Ability to see all electical signatures from every devices in your house with sensors

[Ki Choi]

From our local Seattle Times:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2016257986_genius20m.html

If he can come up with a sensor to see all the electrical signatures (and assuming noises as well), it would be a rather simpler tasks to come up with a device to cancel the nosie.

Most of us had experienced music sounding better at 2 am and some lucky members have dedicated balanced power systems for their audio system.

It would be a practical product to offer as acitive power conditioning system for the audio world...

Ki

 

[fas42]

From that article:

He figured out how to disaggregate the "voltage noise" of a home's electrical system to determine if specific devices or light bulbs were on. Each device, when turned on, sings a specific electric tune, and Patel developed algorithms to be sensitive ears.

So the mains voltage is "singing" a glorious melody all on its lonesome, and the poor power supplies in our high end gear is supposed to make sure none of that leaks through to our sensitive amplifying circuits. Good luck to them!

Frank

 

[microstrip]

In this case electrical signature just means that the variation of I(t) and V(t) of the mains supply to the loading of this specific device is specific enough to allow the identification of the device. Electric tune is just a poetic name for the shapes of these signals.

The subject Ki refers is really interesting. The aim is to have a complete monitoring of the activity of all the electrical devices devices and use this information to help people minimize power consumption or, in extreme cases, to play Big Brother with it. A few years ago I though about such a project, but as soon as I started researching on it I saw the idea was not so new ... If you are interested S. Patel has a patent applied on it : WHOLE STRUCTURE CONTACTLESS POWER CONSUMPTION SENSING Application number: 12/567,561

But I see no way to use this technique for the diagnostic of the sound quality due to mains - the effects due to power cables and fancy accessories are not in the range of these systems.

 

[fas42]

But I see no way to use this technique for the diagnostic of the sound quality due to mains - the effects due to power cables and fancy accessories are not in the range of these systems.

Again, I disagree. If you had one sensor at the plug end of the power cable and another at the point where the cable entered the case of the component you'd see quite a significant difference ...

Frank

 

[microstrip]

Again, I disagree. If you had one sensor at the plug end of the power cable and another at the point where the cable entered the case of the component you'd see quite a significant difference ...

Frank

What kind of sensor are you thinking about for this task? A 50000 usd 40 GHz sampling oscilloscope? Surely you would see the difference. But the big question is correlating it with sound quality.

IMHO the minimizing tactic can also have a problem - mains is an imperfect source of power and minimizing the contacts you are improving the bridges for noise or even creating non-dampened resonances at very high frequencies. A friend of mine replaced all his standard good quality power
cables with high quality audiophile power cables and plugs and the sound of the system degraded. Surely the electrical parameters of the new cables were much better than the old ones, but the end result was a disaster.

 

[fas42]

What kind of sensor are you thinking about for this task? A 50000 usd 40 GHz sampling oscilloscope? Surely you would see the difference. But the big question is correlating it with sound quality.

IMHO the minimizing tactic can also have a problem - mains is an imperfect source of power and minimizing the contacts you are improving the bridges for noise or even creating non-dampened resonances at very high frequencies. A friend of mine replaced all his standard good quality power
cables with high quality audiophile power cables and plugs and the sound of the system degraded. Surely the electrical parameters of the new cables were much better than the old ones, but the end result was a disaster.

I haven't looked at Patel's patent, but if it is sensitive enough, and has enough processing power to detect and break apart the intricate dance of voltage and current from a single sensor plugged into one point in the house then it should handle the two ends of the cable situation. The fancy mains cord and accessories are behaving as filters on rubbish in the MHz range, not Ghz.

Yes, mains IS an imperfect source of power, but the technique is to filter out those imperfections at some point between the wall socket and entry into the component, and FROM THAT POINT ON have perfect connections, otherwise all that good cleaning work will be undone. Your friend's experience could be for the very reason you mentioned: the audiophile cable in fact caused a resonance. Just because electrical parameters in some aspect of a component or part is superior never guarantees better performance: a classic case is bypassing capacitors with audiophile grade units, which can be a backward step or even disasterous if some understanding is not applied to the situation.

Frank

 

[Orb]

Well possibly the most practical audio use would be to identify benefit of mains filtering, rather than more complex issues of cables.
Anyway, nice to read a true genius being promoted in a general news publication.

Cheers
Orb

 

[microstrip]

Well possibly the most practical audio use would be to identify benefit of mains filtering, rather than more complex issues of cables.
(...)
Cheers
Orb

Orb,
Any high quality mains regenerator will produce a mains power of much better quality than non treated mains. But many times it will not sound better, and the action will be much lower than that of fancy cables and plugs.
Unless you have really serious problems with mains, the measuring devices will measure the electrical benefit , not the sound benefit.

 

[Orb]

Difficult to say I feel Microstrip.
Your trying to equate an audio electonics component's sound quality based upon its performance and traits.
As an example it is quite possible for some components to be affected by the more recent PC mains network components, an investigation by Jim Lesurf showed that this also acts as a transmitter and can be spread to other houses, let alone other affects that occur through mains such as the DC offset-buzz, harmonic noise,etc.
Audio gear all have different levels of mains filtering built into them, also they do not all have the same wideband behaviour.

