesizers sound better.
>>>
>>> I just laughed...
>>
>>similar story here - a local computer store sells gold-plated computer cabling:
>>parallel, serial, scsi, and other cabling for *digital* signals, for $20+ a piece!
>>
>>and the saddest part is - people are buying them!
>
>Every once in a while, my video (monitor on computer) will get a bit
>flakey. Generally I need to wiggle the monitor connector and it's fine.
>Sometimes I need to reseat the video board. This also happens occasionally
>on boot up, where I get a H/D Controller failure message and I have to
>reseat my IDE controller.
>
>Now I've >>ASSUMED<< this was caused by oxidation over time on the
>connections. I've also assumed that, since gold doesn't oxidize, gold
>plated connectors would take care of the problem.
>
>Any thoughts?
In the 'good old days', a lot of mainframes used gold contacts for that
very reason. I recall that, when the price of gold was skyrocketing,
one vendor actually indexed the price of gold into their 'list' prices,
i.e., "this system cost $1,000,000 plus X times the current price of
gold.
>
>
>____________________________________________________________________
>Lance Clarke | And remember: There's always a lesson to be
>Clarke Legal Services | learned from stupidity. Unfortunately, it's
>American Red Cross | always the same lesson: Don't Be Stupid.
>Wilmot Fire Dept. | -Imp
>N9YVK | http://www.concentric.net/~clarke
---------------
Larry McKnight
(this space unintentionally left blank.....
Hans Lehmann
Paul Walukewicz wrote:
>
>
> Actually, the "skin effect" is seen at microwave frequencies. This is
> why a hollow pipe is used to connect a microwave transmitter to its antenna.
> This maximizes the conducting area (outside surface) and eliminates the unused
> inner material.
>
The skin effect is seen at all frequencies, it's just more pronounced at higher
frequencies. At 60hz, which is the normal power line frequency in the U.S., the
effective skin thickness is about 1cm or so. Not enough to worry about in your house,
but it makes a difference back at the power plant.
Those pipes running around in microwave installations are wave guides. The pipe
itself is at ground potential. The microwaves pass through the interior of the
waveguide.
Hans "Took a fields class 15 years ago, and now finally get to use it" Lehmann
stuf...@acs.eku.edu
In article <32287D...@nwu.edu>, robert zubek <rob...@nwu.edu> writes:
> Jan Eric Andersson wrote:
>> I was in a music store once, and the salesman tried to sell me some
>> gold-plated MIDI cables (I'm a musician), claiming that they would
>> make my synthesizers sound better.
>>
>> I just laughed...
>
> similar story here - a local computer store sells gold-plated computer cabling:
> parallel, serial, scsi, and other cabling for *digital* signals, for $20+ a piece!
>
> and the saddest part is - people are buying them!
But remember GOLD doesn't corrode. So if you are using the system in a
corrosive atmoshere (even slightly), then the cables might just be worht
it. Just check out a piece of equipment after its been through the
Bellcore NEBS 63 airborne contaminats tests. Also corroded cables are a
typical problem of 10 to 20 year old computers.
Max
>
> rz
Brett Frankenberger
In article <50ec8m$g...@news2.cais.com>,
Floyd Davidson <fl...@tanana.polarnet.com> wrote:
>>
>>Yes, a square has only even harmonics in it (assuming it has a perfect
>>50% duty cycle), but a sine wave (if it is one) has _no_ harmonics, only
>>the fundamental.
>
>Square waves have odd harmonics, and duty cycle doesn't change that.
All square waves have odd harmonics. If the duty cycle isn't 50%, then
it also has even harmonics.
--
- Brett (bre...@netcom.com)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
... Coming soon to a | Brett Frankenberger
.sig near you ... a Humorous Quote ... | bre...@netcom.com
John Varela
In <50epko$e...@college.antioch.edu>, jer...@college.antioch.edu (Jeremy Erwin) writes:
>In article <3225FB...@i-link.net>,
>Rod Stites <RodS...@i-link.net> wrote:
>>snopes wrote:
>>
>>> Lunacy or not, vacuum tubes aren't going away any time soon: They make up
>>> at least 25% of the high-end audio market and were among the most popular
>>> items at the last two Consumer Electronic Shows in Las Vegas, Brunner says.
>>
>>In addition, the antiquated air-traffic computers functioning
>>(nominally) at many centers still require vacuum tubes. These tubes are
>>so hard to come by that the FAA imports a number of them from Hungary.
>
>If an audiophile can spend thousands of dollars of his own money to buy
>tube equipment, thus reducing listener fatigue, increasing tonality in
>his audio system, and paying tribute to any number of crackpot ideas
>about sound...
>Why shouldn't the FAA, with millions of dollars to waste, spend its money
>on antiquated tube equipment to reduce the fatigue of overworked Air
>Traffic Controllers. Plus, having planes "disappear" from the computers
>every so often, reduces the banality of everyday existance, and keeps the
>controllers from getting bored.
The only thing wrong with that theory is that the tubes in ATC computers are a
figment of Al Gore's imagination.
