Is Square better?

Power Components
1

Being a jazz fan for my whole life, the word “square” always rubs me the wrong way. But my brother, who is at least twice the audiophile I am, is trying to sell me on adding a device made by ADD-POWR that is designed to convert the sine-wave structure of the AC power feeding my audio system to square waves. Not that I don’t trust my brother (even though he used to beat me up when I was a kid), I asked AI:

For incoming AC used to power highly-resolving audio equipment, does converting a sine wave to a square wave lead to more accurately rendered audio?

AI answered:

No, converting incoming AC sine waves to square waves does not lead to more accurately rendered audio in high-resolution audio equipment; in fact, it is generally detrimental to audio quality.

High-end audio equipment requires stable, clean power, and the smooth, continuous nature of a sine wave is ideal for power supplies to convert into stable DC voltage.

Here is why converting to square waves is detrimental:

• Increased Noise and Interference: Square waves contain high-frequency harmonics that can introduce unwanted noise and “buzzing” into the audio signal.
• Stress on Power Supplies: Square waves have a high harmonic content and sharp edges (fast transitions), which can cause power transformers to vibrate and operate inefficiently, often leading to increased heat and potential damage to sensitive components.
• Lowered Performance: The “jerky” nature of square waves is fundamentally different from the smooth, consistent power needed to avoid graininess or dynamic compression in audio.
• Inefficiency: A square wave provides “on/off” power rather than a smooth, continuous, wave, which makes them less efficient for driving the sensitive electronics found in high-resolving equipment.

Conclusion: For the best performance, audio equipment should be powered by a pure sine wave. In contrast, inverters or conditioners that produce square waves are considered lower quality and should be avoided in favor of systems that provide clean, undistorted AC.

I own a PowerPlant 3 and I believe its Multiwave setting does the same thing, right? My bro said something about how a square wave can carry more audio data than a sine, but AI’s answer makes it sound like it can also carry a bunch of junk too.

So maybe I didn’t ask the question right, because I also read a review (warning - it’s looooong) from Posi+ive Feedback that’s positive.

Yeah, I know, try it and listen, but I’m not convinced. Thoughts? From what I’ve also read, converting to square waves makes things louder - is that what’s really going on?

2

AFIK, square wave is a test tool. Music is not square waves.

3

Exactly. Looking at it from another viewpoint one of the reasons why analogue music reproduction seems more lifelike has to do I think with it being a continuous phenomenon rather than a discrete one. It’s one of the reasons why (especially early) digital playback was thought to be inferior.

A visual representation of a sine wave from an analogue versus digital viewpoint.

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image1920×1294 157 KB

4

My understanding may be flawed but maybe square wave needs to be further defined - 50/60 hz square wave at peak voltage or something like SMPS where the output approaches sign wave as the switching rates increases.

I’m hearing Paul’s comment that we’re listening to the power supply and caps recharging at peak voltage. What happens in a cap that is held at peak voltage longer?

5

This is really deceptive because the truth is, everything at some level is made of bits. There is no such thing as continuous in our known universe. Everything is a bit of some size. So the question comes down to how fine are the bits?

Think of DSD the way we use it at octave Records. 4XDSD means there are 11 million bits every second. That compared to 22,000 bits per second with a CD.

Like film, running at 24 “bits” per second, there is always a point where enough bits running fast enough seems continuous.

6

Your point is well-taken. I still can’t quite wrap my head around light being both a point and a wave although that may argue for your point: photons are sufficiently small bits as to be both.

7

Agreed. If I think too hard about it my head hurts.

8

Here’s another one: photons have zero mass. But light can move things.

9

Stop! I feel like I’m back in school trying to make sense of Ludwig Wittengenstein’s Blue and Brown Books.

10

Squaring off AC mains sounds like a very bad idea, I wouldn’t do it if you paid me to :slight_smile:

11

I read the review at Posi+ive Feedback and I’m even more confused. I’m not an engineer so I need some help here. It sounds like the author is using the ADD device in the same wall outlet as the Audioquest Niagra. How does this change the output of the Niagra on the sound?

12

I’m only half way through my morning cup of coffee and I so feel like I NEED a big glass, or 2, of wine!~

13

Wow, not 2 hours after I posted this, like 7 people replied. You guys need to GET A LIFE. Wait, I’m the one who started it. I should be grateful to be among so many nerds.

So I sent that same AI feedback to my brother and here’s his response:

Amazing that your AI search sounds identical to responses of those naysayers on AudioGon and AudioAsylum who claim products cannot possibly improve the sound based on logical science without actually listening to the sound affected by those products. I was wondering where they got it. Probably the same people whose grandfathers said computers were doomed due to the excessive heat emanating from the millions of vacuum tubes necessary to work properly. If you want more of this please go to the Audio Science Review website where they measure products without listening to them and then pronounce them worthy of their approval. Just the other day I called up a friend and said “you need to come over and see my new amplifier. You cannot believe how well it measures.”

OK, back to me. And yes, my brother can easily get rubbed the wrong way. The main thing we need to keep in mind is that this is power coming out of the wall, not within the system. So the square-waving has nothing to do with the music itself, only with the initial power going into the system. My brother linked me to a YouTube video from ADD-POWR and an Audiogon discussion. In the first, my brother claims he can hear a real difference, even with YouTube’s limitations. To me, it just sounds louder.

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/add-powr-products-opinions-please?highlight=add-powr

14

Remember, E = MC2. Mass and energy are easily interconverted. When the hydrogen isotope deuterium fuses to make helium, the result is lighter than the starting atoms.

15

I enjoy physics conceptual at this stage but it does make my brain hurt as well. I think the issue is that I understand perhaps half of the mathematics.

16

It took me some time to come to grasp with: square waves are just the sum of a lot of harmonic sin waves of the fundamental sin wave that corresponds to the frequency of the square wave. That digital data converts in essence to square waves but that is partly adjusted by the filter which removes those harmonic components that we can not hear. As the power from the wall needs to be converted to direct current, conversion of the 60 Hz source to a square wave by introducing a slew of harmonics would seem pointless. I think Paul hits a key element when he points out that all of our electronics combined serve the sole purpose of modulating the source power at the frequencies we want the speaker cones to move. The power supplies are there to remove the 60 Hz variation in the power source: why one would want to introduce multiple harmonics before running them through the power supply to remove them escapes me. But I fully believe that it does result in a different sound-but better? You might just as well buy cheap audio gear with loads of THD.

17

Hey Paul,

Thanks for weighing in on this. I guess the only reason I’m interested in this is because of my interest in AC power - why I isolated the power to my audio room, why I bought one of them PowerPlants, etc.

But what you say about everything being bits reminded me of something I wrote a few days ago in response to one of your daily Posts - that we divide things into analog vs. digital. But ALL of it is an analogy for real sound. Analog uses electrons to represent the sound coming into a microphone, to carry this analogy through to when it’s either physically engraved on the walls of a vinyl groove or flux on a magnetic tape. Instead of electrical impulses, digital uses 0s and 1s ato analogize the sound, or more often, in concert with electrical analogies. At last year’s AXPONA show, someone was trying to convince me that analog is better because the only limitation is the size of the atoms making up the analog signals or vinyl. I said “Great, so there are no limitations on how well defined surface noise or tape hiss are either.” At what point are our ears able to discern the difference between however million or billion electrical impulses or atoms of vinyl coupled with noise vs. 11 million bits per second over silence?

18

A photon is a photon is a photon.

19

I like round, it travels further when I hit it hard.

20

There’s a good amount of physics in your golf balls, David.