I never understood why electrical outlets and power cords would make any difference in sound. I mean this sincerely, I'm not ranting. It seems to me that you got miles upon miles upon miles of electrical wiring coming down from the electrical station to transformers to your house, to your switch/fuse box to your electrical outlet. Why would the last 6 feet make any audible difference, especially if you're using a power conditioner?

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I mean this sincerely, I'm not ranting.

With all due respect, it's the same rant you were on about six months ago when I believe you first joined us, and the same rant your buddy has been on forever.

Until you and your buddy loosen up that tight [censored] and spend some of your hard earned cash to actually try some of these products in your system your flying blind. Please corect me if I am wrong in my assumption.

There are many companies who offer 30 day money back policies on these type of products. You would only be out the cost of shipping.

There is also a theory that "it's the first six feet", not the last.

RG

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I mean this sincerely, I'm not ranting.

There is also a theory that "it's the first six feet", not the last.

RG

It can't be the first six feet because electricity flows from the power station in, not from the hi-fi out. Hence, it's the last six feet.

I have tried various power cords and I heard no difference. I tried blind testing, double blind testing, etc. Nada. Nothing. Zilch. Zero.

Here's another thing, if you're using a power conditioner, why do you need a super expensive power cord? Doesn't the conditioner already do its job?

In the end, I guess everyone is entitled to their placebos and their snake oil and if that makes you happy, that's fine. I'm just wondering about the rationale of it in case I'm missing something.

Context for the "first six feet".

Personally, I have heard changes when it comes to outlets and power cords in sighted and blind tests. Will common mode rejection mean we just canceled each other out?

Perhaps, there is something in your system that is masking any differences you might hear?

Hi Jeff,

I read the link you provided. The case the ad was making may be arguable if there is no power conditioner present. If there is a power conditioner, then the "gatekeeper" argument doesn't make sense to me.

As far as my system is concerned, it could be the case that my system isn't good enough to hear the differences or that the power coming to my house is clean enough where changing power cords wouldn't make a difference. That could be so. However, I tried changing cords at my friend's house as well and I hard no difference either. He has much higher priced equipment than I do (DCS combo driving McIntosh 501 amps and Nova Utopia speakers).

I guess another thing to consider is this: How good is the power cord that comes with the components? Is it good enough to do what needs to be done? Is it shielded enough? Is it properly configured to carry 120v into a component drawing X watts of electricity? I guess that's really what a power cord does and if the power cord that comes with a component is good enough to do the above, then there will be no difference if you change the power cords. I assume this is especially true if there is a power conditioner present.

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It can't be the first six feet because electricity flows from the power station in, not from the hi-fi out. Hence, it's the last six feet.

Actually, it doesn't. Electricity doesn't "flow" like water from one place to the other in one direction. In a sense, it just "is". Moreover, AC goes back and forth, it does in fact alternate.

It's weird stuff.

I am an electrician, and thus am quite unlikely to even contemplate a $6500 cartridge. But I do put the stuff in for a living. I don't believe for a millisecond that any outlet sounds better than another. Spec and Hospital grade receptacles are built for ruggedness (and in the case of hospital grade arc resistance when plugging-in/out)

The Furman power conditioning gear could make a difference. Ideally, if you have good clean power coming in (and if you probably do if your power lines are properly maintained and it's not summer when everyone is blasting AC) the power conditioners are of limited utility. Got good power, it isn't getting better.

But electronic ballasts and computers send 'hash' through the neutrals which might feed back. When under load peak voltages drop down, and a system won't perform its best.

The best idea would be an 120/120 isolation transformer to get the 'hash' out with a power conditioner to make sure peak power is there. Actually 'conditioner' isn't the right term, more power maintenance unit. Then use good quality wiring and hire an electrician and pay him to take the time to dot his eyes and cross the Ts. Good quality outlets and a dedicated circuit or three.

That will give you the best sound by allowing your system to run as the designers intended.

Thanks for your input, DLWyatt. What you said makes perfect sense to me. It's obvious to me that there absolutely no value to having $1000 power cords, $50 electrical outlets and $100 fuses. A good ear cleaning will do more good and cost less.

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A good ear cleaning will do more good and cost less.

Beings a speaker moves air and we, thus, are listening to airwaves (i.e., the pressure of airwaves on the eardrum)...does not air quality influence what we are hearing?