--------------------------------------------
----- John Varela j...@os2bbs.com -----
--------------------------------------------
Floyd Davidson
pau...@mindspring.com wrote:
>In <Dx2n3...@world.std.com>, r...@world.std.com (Rich Clancey) writes:
>> By the way, speaker wire type cabling is multi-stranded to
>>take advantage of the "skin effect" (electrons travel on the outside
>>of a wire because they repel each other) whereas lamp wire for higher
>>voltages is one strand.
>
>why a hollow pipe is used to connect a microwave transmitter to its antenna.
>This maximizes the conducting area (outside surface) and eliminates the unused
>inner material.
The "hollow pipe" used a microwave frequencies is a waveguide, and
while skin effect is exceedingly pronounced at those frequencies,
a waveguide is not an example of skin effect in action. The energy
is contained as an electro magnetic field within a waveguide.
However, you are right that skin effect has no significance at
audio frequencies. Power transmission conductors, for example,
are always solid, but the conductors used at frequencies in the 10
to 1000 Mhz range will indeed be hollow tubes because due to skin
effect there would be no current flowing other than on the
surface. Unlike a waveguide though, the current flowing on these
tubes flows on the outside surface, which is usually silver plated
to reduce ohmic loss.
Floyd Davidson
Len Berlind
: conductors used at frequencies in the 10
: to 1000 Mhz range will indeed be hollow tubes because due to skin
: effect there would be no current flowing other than on the
: surface. Unlike a waveguide though, the current flowing on these
: tubes flows on the outside surface, which is usually silver plated
: to reduce ohmic loss.
Given that E = IR and that ohmic loss is never zero except in the
idealized case of transmission in a vacuum, how do they deal with the
consequent ampic gain?
Maelstrom
David Vanecek wrote:
>
> Ditto. It also is absolutely corrosion proof.
>
Really? Kewl! Where do I get some of this ditto? Or would it be cheaper
just to buy some ditto plated cables. If anyone has some I'LL BUY IT.
P.s If it has little gold arrows pointing towards one end I'll pay extra
--
"When I first found the skull in the
woods I called the police. But then
I got curious. I started wondering
who this guy was and why did he have
deer horns?"
Maelstrom ---> sve...@web.net.au
Paul Walukewicz
In <322BB4...@pacbell.net>, Hans Lehmann <hleh...@pacbell.net> writes:
[snip]
> The skin effect is seen at all frequencies, it's just more pronounced at higher
>frequencies. At 60hz, which is the normal power line frequency in the U.S., the
>effective skin thickness is about 1cm or so. Not enough to worry about in your house,
>but it makes a difference back at the power plant.
Also not enough to worry about in speaker cable design! I'm guessing the cables are
stranded because they are more flexible.
> Those pipes running around in microwave installations are wave guides. The pipe
>itself is at ground potential. The microwaves pass through the interior of the
>waveguide.
Oops! In my haste to pick a familiar example, I stepped over the bounds of
personal knowledge.
>Hans "Took a fields class 15 years ago, and now finally get to use it" Lehmann
25 years for me. In fact, it was the fields theory class that convinced me that
Computer Science was a better career path than Electrical Engineering.
Paul Walukewicz
pau...@colum.mindspring.com
Paul Walukewicz
In <50ggmj$8...@news2.cais.com>, fl...@polarnet.com (Floyd Davidson) writes:
[snip]
>The "hollow pipe" used a microwave frequencies is a waveguide, and
>while skin effect is exceedingly pronounced at those frequencies,
>a waveguide is not an example of skin effect in action. The energy
>is contained as an electro magnetic field within a waveguide.
Oops! In my haste to pick a familiar example, I stepped over the bounds
of personal knowledge. I remember reading articles in ham radio magazines
about the plumbing skills needed to build a high frequency transmitter, and
have seen working examples that looked like pipefitters nightmare...but they
worked!
>However, you are right that skin effect has no significance at
>audio frequencies. Power transmission conductors, for example,
>are always solid, but the conductors used at frequencies in the 10
>to 1000 Mhz range will indeed be hollow tubes because due to skin
>effect there would be no current flowing other than on the
>surface. Unlike a waveguide though, the current flowing on these
>tubes flows on the outside surface, which is usually silver plated
>to reduce ohmic loss.
This was the point I was trying to make. I don't think skin effect has
anything to do with speaker cable design. I'm thinking that stranded cable
is more flexible and easier to work with.
>
>Floyd
>
>--
>Floyd L. Davidson Salcha, Alaska fl...@tanana.polarnet.com
Paul Walukewicz
pau...@colum.mindspring.com
Phil Gustafson
Len Berlind <lber...@panix.com> wrote:
>: conductors used at frequencies in the 10
>: to 1000 Mhz range will indeed be hollow tubes because due to skin
>: effect there would be no current flowing other than on the
>: surface. Unlike a waveguide though, the current flowing on these
>: tubes flows on the outside surface, which is usually silver plated
>: to reduce ohmic loss.
>
>idealized case of transmission in a vacuum, how do they deal with the
>consequent ampic gain?