What we can do is equate peformance (not just subjective) to traits measured, and in this way we get a better picture of what may be occurring; take negative feedback models as an example, or harmonic distortion,etc.
Anyway IMO, it does not necessarily take a serious problems with the mains to affect performance or traits, as seen with transformer core saturation (simple example).
Thats my take on it but it is one of those controversial areas where I appreciate there is viable points either side of the fence, that said I agree not every household would benefit from mains filtering, and can also be compounded by being intermittent (which is what happens at my detached house and caused by a river authority minor pumping station it seems).

Cheers
Orb

 

[fas42]

Orb,
Any high quality mains regenerator will produce a mains power of much better quality than non treated mains. But many times it will not sound better, ...

Usually for the simple reason that it's hard, meaning expensive, to build one with sufficiently low output impedance, especially at higher frequencies. In essence they are a high powered amplifier: get the biggest, meanest Krell, they would make a top notch regenerator. Bit of of a waste of the electronics, though...

Frank

 

[stargate]

I have some experience with the grounding part to lower the noise floor that was about in the beginning 4 Olms down to two Olms-this was done with 5 ground rods ten feet into the earth in series filled with root kill from homeless depot-the grounding series are connected to my whole system..via cloth wire from the old general electric days---I have to say the sound went from white to black-dark and sirup sounding just by dropping 2 Olms

 

[Orb]

I have some experience with the grounding part to lower the noise floor that was about in the beginning 4 Olms down to two Olms-this was done with 5 ground rods ten feet into the earth in series filled with root kill from homeless depot-the grounding series are connected to my whole system..via cloth wire from the old general electric days---I have to say the sound went from white to black-dark and sirup sounding just by dropping 2 Olms

Thanks Stargate and fits in with some experiences I would say of those saying the background was blacker-quieter-etc when using filter or regeneration, I have experienced the lower noise floor was well myself.
BTW how much did it cost to do your solution?
I assume required building regulation type engineer involved for a house?
That is if your happy sharing the info, definitely a good way to go IMO and wondering how it compares in costs.

Thanks
Orb

 

[fas42]

This is moving into the area of Tim's fairy dust, which is just another way of saying that there are subtle effects on a system's performance which may or may not be mitigated by trying a technique, that can be quite expensive to implement. You may be lucky and find it has a very significant result, or it may do absolutely nothing, or it may make it audibly worse in certain ways. There are no easy answers!!

If you try a cheap and nasty temporary version of some idea and find it has postive benefits, then go the whole hog on a pricey version thereof, that's a better approach to this whole business. I'm convinced very reasonable priced, "normal" materials and devices will solve all these esoteric issues, the biggest headache is finding what's causing the deficiency. A bit like having a unusual noise in your car, and going nuts and paying a fortune to try and eradicate it, only to find that it's a couple of loose objects in the glovebox rubbing together ...

Frank

 

[Orb]

Frank,
hearing the noise floor is less subjective than anything else and it is either there or it is not, and can be classified as one of the factors that can irritate listeners and has a tolerance/threshold.
If a product or solution exacerbates or reduces this, then it is not really fairy dust IMO.

Cheers
Orb

 

[fas42]

Frank,
hearing the noise floor is less subjective than anything else and it is either there or it is not, and can be classified as one of the factors that can irritate listeners and has a tolerance/threshold.
If a product or solution exacerbates or reduces this, then it is not really fairy dust IMO.

Cheers
Orb

I would quite vigorously disagree about the noise floor being less subjective, it in fact is perhaps most controversial of all the parameters, largely because, I believe, it suffers from this misnaming. It is not noise that is causing the sound to be less than clear, it is distortion: why it is called noise is because it adds this cloak of murkiness to the sound, it becomes harder to "read" the acoustic of the musical event. But if it were truly noise it would be fixed in level, not vary depending the nature of the material being playbacked. When you raise the volume, at some point it becomes obvious distortion, at lower volumes it retreats into a somewhat grey fog mixed in with the musical event.

Which is why when it is lessened people talk of blacker backgrounds: what you are actually hearing is the acoustic of the recording, which is at a far lower level than the obvious direct sound, being more clearly reproduced, less distorted. It has the nature of being "black" because it stands out from, contradicts the acoustic of the listening space where the playback is occurring. As an ultimate expression of this, in a system working at a top level, is that at a heightened playback volume this acoustic of the recording completely takes over, dominates the listening area acoustic as far as your ear/brain is concerned; your home disappears and you are transported to the recording space.

Frank

 

[stellavox]

Power Line "noise monitor"

Hi Guys,

A few years back I happened upon a device on Ebay called a power line noise monitor. It was apparently made for one of the audiophile cable companies and because of no sales was being offered "surplus".