Here's my experience, FWIW. Using sensitive speakers (Avantgarde Duos), you can hear the noise of the equipment when the system is on and not playing music. I have tried to reduce the amount of noise through the selection of components and by improving the quality of the AC delivered to the system.
I had the electrician install a separate subpanel and set up three dedicated 20 amp lines for the system, using Hubbell connectors (which are sturdy and make a very positive connection- whether that improves the sound, I don't know, but the plugs won't fall out too easily, and I like Bill Hubbell). I recently got rid of all the Shunyata black boxes and associated power cords. I replaced them with Kubala's Emotion power cables, inserted component by component into the system, incrementally. They made a very substantial difference in the sound of the system, starting with the front end- Manley Steelhead/Lamm L2/ML2's. The least noticeable change was the cords for the powered woofers, but that was still discernable. The change on the upstream electronics was not subtle.
None of this prevented a nasty 'snap' from the air compressor which feeds the tonearm. The compressor ultimately got plugged into a 240v step-down transformer and now does not interfere with the system electrics when it clicks on. (The compressor itself is 'hidden' in an adjoining closetroom to minimize its mechanical grunts and farts).
Not advocating weird science, just saying I could hear a noticeable difference in the sound of the system with the changes I made in the power cords, after making a basic investment in a dedicated AC set-up.

Thanks for sharing your experience, Whart.

Mine is very similiar, Dedicated outlets with commercial grade receptacles feeding the system, and proper grounding on all power and signal devices.

No power conditioners. Modest upgraded power cords on all equipment, and as I believe Art similary and suprisingly discovered recently the most noticeable improvement from the power cords has been on my Martin Logans.

Lastly, I'd be remiss if I didn't thank my mother for continually hounding me to clean inside and behind my ears daily when I was a child.

RG

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A good ear cleaning will do more good and cost less.

Beings a speaker moves air and we, thus, are listening to airwaves (i.e., the pressure of airwaves on the eardrum)...does not air quality influence what we are hearing?

Absolutely. Please include Lysol in the list of "must have" tweaks.

DUP- if you read my post carefully, you will see that the solution to the compressor 'snap' was not the 'voodoo wires,' but the use of an isolation transformer.
My goal, as stated above, was to get my basic AC set up in good order without the use of any filters or conditioners, passive or active.
This system has never sounded better and I am in the greater NY metro area, where the deer and the antelope almost never roam.

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At least Art d. called a spade a spade...or junk junk.

I can't speak for the way things are in New York, but down here in the south, the use of the phrase "calling a spade a spade" does not refer to a deck of playing cards, and I for one would appreciate you refrain from making racists remarks.

It would also be nice if the moderator who recently claimed he was going to be more activly involved with this forum put a stop to this as well! He also claimed he was against censorship, however I note if I desire to call someone an a**hole, the software now automatically inserts [censored] in the field. What the [censored] is going on around here? Racist remarks are ok but a little personal attack profanity is out?

RG

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The isolation transformer is a filter, it's a big inductor, thus it takes out the high freq snap. Or you coulda' cleaned teh compressor switch which is arcing, causing teh snap. Or....a .oo1mfd 1000V cap across teh relay or swtich maybe would take out teh noise. It's all basic electrical designs, no vooodooo wires needed anyway. Dirty contacts arc, cause nosie.

Sorry,DUP, I wasn't clear- no filters in the system that feeds the components that are part of the audio chain. The compressor services the tonearm, and you are right about the transformer acting as a filter. The compressor was gone over by a tech, who then installed a relay switch provided by the manufacturer. That still did not eliminate the snap. Thus, the compressor now being hooked up to the stepdown transformer. But, everything else in the system, turntable, headamp, line stage, amps and woofer amps, go right into the wall- the system is dead quiet, quite a feat given the sensitivity of the Avantgardes, and sounds wonderful.
As to racist comments, I'll stay out of that. No need, particularly given the purpose of this forum, which is not about politics and the state of our western culture. (Although DUP, I'm sure, based on your posts, that you see the marketing of snake oil stuff in hi-fi to be a sad commentary on Western Culture, snake oil salesmen have been around long before Moses invented electricity).

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At least Art d. called a spade a spade...or junk junk.

I can't speak for the way things are in New York, but down here in the south, the use of the phrase "calling a spade a spade" does not refer to a deck of playing cards...