>
With the corresponding arealic increase. Just think in terms of ohms
per square. Which are usually just used to suck people into asking
"square what"?
[afu significance long lost here, choose your own better followup.]
Ph.
Ph.
Pete Spomer
Mike Magin wrote:
> Yes, a square has only even harmonics in it (assuming it has a perfect
> 50% duty cycle), but a sine wave (if it is one) has _no_ harmonics, only
> the fundamental.
You're right. Oops! Bad half of an example. But you got the idea anyway,
right?
Pete
--
The opinions expressed here are not those of anyone, including myself.
No gerbils were harmed in the making of this message. Your mileage may
vary.
John Ackermann
In article <322801...@airmail.net> Just Curious <a000...@airmail.net> writes:
>Yes. Vacuum tubes are also quite popular in the illegal Citizen's
>Band radio community. Many illicit linear RF amplifiers use vacuum
>tubes, and some retail in the CB black market for as much as 300 USD
>per copy. A 'matched pair' of linear amp tubes can sell for as much
>as 1000 USD.
This is getting a bit off track, but hey, what else is new?
One place where vacuum tubes still rule is high-power radio frequency
amplifiers. Transistors have some characteristics that make it difficult (but
certainly not impossible) to generate powers over a couple of hundred watts
at RF frequencies.
Transistors are low voltage, high current devices compared to tubes. The
operating voltage of a 1 KW transistor RF amplifier might be from 12 to 48
volts; a tube amplifier of the same power might use from 1500 to 4000 volts.
The low operating voltage and corresponding high current requirement
make for low output impedances compared to tube circuits, and result in
difficult impedance matching problems and potentially high losses (low
impedance means high current, and high current means increased resistive
losses). Also, a single transistor can't handle as much power as a single
vacuum tube, so high-power transistor amps consist of a bunch of transistors
combined together, which introduces some additional designproblems.
This is all changing; solid state transmitters in tens-of-kilowatt range are
now available, but there are still a <lot> of tube amplifiers out there.
A typical ham radio amplifier that's capable of 1500 watts output (the legal
maximum in the United States) might use from one to three tubes costing
from a hundred to several hundred dollars each.
John Ackermann (amateur radio AG9V)
john.ac...@daytonOH.ncr.com
Peter Lindgren
Rick The Notes Guy Dickinson wrote:
>
> Sharing the wisdom of the ages with those of us reading
> alt.folklore.urban, Malcolm Austin <ma...@ms.com> wrote:
>
> >> >In article <AE4AA4E3...@ehrice.his.com>,
> >> >Edward Rice <ehr...@his.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> >>I saw some Monster (brand) cable in a store the other day, complete with
> >> >>the arrows showing intended direction of signal flow. I asked what
> >> >>possible difference this could possibly make -- this was cable, without
> >> >>even connectors. I was told, of course, "The signal just goes better in
> >> >>that direction."
> >>
[*large* quote snipped]
> >So *that's* why some high-end cable products, including some Monster cable,
> >has arrows on it to indicate which way to attach the cable. "Polarization,"
> >"electron flow," and the like have nothing to do with it. Conceivably
> >speaker wire could be shielded, but I haven't seen such a product.
There are shielded speaker cables. (!)
Read on:
> The voltage levels present on the speaker wires is typically much
> larger (by several orders of magnitude) than the voltage levels
> present on the interconnect cables. Thus, while a given "noise" level
> will greatly interfere with the low-level signals on an interconnect
> cable, they will have comparatively little effect on the signals on
> the speaker wires. Signal-to-noise is a ratio -- a high signal level
> can be equated to relative immunity to low-level noise. Thus, it
> makes sense to shield interconnect wires, but there is little or no
> reason to shield speaker wires, unless the electrical "noise" levels
> are extremely high.
It isn't just the voltage level that is in effect. The source
impedance is a major factor here! Hold your fingers around an
oscilloscope probe and you'll measure nearly 1 V p-p under good
conditions! This is because the impedance from your body, and
the load the oscilloscope poses, is in the Mohm range and therefore
the voltages are high. Typical low-level audio has impedances of
10 - 100 kohms, but a transistor amplifier has an output impedance
of a fraction of an ohm! That's why you don't have to shield the
speaker cables! (isn't this sci.electronics???)
> >For more information, and even wackier theories about audio equipment, check
> >out rec.audio.high-end.
Much joyable reading there!
I also want to make a serious point here about speaker cables.
A well-renowned hifi magazine ("Elektronikvärlden", may -96) made
a blind-test of speaker cables, a "Monster" cable (don't know the
exact brand), a shielded cable and a lamp wire (2 x 0.75 sq. mm's).
The results were sensational, in the sense that they said what we
have always known: There is *no* difference between speaker cables!
All variations heard in the music played was all imagined!
So, to conclude: Bogus science in your HiFi store, too!
