Thanks Galen
Your question could not be easier to answer.
What I “know” is that I’ve tried many other cables, all price points and the one I settled on made an improvement in sound quality that justified the ridiculous expense.
That said, I also got to borrow for a couple weeks, a power cable that cost my friend $30K (seriously) and it sounded nasal and just awful to me.
But I didn’t select my cable on empirical data because I wouldn’t know what I was looking at. I trust the mfr and I gave his cable a try thru The Cable Co lending library. And I bought several, enthusiastically; graphs nowhere to be found in my process.
In fact, I didn’t buy your IC’s and spkr cable because of your white papers–which I read.
I bought them because of your passionate writings and also on the assured recommendation of Blue Jeans Bob Howard. And your trial policy.
Galen
Could air borne RFI (from wi-fi, mobile phones or computers) or back RFI from digital component power supplies, Rf on the power line etc, pass through amplifier or DAC power supplies and contaminate sensitive DAC and analogue circuits? Surely a screened power cord and one with a low ground impedance will reduce noise in analogue circuits and improve sound quality. I understand why low inductance is important, but filtering noise without increasing inductance must be the other attribute required in a good power cord.
I, too, took the long the journey down the power and interconnect audition path.
My results mirror those of Ron’s. I tried a boatload of cords and cables and
ended with UPOCC/SPTPC cables and Shunyata Alpha/Sigma cords simply
because I thought they sounded the best. I did not want, nor did I plan, for the
costlier options from each vendor to win, but they were superior to my ear.
In fact, I found the greatest difference between the OFE and UPOCC cables,
even though they vary only in the copper, go figure. I believe in the science but
its got to demonstrably trip my trigger in my system to release the funds.
UPOCC is damned good stuff. . . I have it in my cabling as well.
Remember our biases. We can get pretty “out there” with products that we use, yet don’t understand. It is made and working so our “feelings” as to why it works are after the fact. We all do it, admit it! I don’t need to “understand” how a GTI turbo motor actually adjust to your foot feed. It isn’t even a true digital throttle in the classic sense at all…but I push it and the car goes. A modern turbo motor is incredibly complex computer controlled system that adjust all sorts of things to maximize efficiency. I can make-up what it is doing with complete ignorance and the car doesn’t care.
For those that MAKE the products you can’t fake it till you make it most of the time. They have to KNOW what they are making. The time trusted agony of accepted and reliable basic design still applies…even to “new” design methods. They have to work reliably and provide what you paid for with better performance or lower prices or we hope both. If the underlying designs are valid across the most tangible measures, odds are the product will exceed your expectations.
The concept that “noise” is somehow responsible for all that hurts our hobby is the current fad. Little to no data to show it even gets in the front door yet we all “accept” that noise is an issue in modern electronics. Well, the manufacturers have no reason to show that this “noise” gets past the front gates of your equipment as it is more profitable to let you assume it does. And we sure assume it does, too. We list every contrivance we can as though there has to be a failure in the numbers of things that can generate RF. SOMETHING has to be getting past the front door! Way do we think that?
A power cord is like a low impedance speaker cable. The signal is so vastly larger than the noise that Shannon’s law is unbreakable with noise. Shielded power cords are designed to limit what come out of a device, not what gets in. Many devices require captive cords if they are too noisy with fixed shields and ferrite chokes to stop RF emissions. External devices in the outside world that can’t anticipate what the noise may do, and manage it.
The FCC requires home devices to have built-in immunity to noise as “we the people” are ignorant to mitigation techniques. Industrial applications are less strict as the use and installations better able to understand noise issues.
Audio equipment is darn quiet, and can use ANY cord available as they pass FCC field tests with the WORST CASE cord attached. It is well made enough to already MANAGE worst case noise situations, thus any cord will work. So happy we are that noise is already well managed enough to allow us to play with any cord says the effects of noise are largely managed. I did not say current delivery properties, but just noise.
The internal design of good audio equipment manages noise very well. And, they emit little noise so no FCC restrictions apply. I’m all for superposition of new concepts, but they don’t dismiss what we already know. If we want to pay for those unproven concepts, fine I say, no harm done. But, there is a group of us that want to get what we know right, and expect that the cost of the performance will provide a true benefit over FUD that that “noise” is somehow responsible.
Show me the Vcc disturbances that are altering the amps gain linearity that goes away with a different cord and the related technology and I’m all in. No, the data out in the yard isn’t the right data. I don’t care how many ants are out there and how noisy they are. I care about what gets into the house and if they even are a problem to begin with. Don’t sell me a problem I don’t have, demonstrate a solution to a proven problem I do have. We need to test farther downstream to get that noise data but then, that cat would get out of the bag and then what? Connect the problem with the solution.
Power cords are electrically different, yes. The fundamentals of how they work are largely responsible for those differences. IF you have a poorly made supply that lacks sufficient regulation of the Vcc or has insufficient capacitor banks that can’t sustain reasonable current draw it may be relevant but no power cord will change that, however. You can’t force a capacitor to accept a charge it can’t, or in the time it needs to before the Vcc sags. This is part of the DESIGN that we aren’t privy to.