The phrase isn't racist, as its original use was to mock those who give themselves graces by referring to a spade as a "utility digging implement" or some such elevated description.

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It would also be nice if the moderator who recently claimed he was going to be more activly involved with this forum put a stop to this as well!

If it had been actually racist usage, we would have. But English is an always-evolving language -- look how people now get upset by the word "niggardly," which has a very different etymology from the racist epithet -- and Stephen Mejias and I will discuss this on Monday.

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He also claimed he was against censorship, however I note if I desire to call someone an a**hole, the software now automatically inserts [censored] in the field. What the [censored] is going on around here?

This has been a feature of the BB software we use since the beginning of the forum but it is curiously inconsistent.

John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile

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[If it had been actually racist usage, we would have. But English is an always-evolving language.

Right you are, John. Actually, the phrase is both a deliberate criticism of how tricky language is to pin down and, at the same time, an example of it.

Aristophanes used it in The Clouds, where he said "to call a fig a fig, a trough a trough," which works better in Greek, While Greeks still use it, the meaning has shifted over the years to now mean plain speaking -- originally it meant someone who tactlessly offered criticism.

The reason the English version uses "spade" is the result of Erasmus' mistranslation of Greek (he confused "skaphe" (trough) with "skaphelon" (digging tool)). When Nicholas Udall translated 'Ras into English, we got "spade."

(And no, I didn't know all this, I looked it up -- but my high school Latin teacher did teach that story while drilling into into us the necessity of going to the original documents for accuracy.)

What's fascinating to me is that through all these language filters and centuries, it retained a very precise relation with its intent -- until it reached rgibrain.

BTW, I may live in New York, but I am a Southerner, so I feel qualified to say that we Southerners do not hear "spade" in this context and think anything other than "bloody shovel" (first usage recorded 1919).

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What's fascinating to me is that through all these language filters and centuries, it retained a very precise relation with its intent -- until it reached rgibrain.

I am not imputing any racist motive to DUP- who seems to make enough waves here without engaging in such nonsense, but Wes, I don't think RGiBran is the first to perceive "spade" in that phrase in a derogatory sense; did you know that a Latino group boycotted P & G over the product "Spic and Span"?
I never thought of myself as 'PC' - in fact, those who know me believe I am far from it- but, sensivities being what they are, I doubt I would use the phrase 'calling a spade a spade' in a hypothetical discussion with a group of black people I didn't know. Again, not to dump on DUP, but I'd be really suprised to find that you were unaware of the 'secondary meaning' of the word, or would use it blithely in the hypothetical circumstance I just described.
Back to our regularly scheduled program....

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I'd be really suprised to find that you were unaware of the 'secondary meaning' of the word, or would use it blithely in the hypothetical circumstance I just described.

Of course I would. The perjorative use of spade is not a secondary meaning of the word, it is a contextually linked meaning of the word. Are you suggesting that we can no longer use the phrase "spade work" for digging? Words derive their meaning from how they are used -- just as notes do. There is, as I pointed out, a trans-cultural understanding of the phrase "calling a spade a spade" that is almost 3000 years old -- to abandon it because someone who is hard of thinking might suggest it _could_ be interrpreted as a veiled epithet is moron . . . um, imbecil . . . um, fooli . . . intelligence-impaired.

Wes, I would no more use 'spade work' in my hypothetical discussion with a group of black people I didn't know than I would the phrase, "calling a spade a spade." I did not take issue with the origin of the phrase or its true, non-perjorative meaning. Again, I am not grinding any axe with DUP in this exchange, but just taking issue with your statement that the person who took offense here had a unique interpretation; my point, as you no doubt gathered, was that, despite the literal meaning of the phrase, I would not use it in certain contexts.
I also question whether it is appropriate to refer to someone on a chat board in this context as a moron or imbecile. But, to each his own. (Ironically, as I said before, I'm hardly the PC-type).

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I also question whether it is appropriate to refer to someone on a chat board in this context as a moron or imbecile.

I thought I made it clear that I was not calling anyone on this BB a moron or imbecile. My apologies if anyone felt so slighted. I assumed I was making the point that once we refuse to use words that have specific meanings because they might be confused with words that have coded meanings, we start to run out of words -- such as foolish, imbecilic, and moronic.

You are free to use trowel or shovel all you wish, but I will continue to call the pointy-ended long-handled digging tool a spade, because that's what it is -- and because I'd feel like a tool calling it otherwise. My abandon will continue to be gay and I will continue to treat my wife like a queen.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

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At least Art d. called a spade a spade...or junk junk.