Peter
--
Peter Lindgren B.E. at Enator Telub AB, Sensors & C3I Systems
mailto:peter.o....@enator.se
http://www.ludd.luth.se/users/spinner
Opinions above, expressed or implicit, are my personal opinions only
Pete Spomer
ANDREW GRYGUS wrote:
> The problem is much more difficult than that. With human interactions,
> it is very possible to sense no particular difference in an A/B test,
> but to find that one system fatigues you over time, and the other doesn
> not. Not only in sound, but in many other things as well.
Very true! I experimented with a graphic equalizer in my system for a
while, and "fatigue" isn't the word for it. After about half an hour of
listening at background music levels my ears felt like the volume was
turned up much too high, even with the EQ set flat. I couldn't hear a
difference, but I sure *felt* it.
Malcolm Austin
Jan Eric Andersson wrote:
>
> >Some of the ridiculous claims made by audiophiles are truly
> >classic. Some people claim they can _hear_ the delay introduced
> >by having mismatched speaker wire lengths.
>
> Those lengths would have to be *really* mismatched, given the speed of
> electrons traveling through a copper wire!
I once burst out laughing when an audiophile friend told me that it was
important to match speaker cable lengths. To be fair, he corrected my
original assumption that he was concerned about the delay to one spekaer
caused by the additional cable length. He claimed the desire was to
match the overall impedence of the two speaker cables, so one speaker
did not get a different signal than the other. Apparently impedence is a
function of cable length.
--
= Malcolm Austin == w:(212)762-2171 == h:(914)944-0956 == ma...@morgan.com ===
" . . . at least, that's what the Germans would have us think."
Malcolm Austin
Jan Eric Andersson wrote:
>
> Malcolm Austin <ma...@ms.com> wrote:
> >Some interconnects are shielded, which means the signal carrying wires
>
> *All* of them are shielded! If not, you'd really have a noisy system!
I'll accept that *most* interconnects are shielded, especially if they
are sold in a separate box labeled "interconnect"! But the El Cheapo
cable that comes with many consumer audio components is not shielded.
And, yes, it can be noisy! The worst offenders, in my experience, are
cheap S-video cables.
To clarify, by "shield" I mean a separate conductor that surrounds the
wires carrying the signal. Of course all interconnects are grounded.
You must know my audio dealer. He said the same thing to me, so I
yanked one of these El Cheapos from my VCR and cut it open in front
of him. No shield.
Lon Stowell
In article <3229bed9...@news.concentric.net> Lance Clarke <cla...@concentric.net> writes:
>
>Now I've >>ASSUMED<< this was caused by oxidation over time on the
>connections. I've also assumed that, since gold doesn't oxidize, gold
>plated connectors would take care of the problem.
If BOTH of the connectors are gold-plated, you might get some
benefit from having gold-plating as far as protection from
oxidation. However, there is this quaint little process of
electrolysis that some folks claim is worsened by mixing metals
in the connection, such as gold plated SIMMS in traditional
tinned sockets.
Lon Stowell
In article <927cc$3342...@tcnntp.trader.com> Rom...@trader.com (Robert) writes:
>
>Well actually I prefer gold for both digital and analog signals. Gold makes a
>slightly better choice as it has better conductivity than copper. Its not
>enough of a better conductor for me to spend $20 on it tho.
The teeny amount of conductivity difference that you get from
a few microns of gold plating can easily be duplicated by
shortening the unplated copper by a few microns...or harking a
lunger on the connection.
Jan Eric Andersson
stuf...@acs.eku.edu wrote:
>But remember GOLD doesn't corrode. So if you are using the system in a
>corrosive atmoshere (even slightly), then the cables might just be worht
>it. Just check out a piece of equipment after its been through the
>Bellcore NEBS 63 airborne contaminats tests. Also corroded cables are a
>typical problem of 10 to 20 year old computers.
My point was that a MIDI signal is a digital signal from a controller
to a sound source. It merely tells the synthesizer (or whatever) what
to play. Gold plated MIDI cables, therefore, will make *no* difference
in the sound.
--
Jan Eric Andersson [E-Mail: jan...@login.eunet.no]
Oslo, Norway [http://login.eunet.no/~janeand]
Jason Olshefsky
In article <32288ff8...@relay.eunet.no>, jan...@login.eunet.no (Jan
Eric Andersson) wrote:
> "Michael D. Painter" <mpai...@maxinet.com> wrote:
> >I've always heard the "analog is better" argument. I would tend to agree
> >that in a real double blind you could not tell the difference. (Note I said
> >you, I KNOW I couldn't<G>). In any event this post shows it would be some
> >effect the tube had, since a digital object is the starting point.
> Tube amps do have an advantage: if you drive them hard enough to
> distort, they distort harmonically, which sounds a lot more pleasant
> than the clipping of a transistor amp....
Actually, tubes also have an additional advantage over transistors: they
have no threshhold voltage. Up to about .6 volts (for silicon) the
transistor doesn't turn on, then all of a sudden it allows current to
flow. This is really uncool in an amplifier situation, although you can
get around it by making Class A and Class AB designs that keep the
transistor above the threshhold all the time/most of the time
(respectively).