If we do power cords, they will be measured, and that data supplied as to how they are working to accepted standards. Yes, this includes passive noise mitigation that is part of lowering inductance. When the ants are on my dinner table THEN I’ll evaluate EXTERNAL measures that might solve a real problem.
Best,
Galen Gareis
I recently purchased a P20. I don’t think I’ve experienced a product that was more sensitive to power cables. So far I’ve tried 4 or 5 different power cables and the all sounded significantly different in one way or another. One much better than the others in every way. I guess you could say it’s a bias of some sort I guess but PSA recommended I discard the stock cable that came with the unit. They said a high quality PC would significantly improve the effect the P20 has on the equipment connected to it. I took their word for it and figured they must know best. Turns out they were correct. Many people believe Shunyata makes some of the best Power Cables available. They pay a boat of money for them and seem to believe they make a worthwhile difference. I suppose they might all be crazy and this is all snake oil. I don’t think anyone here feels burdened to prove anything to anyone. We’re just sharing our experience with what we hear with our systems. I leave the science to the people who make the gear that I pay for. The decision to purchase based on what I hear is up to me. If a change sounds good it’s good - if it sounds bad it’s bad. Some care why that is so and some don’t. Either way I don’t feel that I need to demonstrate why a cable sounds better or worse - that’s the cable manufactures’ problem. If I like the effect a cable has my system I might buy it. If one cable vendor decides not to make a power cable but another does make one and it knocks it out of the park sonically in my system I’m not going to return the power cable because another cable vendor says what I’m hearing can’t be possible. As a cable vendor it might not be a bad idea to figure out why so many people with reveling systems are spending so much on power cables. No one is trying to sell you a problem you don’t have - there really is no problem. Just plenty of empirical evidence that that says power cables make a difference – for better or worse. I also don’t like ants on my dinner table. That sounds gross…
You.re right, Galen. I don’t give a rat’s patootie how most of this stuff works.
I leave the design and construction to guys like you and Caelin Gabriel and Ted Smith and Paul and Bascom and Nelson and Wayne and…
Ted just gave us all a free new DAC. Does it sound better? Yup. Do I know how it works? Nope. Does it matter? Nope. Have I traded money for all your products? Yup. Am I happy? Yup.
Understood, I think🙄. I have enjoyed your empirical rationales for how things
work or should work, and the proof of your pudding, for me, is that I like it and
own it. I would be one if the first to sample any power cord offerings and would
be confident that there were no ants at the picnic.
Several P20 owners including myself have mentioned on the forum how
this unit craves a good cord. These experiences seem to mirror yours.
My cord costs as much as my speakers (blaspheme) but I have no regrets.
I think one of the things we’re continually finding here on the Bleeding Edge of technology and sound reproduction is that there appear to be things that matter - that make a difference in the sound - that we do not understand and cannot be measured with traditional or extant devices and methods.
In an attempt to illustrate this point, I periodically trot out the story of the time famed studio gear designer Rupert Neve was called in to figure out what the “problem” was with the then-new board he had built for Abbey Road Studios. “Golden Eared” engineer Geoff Emerick was hearing something wrong in the high end that was bugging him. He may have been the only one who perceived it, and it was not measurable.
In frustration, in the end, Rupert built a meter that could measure FR out to 50kHz, even though “everyone knows” we cannot hear past 20kHz. There was a “hump” in FR inherent in the design of the channel strips above 30kHz. He modified the design, and the problem was solved.
Subsequently, Neve designs were built flat to 50kHz, and nowadays they are typically flat to 100kHz.
I fixed my really expensive power cord issue costing close to other components, I bought more expensive source components! Now they are cheap by the percentages.
I’ve tried to present, from a designer’s world, how my designs work, and what I looked at. I will continue to do that for those that want to know what is likely impacting what they hear. I have to do it so “I” know what the cord is doing. Why not tell you?
We may have more than one cord design if all the measurements are correct. Each one will be measurement wise differentiated. But, and this is a BIG butt (pun intended) I have to be able to provide good cords at affordable prices that work well. We already have $$$ cords that isolate the effects on the cord themselves with scant little evidence it makes it past the front door. I’m fine with that as what does works is still there for everyone, if not at high prices. I want to strip away the ant traps that don’t keep issues out of my house and use only the major design aspects that do.
Best,
Galen Gareis
Bad Beef,
Yes, and this CONNECTS the problem to the solution. One and not the other is what snake oil is. The user doesn’t have to care what’s up, but the designer HAS TO connect the effect with the cause. The designers world is very different.
I want to be VERY careful to show measured responses that can differentiate how a cord might be working at the extremes of performance. After all, most devices do work with standard cords! The difference is providing lower inductance cord designs, and how they work when we do that.
The power cord is the fuel, and the power supply is the engine. Just putting premium gas into an engine does not mean anything changed. We need to increase the engine compression ratio to offset premium fuels lower BTU content, to mitigate KNOCK, with more torque produced with increased compression. Only then do we get better performance.
Cords won’t work the same in every situation, same as speaker and IC cables, because it is a system of interrelated events.