Turns out that the device was made by Alphalab in Salt Lake City. This company makes all kinds of conducted / radiated, electric / magnetic field detection / measuring devices. This little "black box" has a speaker and an LED display on the front panel and a power cord that can plug into any 115VAC outlet. Think of it as a little AM radio that "listens to" power line noise extending from 60hz up to maybe 500Khz or so. Depending on the situation you might hear a hum or a crackle or ... the undead...

Using it was very interesting. Plug it into a 115VAC outlet and you may hear something or not. You can adjust a control on the front that sets the display to an arbitrary reading which you can now move around the house and "look for / hear" DIFFERENCES. Both at my house and a few others we could hear an AM radio station "above ground" but not in the basement. Fluorescent lights could be very "noisy" but easy to find and turn off or replace. Certain areas in a house seemed to be much quieter than others for no obvious reason. Most significant thing I learned was "listening" to the output of a few different "balanced power" units at mine (a "simple" 1KVA toroid) and a few friends locations. In every instance, the "noise" at the output of the unit - as measured by the meter - fell to the lowest level - in some instances by more than an order of magnitude versus the input level.

The result of this whole exercise convinced me that power line "noise" sure exists and can vary quite a bit throughout a house. Also, a balanced power type of conditioner does significantly lower this noise. In none of the cases did we try any A/B listening tests to see if any change was "audible". Also I performed all the tests during the day. Will have to ask whomever has my meter (can't remember who I lent it to) to try a few measurements in the early AM.

Charles

 

[Orb]

I would quite vigorously disagree about the noise floor being less subjective, it in fact is perhaps most controversial of all the parameters......Frank

Are you saying that noise floor is more subjective than stage-image depth, base and treble quality, silibance-phase-etc?
Then I feel we will have to disagree, because unlike those others it is easier to quantify in terms of perception than these other factors and does not rely on music to even be played.
To put it into perspective, some really dislike more noisy products that can also measure well in terms of linearity and distortion, noise floor (along with a few other audio issues including distortion-artifacts in the music as you mention) has a defined tolerance and threshold unlike other factors for each listener uses to identify sound quality - we are talking about products with marginal distortion and frequency fluctuation.

Cheers
Orb

 

[Orb]

Thanks Charles,
interesting experience

Cheers
Orb

 

[microstrip]

Hi Guys,

A few years back I happened upon a device on Ebay called a power line noise monitor. It was apparently made for one of the audiophile cable companies and because of no sales was being offered "surplus".

Turns out that the device was made by Alphalab in Salt Lake City. This company makes all kinds of conducted / radiated, electric / magnetic field detection / measuring devices. This little "black box" has a speaker and an LED display on the front panel and a power cord that can plug into any 115VAC outlet. Think of it as a little AM radio that "listens to" power line noise extending from 60hz up to maybe 500Khz or so. Depending on the situation you might hear a hum or a crackle or ... the undead...

Using it was very interesting. Plug it into a 115VAC outlet and you may hear something or not. You can adjust a control on the front that sets the display to an arbitrary reading which you can now move around the house and "look for / hear" DIFFERENCES. Both at my house and a few others we could hear an AM radio station "above ground" but not in the basement. Fluorescent lights could be very "noisy" but easy to find and turn off or replace. Certain areas in a house seemed to be much quieter than others for no obvious reason. Most significant thing I learned was "listening" to the output of a few different "balanced power" units at mine (a "simple" 1KVA toroid) and a few friends locations. In every instance, the "noise" at the output of the unit - as measured by the meter - fell to the lowest level - in some instances by more than an order of magnitude versus the input level.

The result of this whole exercise convinced me that power line "noise" sure exists and can vary quite a bit throughout a house. Also, a balanced power type of conditioner does significantly lower this noise. In none of the cases did we try any A/B listening tests to see if any change was "audible". Also I performed all the tests during the day. Will have to ask whomever has my meter (can't remember who I lent it to) to try a few measurements in the early AM.

Charles

A similar device, the MFJ-852 from MFJ is still available for usd 119.95

http://www.mfjenterprises.comwww.mfjenterprises.com/Product.php?productid=MFJ-852

But be prepared for some diplomacy work : I quote their Instruction Manual

"Most commercial or residential property owners don't want to hear about "harmful interference" problems that might costs money to repair. As the bearer of bad news, it's up to you to put a positive spin on the need for correction and remedy. This means showing them the source, letting them listen to what it sounds like, explaining FCC guidelines pertaining to harmful interference, and conveying your concern that severe RFI is often symptomatic of dangerous inhouse electrical hazards. Courtesy and specific technical information are always the best tools for winning cooperation. "

 

[Orb]

Although to be fair microstrip modern affects go beyond just traditional RFI, such as the example of ground rods, or my experience with an outside rivers authority water pump that is not part of my house and affects several houses down our road.
Then there are those who still use mains network product; a friend of mine does even though I advise him not to - will not change his mind on doing this
To stress though, audio listeners should not assume there is a problem with their mains-electrical wiring.

Cheers
Orb