On the other hand, increasing input voltage on a tube amplifier results in
a proportional increase in output voltage. There is no threshhold
voltage.
Thus (with the exception of Class A amplifiers) there is always some
amount of transistor switching going on, which results in transistor
noise. Of course, amplifier designers try to work around this problem.
On a broad scale, cheap amplifiers often have more switching noise than
more expensive ones.
--- Jayce :) Home: ja...@beowulf.roc.servtech.com
WWW: http://www.servtech.com/public/jayce
Jason Olshefsky :( Work: jols...@lcp.com
496620796F752063616E207265616420746869732C20796F752772652061206E6572642E
Andrew S. Gurk Damick
Followups schlomped.
Herfh! Jan Eric Andersson in alt.religion.kibology spake thusly:
: My point was that a MIDI signal is a digital signal from a controller
: to a sound source. It merely tells the synthesizer (or whatever) what
: to play. Gold plated MIDI cables, therefore, will make *no* difference
: in the sound.
Complete bull. What with the mega-trend in MIDI technology these days,
when one uses the gold-plated cables, one eliminates the compression
level required for ordinary cables. Thus, with the signal closer to
unity, one has a MUCH cleaner signal to use when talking to one's
synthesizer. Hence, better sound.
--Gurk, like majeek.
--
a n d r e w s . " g u r k " d a m i c k g u r k @ n c s u . e d u
http://www4.ncsu.edu/~asdamick/www/ - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"I just want to be an arrogant twit." --Ravi K. Swamy, The Anti-Smerp
Einswine
In article
<3229bed9...@news.concentric.net>,
cla...@concentric.net says...
> Every once in a while, my video (monitor on
computer) will get a bit
> flakey. Generally I need to wiggle the monitor
connector and it's fine.
> Sometimes I need to reseat the video board.
This also happens occasionally
> on boot up, where I get a H/D Controller failure
message and I have to
> reseat my IDE controller.
>
> Now I've >>ASSUMED<< this was caused by
oxidation over time on the
> connections. I've also assumed that, since gold
doesn't oxidize, gold
> plated connectors would take care of the
problem.
>
> Any thoughts?
>
>
>
__________________________________________________
__________________
> Lance Clarke | And remember: There's
always a lesson to be
> Clarke Legal Services | learned from stupidity.
Unfortunately, it's
> American Red Cross | always the same lesson:
Don't Be Stupid.
> Wilmot Fire Dept. |
-Imp
> N9YVK |
http://www.concentric.net/~clarke
--
Yes, I have a thought. Two actually, it's been a
good day ;}. The first is 'card creep'. If your
cards are not screwed down tightly to the mounting
rail in your computer over time they will slide
back and forth due to different rates of expansion
and contraction. The sockets on your motherboard
don't get nearly as hot as the card. Even though
there's a notch on the card to limit back and
forth motion it will still creep up and out. It
doesn't take much with a PCI or VLB card to
missalign the pins either; they are rather small
and closely spaced. Those 'quick release' plastic
hold down screws don't work all that well either.
If your using them I'd think about ditching 'em.
Secondly, you can pretty much rule out corrosion
as a culprit as most pins and buses are already
gold plated, but dirt can be a problem. The fan in
your P/S keeps a steady flow of 'fresh' air moving
through your machine. You may need to clean the
bus and the pins on your card occasionaly.
Depending on how you use your system it's a good
idea to give it a good internal cleaning to remove
the dust that collects in there. Excessive dust
acts as an insulator and slows down the necessary
transfer of heat from components.
I may be a wacko, but I read all about this stuff
in a BOOK so it must be TRUE!
BTW, I understand the NEW Kibo A.I. has been
ported to the 80086 that runs the icemaker/water
cooler in Jaffo's new refrigerator. If it has then
I want one too. WAA!
Later,
Einswine
Ron Hunsinger
In article <50f1f1$b...@news.inforamp.net>, crs...@inforamp.net (Geoffrey
Welsh) wrote:
> Assuming that the test that he cited did in fact happen and is not
> merely unfounded folklore, what it would illustrate is that even
> people who hear a very clear difference when they know that something
> has changed can't always identify that difference when they're
> isolated from that knowledge. Only a blind test can remove 'the human
> factor' from the perception of difference; in all of your fiddling,
> you _knew_ and _expected_ a difference...
Not only that, there was one piece of the equipment he didn't swap - the
room itself.
-Ron Hunsinger
Ken Smith
In article <jayce-03099...@beowulf.roc.servtech.com>,
Jason Olshefsky <ja...@beowulf.roc.servtech.com> wrote:
[...]
>On the other hand, increasing input voltage on a tube amplifier results in
>a proportional increase in output voltage. There is no threshhold
>voltage.
This is total nonsense. A tube has a cut off voltage. It just happens
to be at many volts below the cathode voltage. The only tubes that do
not have a rather abrupt turn on as you pass that point are the "remote
cut off" types. These make rather bad audio amplifiers since the "gm" of
the tube varies rapidly with signal voltage. The simplest model for the
action of a tube is that it is a voltage controlled current source.