Best,
Galen Gareis
I admire your desire to stick to your principles in this regard - I think one would be hard pressed to find a cable manufacturer who doesn’t simply take advantage of whatever notariety their designs have garnered, and then RUN WITH IT ; )
However, I am arguing for keeping an open mind about things we don’t fully understand and/or currently do not know how to measure. Designing something to 2.5 times the FR of human hearing was CRAZY at the time.
Re: your last paragraph, this was just underscored for me, as with my prior front end, I preferred TPC over SPTPC speaker wires, even though many others were saying they should have nearly the opposite effects I was hearing.
I have a new front end, and was suspecting that it might benefit from the change from TPC to SPTPC. It does. Synergy (like the Room) is the Elephant in the Room ; )
I agree power cords won’t work the same way. In the case of the P20 (Just one example - a really “expensive” component) they make a dramatic difference. While your analogy works for you it doesn’t hold water with many – for whatever the reason. No matter how many times you repeat it. As a designer it’s your choice whether or not you want to produce a power cable. It is possible you might me missing something here - perhaps? Is there a least a possibility that there’s something to the thousands of dollars people have spent on PC’s for their expensive well designed equipment? Have we all been scammed the last 20 years? Perhaps the ants need to go back on the table for this one…
Agreed - Galen, why not give it a try and beta it with interested parties. You don’t have to be able to 'splain it to us “more money than sense” audiophools ; ). Its just plain Un-American to ignore a Market!
Take the Measurementalist approach that the fault is in the designs of the equipment that you are attaching it to, or a lack in the synergy of the system, then you can simply say it is fixing something that is “improperly designed”.
Like the old joke: If I’m in the woods speaking, and my wife isn’t there to hear me, am I still wrong?
Paul: “But WHY does it sound better?” Bascom: “I don’t know, it just does…”. (From BHK on the preamp)
I go with the data as that what stays relevant with or without your concern that it is there. The DATA has to be supported past the cable to the circuits. Prior to that it isn’t “data” relative to the problem. Noise on the cable is NOT noise in your audio circuits. I’m looking at what makes end to source sense, and designing to that match those ends, not what everyone else does.
When there is data to support errors in digital, or noise in analog, that still does not mean it is the power cord. Working that back could be many things if the problem is sustainable and real. Why all of a sudden is it just “noise”?
I use DS DAC digital and the memory player both, too, so no good isolating sources as good / bad with RF. I listen to both.
I won’t sell unsubstantiated cable artifacts that don’t match the data on how a particular cable works. I’m not sure why we feel that is a threat, and why I have to accept what isn’t proven designing a cable. Mental gymnastics and theory is fine, but it has to be proven and grounded SOMEWHERE in fact before I’ll use it.
Copper is an odd one, and the grains will alter the superposition of moving electrons that make the EM wave. The electrical path that is indeed our signal is measurably different. What is missing, is the ability to contrast the EM waves from one grain structure to another. I’m comfortable that what is being supplied is reliably different for customers.
My goal is to make affordable and proven cables and to not find fault with what you have now. I can design cables without doing that.
Best,
Galen Gareis
badbeef,
A power cable can’t fix a bad power supply so that excuse won’t work. You can’t make a supply resist sag if the capacitors won’t take a charge as fast as the cable’s inductance allows. The capacitive reactance and time constant equations assume the current goes up infinitely fast into an empty capacitor. We know that ain’t so!
This is why low ESR capacitors are critical in power supplies, they allow the stored voltage potential energy to be removed or stored and released as current kinetic energy closer to instantaneously. And, Xc is frequency dependent so all caps don’t charge and discharge the same even at 60Hz.
What something sounds like isn’t a specification, so trying to define that is problematic other than it is simply “different” and to use what pleases you. The clue is DIFFERENT. What aspects of our hobby make things different? The differences allow us to chose closer to a tighter standard since we can loosely group items together this way.
Two speakers can have the exact same frequency response on axis, but one has far narrower horizontal dispersion. Knowing those measurements allows a decision to be made based on experience as to what differences have been heard comparing the two technologies. The data is real, your choice is wide open. I’m fine with that.
Best,
Galen Gareis
I recently tried a Shunyata Alpha PC on a P20 an Odyssey Kismit Power Amp. The cable was incredible. Just did it for fun as it’s out of my price range at the moment. If Iconoclast could figure out how to make a comparable cable for half the price it would sell like hot cakes. You don’t need to find fault with what I have you need to find fault with the power cables others are producing in your industry and decide if you’re interested in making a competitive product. Not sure why you feel threatened as most of the mental gymnastics and insults on this thread come from you. We’re all just having a civil conversation on what we hear. Sell whatever you want. As I said it’s your industry - your decision.
You’re Entitled to your Wrong Opinion, as Groucho said.
There are no Excuses in what I suggest.
Data is data, specifications are specs,…indeed. Sound is Real for me. I bought your costly cables, which had nought whatsoever to do with the effing Math.
Listen to the data and specs to your heart’s content. From my perspective, neither of those produce sound, which is all I give a flying ___ about. Ponder that - as others have urged.