I can't speak for the way things are in New York, but down here in the south, the use of the phrase "calling a spade a spade" does not refer to a deck of playing cards, and I for one would appreciate you refrain from making racists remarks.

I would appreciate it if we could avoid making racist comments. In this case, however, DUP made perfectly clear what he meant when he used the phrase "to call a spade a spade," clarifying it by adding "...or junk junk."

There is no question, in my mind, as to what DUP meant. In these words, I'm happy to say, there is no evidence of racism.

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He also claimed he was against censorship, however I note if I desire to call someone an a**hole, the software now automatically inserts [censored] in the field. What the [censored] is going on around here? Racist remarks are ok but a little personal attack profanity is out?

As John Atkinson mentioned, the banned language tool of the BB software has been strangely inconsistent. I have no explanation for this. However, I believe I've learned how to disable it.

Racist remarks are not okay. I hope that we can avoid both racist comments and personal attacks of any kind.

Please make additional comments to this particular thread in reference to DUP

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Please make additional comments to this particular thread in reference to DUP

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Somewhere in this thread someone mentioned that they had several 20 amp outlets for their audio gear, if memory serves me correctly. You must be powering some serious wattaged amplifier(s) if this much power is needed.

Also mentioned was outlets that had a tight fit - so power chords wouldn't fall out of the socket. Whether it is an expensive, gounded, isolated outlet or a .99 cent outlet if the power chord falls out it's time to replace the outlet. Common sense, here.

I mentioned the separate subpanel, dedicated 20 amp lines, very firm power cord connections to receptacle, etc.

I honestly doubt that my hi-fi equipment draws that much power. I am using those small Lamm 18 watt SET amps, and a very simple analog system with a single source, and highly efficient horn speakers. My primary concerns were isolation from the electrical system in the rest of the house, as well as isolation from the other equipment in the room that is used for an entirely separate home theatre system- that system uses a host of tube amps, large subs with associated amplifiers, and also has a bunch of digital signal processing equipment which may not draw power, but I want it as far removed from the hi-fi system as possible.
As to the pc falling out of the socket, it was meant as a bit of hyperbole to make the point that the connection is very secure.
Happy to post pics of the system here if the forum supports that.

Oh yeah, we like pictures. At the top of the page, there is a section designating the "Gallery" forum. You can upload tons of pictures.

K. Posted 4 images in the Gallery under my name. The images are entitle 'rainy day system pics'. enjoy.

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My primary concerns were isolation from the electrical system in the rest of the house, as well as isolation from the other equipment in the room that is used for an entirely separate home theatre system-

Having your home theatre and audio systems on their own breakers and seperated from the rest of the house is an excellent idea. I'm sure you are aware, though, that just because your equipment is on its' own breaker(s) it is not electrically isolated from the rest of the house. What you may want to get is one of those power strips that has an isolation transformer in it. Make it a good one. And don't make the mistake I've seen many people make by "piggy-backing" these power strips. A big no-no.

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I'm sure you are aware, though, that just because your equipment is on its' own breaker(s) it is not electrically isolated from the rest of the house.

Yep. The home theatre stuff gets fed from the 240 stepdown transformer. So, i think it is isolated from the hi-fi set up. That's why the air compressor, when also plugged into the transformer, no longer 'snaps' thru the audio system.
Given the sensitivity of the horn speakers, I have had to work carefully to eliminate noise, such as 60 hz hum, that would probably not be evident on a less efficient speaker system. Also, my previous preamp, an old ARC SP-10, was far too noisy for this system.
With the current arrangement, I have had few problems. I do not have to 'cheat' any of the grounds, although I use one of those 'Ground Zero' black boxes to assist. And, the only noise that has made it from the rest of the house into the system (apart from the arm compressor, which problem I resolved as described above) is a warm air humidifier that my wife plugs in, during the winter. Solution- I unplug the humidifier when I listen.

I have used various filters, power strips, etc. and frankly, don't need any in the audio system at this point. Everything goes straight into its own receptacle. (Granted, there is some ground differential between the different dedicated lines which is why I need the Ground Zero device- something I could probably eliminate if everything got plugged into the same quad outlet, which would be very difficult from a logistical standpoint, and which would require a 'power strip.')