--
--
kens...@rahul.net forging knowledge
wtg
Geoffrey Welsh wrote:
> You missed Jim Bready's point entirely, which is that a real
> difference need not be in the electronics.
<elision>
> Only a blind test can remove 'the human
> factor' from the perception of difference; in all of your fiddling,
> you _knew_ and _expected_ a difference...
I saw a blind test of Cola drinks on British TV on a consumer program
hosted by Esther Rantzen some years ago. After demonstrating that no-one
could tell the difference between Coke and Pepsi they also showed that
plenty people couldn't tell the difference between lemonade and Coke or
indeed any pair of carbonated soft drinks. So what? They *still* taste
different. The fact that a bunch of people fail to discriminate things
in a blind test proves that a bunch of people failed to discriminate
things in a blind test - not they they aren't different.
___
William T Goodall
w...@wtgab.demon.co.uk
Chris Matthaei
Rom...@trader.com (Robert) writes:
>Well actually I prefer gold for both digital and analog signals. Gold makes a
>slightly better choice as it has better conductivity than copper. Its not
>enough of a better conductor for me to spend $20 on it tho.
No. Copper is second in electrical conductivity only to silver. The layer of
gold on a gold plated connector is so thin that any difference in conductivity
is neglegible, anyway. Gold is used because it does not get oxidised and
because it looks pretty.
Chris
Simon Heath
One of the Hi-Fi mags in the UK (I think it's Hi-Fi World) routinely (or at
least it used to) conducts blind listening tests for all components (amps,
speakers, players etc.). They tend to find plenty of differences between
amps, often not in the direction of more expensive==better. Of course they
could be lying about their tests...
Simon
Joel Graber
In article <32288bd6...@relay.eunet.no> jan...@login.eunet.no (Jan Eric Andersson) writes:
> br...@transmeta.com (Brett Coon) wrote:
> >Some of the ridiculous claims made by audiophiles are truly
> >classic. Some people claim they can _hear_ the delay introduced
> >by having mismatched speaker wire lengths.
>
> Those lengths would have to be *really* mismatched, given the speed of
> electrons traveling through a copper wire!
The speed electrons traveling through a copper wire is
usually less than one millimeter per second.
Perhaps you mean to refer to signal propagation speed,
which is about 0.6c or about 1 foot per nanosecond for
a single conductor copper wire; somewhat faster for
foamed low dielectric coaxial cable, maybe up to 0.9c .
For example: 64 watt output into an 8 ohm speaker,
I=P/(R^2) = 64/(8^2) = 1 amp
Assume a 1mm square wire for simplicity
(somewhat small, which will over estimate the electon velocity)
V= I/((DN/M)eA) Electron drift velocity
I = 1 amp
D = 8.9 grams/cm^3 density of copper
N = 6.02E23 Avagodro's number #atoms in a mole
M = 63.6 grams/mole for copper which has one conduction electron per atom
e = 1.6E-19 C Charge in Coulombs for each Electron.
A = 1E-6 m^2 Cross section area in meters squared
V= 0.074mm per second.
More current = faster
Thicker wire = slower
_Physics_, Jay Orear, p336-337 Macmillian, c1979.
Joel "unprecipitating" Graber
--
jgr...@daldd.sc.ti.com "Engineer except where prohibited by law."
Doug White
<: conductors used at frequencies in the 10
<: to 1000 Mhz range will indeed be hollow tubes because due to skin
<: effect there would be no current flowing other than on the
<: surface. Unlike a waveguide though, the current flowing on these
<: tubes flows on the outside surface, which is usually silver plated
<: to reduce ohmic loss.
Gee, I work at these frequencies all the time, and I've never seen anyone
using hollow tubes as conductors. Coax or waveguide yes, hollow tubes
no. If you want a low loss RF wire, you use Litz wire, which consists of
many small insulated strands woven in a special way so that no individual
wire spends too much time on the outside of the bundle. This maximizes
the useful surface area to combat skin-effect. Litz wire can make a
significant difference in losses at frequencies below 100 KHz, but I
doubt if it does much at audio frequencies. If the guys who make Monster
Cable wanted to sucker people in, they should be selling Litz wire, not
just twisted copper. Sheesh.
Doug White
Floyd Davidson
gwh...@tiac.net wrote:
><: conductors used at frequencies in the 10
><: to 1000 Mhz range will indeed be hollow tubes because due to skin
><: effect there would be no current flowing other than on the
><: surface. Unlike a waveguide though, the current flowing on these
><: tubes flows on the outside surface, which is usually silver plated
><: to reduce ohmic loss.
>
>Gee, I work at these frequencies all the time, and I've never seen anyone
>using hollow tubes as conductors. Coax or waveguide yes, hollow tubes
>no.
Waveguide below 1000 Mhz is a bit large, you know... 6" x 12" for
example. Silver plated tubing or flat ribbon are very common in
the low VHF and higher HF ranges for coils on high power equipment.
If you want a low loss RF wire, you use Litz wire, which consists of
>many small insulated strands woven in a special way so that no individual
>wire spends too much time on the outside of the bundle. This maximizes
>the useful surface area to combat skin-effect. Litz wire can make a
>significant difference in losses at frequencies below 100 KHz, but I
>doubt if it does much at audio frequencies. If the guys who make Monster
>Cable wanted to sucker people in, they should be selling Litz wire, not
>just twisted copper. Sheesh.
Agreed.
Charles Arthur
> I saw a blind test of Cola drinks on British TV on a consumer program
> hosted by Esther Rantzen some years ago. After demonstrating that no-one
> could tell the difference between Coke and Pepsi they also showed that
> plenty people couldn't tell the difference between lemonade and Coke or
> indeed any pair of carbonated soft drinks. So what?
So - perhaps plenty of people can't taste the difference between two
different brands of ostensibly different carbonated soft drinks if they
aren't told before they taste/buy them that they are somehow "different"?
Yes, that seems to be what your penultimate sentence says.
> They *still* taste different.
Pardon?
> The fact that a bunch of people fail to discriminate things
> in a blind test proves that a bunch of people failed to discriminate
> things in a blind test - not they they aren't different.
Now, unless you work in advertising or something, I would have to say that
there's a whopping big logical inconsistency in your last sentence. I
suppose that if Esther had really wanted to prove suggestibility then she
should have rounded it off with a blind test in which people were told
that the drinks were different, and actually given them the same ones. But
she probably had to segue into a piece about a child dying of leukeamia
who wanted to get into the Guinness Book of Records...
Me, I say that Coke and Pepsi do taste the same - sickeningly sweet and
overpriced.
Charles "not in my mouth, thank you" Arthur
--
UK climbing: http://www.eclimb.com/ukclimb/
-----------------------------------------------------
Neutrons for old!
Eric Williams @ PCB x5577
In article <32287D...@nwu.edu>, robert zubek <rob...@nwu.edu> writes:
> Jan Eric Andersson wrote:
> > I was in a music store once, and the salesman tried to sell me some
> > gold-plated MIDI cables (I'm a musician), claiming that they would
> > make my synthesizers sound better.
> >
> > I just laughed...
>
> similar story here - a local computer store sells gold-plated computer cabling:
> parallel, serial, scsi, and other cabling for *digital* signals, for $20+ a piece!
>
> and the saddest part is - people are buying them!
>
> rz
It's not clear that such cables would affect the sound any, but presumably
gold-plated fingers on a computer cable would make more reliable connections
as opposed to, say, tin or copper. But I can't say I know for sure. (Gold
would probably be more resistant to corrosion, though.)
Perhaps someone experienced in board or connector fabrication can address this
issue?
--
eric_w...@mentorg.com
The preceding is *not* to be construed in any way as an official (or unofficial)
public policy statement by Mentor Graphics, Incorporated, my employer, or
any of its employees, legal representatives, affiliates, customers, or vendors.
David Hodges
On Sep 04, 1996, 'gwh...@tiac.net (Doug White)' wrote:
(deleted)
>no. If you want a low loss RF wire, you use Litz wire, which consists of
>many small insulated strands woven in a special way so that no individual
>wire spends too much time on the outside of the bundle. This maximizes
>the useful surface area to combat skin-effect. Litz wire can make a
>significant difference in losses at frequencies below 100 KHz, but I
>doubt if it does much at audio frequencies. If the guys who make Monster
>Cable wanted to sucker people in, they should be selling Litz wire, not
>just twisted copper. Sheesh.
>
Litz wire is also used for audio purposes. You can spend just as much
money on speaker cables as you want.
ObHint: This has all been discussed to death on rec.audio.high-end, where
it is considered an on-topic discussion.
--
David Hodges
Thank you, drive through.
Ralph Jones
>Salesmen produce lots of folklore, but much of it is bogus.
>
>"Never believe anyone who stands to profit based on what they say".
>RMS
>
Reminds me of a guy who once tried to sell me a car stereo that had
no, repeat NO, distortion. I turned it up until it started to clip and
he said "That's the fuse starting to blow." rj
Jim
John Varela wrote:
>
> In <50epko$e...@college.antioch.edu>, jer...@college.antioch.edu (Jeremy Erwin) writes:
> >In article <3225FB...@i-link.net>,
> >Rod Stites <RodS...@i-link.net> wrote:
> >>snopes wrote:
> >>
> >>> Lunacy or not, vacuum tubes aren't going away any time soon: They make up
> >>> at least 25% of the high-end audio market and were among the most popular
> >>> items at the last two Consumer Electronic Shows in Las Vegas, Brunner says.
> >>
> >>In addition, the antiquated air-traffic computers functioning
> >>(nominally) at many centers still require vacuum tubes. These tubes are
> >>so hard to come by that the FAA imports a number of them from Hungary.
> >
> >Let's face it...
> >If an audiophile can spend thousands of dollars of his own money to buy
> >tube equipment, thus reducing listener fatigue, increasing tonality in
> >his audio system, and paying tribute to any number of crackpot ideas
> >about sound...
> >Why shouldn't the FAA, with millions of dollars to waste, spend its money
> >on antiquated tube equipment to reduce the fatigue of overworked Air
> >Traffic Controllers. Plus, having planes "disappear" from the computers
> >every so often, reduces the banality of everyday existance, and keeps the
> >controllers from getting bored.
>
> The only thing wrong with that theory is that the tubes in ATC computers are a
> figment of Al Gore's imagination.
>
> --------------------------------------------
> ----- John Varela j...@os2bbs.com -----
> --------------------------------------------
I think the suggestion that Al Gore has an imagination smacks of an
Urban Legend.
Jim Hagelin
Roger Douglas
fu...@MCS.COM (Chris Matthaei) expostulated:
>Rom...@trader.com (Robert) writes:
My MIDI cables are made of a sort of black rubbery substance. They seem to
work OK though.
--R.
Paul Tomblin
In a previous article, d_ho...@nyc.pipeline.com(David Hodges) said:
>Litz wire is also used for audio purposes. You can spend just as much
>money on speaker cables as you want.
One of my cow orkers has a catalog with $10,000 speaker cables[1]. Not to
mention bits of wood that are supposed to improve the sound just by being in
the same room as your stereo. Let's just say that there is a sucker born
every minute, and most of them seem to buy stereo equipment.
[1] Yes, really. These speaker cables "bathe the wires in coherent light" to
somehow improve the sound quality. No, I don't understand it either. Neither
does anybody else who understands physics, electronics, or acoustics.
--
Paul Tomblin, PP-ASEL _|_ Rochester Flying Club web page:
____/___\____ http://www.servtech.com/public/
___________[o0o]___________ ptomblin/rfc.html
ptom...@xcski.com O O O
David Harmon
In article <Dx2n3...@world.std.com>, Rich Clancey <r...@world.std.com> wrote:
>
> By the way, speaker wire type cabling is multi-stranded to
>take advantage of the "skin effect" (electrons travel on the outside
>of a wire because they repel each other) whereas lamp wire for higher
>voltages is one strand.
Sorry, wrong. Speaker wire is stranded for flexability. The strands are
not insulated from each other, and act electriccally as a single conductor.
To get around (not "take advantage of") skin depth, you need Litz wire.
Litz wire is stranded with each strand varnished to insulate it from all
the others. The varnish is removed and the strands soldered together at
the ends. Skin depth is frequency dependent, and not a problem at audio
frequencies in speaker-wire sized conductors.
Kevin D. Quitt
On Thu, 05 Sep 1996 14:47:56 +0000,
carthur.at.indepen...@nonexistent.sys (Charles Arthur) =
wrote:
> Me, I say that Coke and Pepsi do taste the same - sickeningly sweet =
and
>overpriced.
They're very different. Colas consist of vanilla, cinnamon, and citrus =
fruit
flavors besides the sweeteners. Coke is stronger on the vanilla, Pepsi =
on the
citrus. The amount and type of citrus fruits chosen, and their =
proportion to
the other two flavors are what make a cola unique.
--=20
#include <standard_disclaimer.h>
_
Kevin D Quitt USA 91351-4454 96.37% of all statistics are made=
up
Per the FCA, this email address may not be added to any commercial mail =
list
Bev
Eric Williams @ PCB x5577 (ew...@hpewill.sje.mentorg.com) wrote:
| It's not clear that such cables would affect the sound any, but presumably
| gold-plated fingers on a computer cable would make more reliable connections
| as opposed to, say, tin or copper. But I can't say I know for sure. (Gold
| would probably be more resistant to corrosion, though.)
When they first came out, TRS-80 computer board connectors used NO gold.
Anywhere. Come to think about it, maybe NOTHING that Radio Shack sold had
gold-plated connectors. Anyway, normal periodic maintenance was to
disassemble the damn thing and clean the corrosion off all the connectors.
You knew it was time when some part of the computer stopped working...
Bev bas...@ktb.net
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Don't you just KNOW that there is more than one
Sierra Club member who is absolutely sure that the
dinosaurs died out because of something humans did?
Mendel Leo Cooper
Bev wrote:
> When they first came out, TRS-80 computer board connectors used NO > gold.
> Anywhere. Come to think about it, maybe NOTHING that Radio Shack sold > had
> gold-plated connectors. Anyway, normal periodic maintenance was to
> disassemble the damn thing and clean the corrosion off all
> the connectors.
> You knew it was time when some part of the computer stopped working...
>
Truly. And one recommended cure for the problem was to permanently
solder the expansion interface to the connecting cable.
--
Any sufficiently advanced Magic is indistinguishable from...
technology.
We intend to do to literature what Freud did to sex, utterly ruin
it. -Edward Preston
===============================================
+ http://personal.riverusers.com/~thegrendel/ +
===============================================
dpel...@ivory.trentu.ca
How come network wiring (10baseT or the center conductor on coax) is not
stranded? All the cable I've seen are solid conductor. Now were talking
high frequencies, so wouldn't litz type cable be better for networking?
Or does the "skin effect" just apply to broadband rather than baseband?
Dave