Liquid-filled power cables?

[Nicholas Bedworth]

From the annals of neurophysiology...

There was a famous neuroscientist, speaking at an international conference (this being around 1972) and he presented some incredible findings showing how the EEG was coordinated with certain mental phenomena. Everyone was pretty impressed. At the end of his talk, he said, OK, let me tell you want really happened. Basically the patient would move slightly, in response to the stimuli being presented, and the EEG leads (measuring microvolts, typically) wiggled slghtly within the electrical fields in the laboratory. The whole thing was movement artifact.

If the patient kept his head still, no findings The audience was impressed by the scientist's honesty, and sobered by the fact that any one of them could have missed what was really going on.

 

[FrantzM]

Amirm

It is IMO a matter of degree... The flap of a butterfly wing may have an effect on the Satellites of Jupiter. One might even attempt to calculate it and spend a lifetime in a futile exercise .. ...
If one needs a result there is always a set of numbers, of measures that would fit it... This is the case here .. A Power is a simple cable and one can amuse oneself to analyze it to precision that eludes the best of our measuring devices, including skin effect and look at it as a quadripole... it changes nothing to the basic facts... L, R, C are enough to know what this cable does and doesn't, especially at 60 Hz ...
This remains to me a case of pure marketing.. Once a person utters polymer the minds conjures a bunch of hexagons and of "C", "H" and "O" in strange and intricate hexagonal patterns and the mind wants something from it ... The measurements now look quite normal .. to achieve low R or Low inductance large gauge cable (anything over 12 AWG) and my point remains what about the mechanical vibrations the power line was subjected to? including I repeat the generator vibrations ? Let's not go there...
As someone put it server me this liquid filled cable with strong single malt, I am sure I would hear differences then... DBT or not ...

To remain within the spirit of the cable .. How much this marvel of Science does cost?

@DonHo (hey that's your new moniker!) I was thinking about the other G. Now isn't that "G" a derived parameter? Isn't it known from direct measurement of the basic LRC parameters? Off-forum if you want to. I am somewhat curious and you have stroked my engineer's chords .. Bad you

 

[Nicholas Bedworth]

Computer karaoke?

Amir's mention of his experiences repairing electronics reminded me of an interesting phenomenon. Namely, computer motherboards and chassis, displays, etc., emit all kinds of readily audible sounds that are very roughly correlated with the processing load. The circuit boards "sing" along with the computation. The tone changes with how much of the screen is lit up, whether the processor is idling or cranking, etc.

Computer music in yet another form?

For sure, gently tapping on various components inside an amplifier or DAC is not going to be a reassuring experience.

 

[DonH50]

Hey, sorry Frantz, but you started it! (I think...)

No, G (when used to represent conductance) can be directly measured, typically as 1/R (and R is very large so it takes special equipment). The cable model is R in series with L in the series connection of input to output, shunted by C in parallel with G from input/output to ground (the other side of the cable). G is what causes the "leakage" often mentioned. It cannot be derived from RLC, but is usually so small (e.g. a very large resistor) that it is neglected.

Does that help? - Don (just Don, please... I play trumpet, and my singing is best left in the shower, if that!)

 

[Nicholas Bedworth]

@FrantzM... I think we all will agree with you that after enough single malt infusions, we'll all be singing along with music, even if it's from a car radio, and having a great time!

 

[FrantzM]

From the annals of neurophysiology...

There was a famous neuroscientist, speaking at an international conference (this being around 1972) and he presented some incredible findings showing how the EEG was coordinated with certain mental phenomena. Everyone was pretty impressed. At the end of his talk, he said, OK, let me tell you want really happened. Basically the patient would move slightly, in response to the stimuli being presented, and the EEG leads (measuring microvolts, typically) wiggled slghtly within the electrical fields in the laboratory. The whole thing was movement artifact.

If the patient kept his head still, no findings The audience was impressed by the scientist's honesty, and sobered by the fact that any one of them could have missed what was really going on.

Nicholas

"movement artifacts" !?! .. The person MOVED ... so it is ABSOLUTELY normal for the EEG to vary in response to a person movement ...you move... the EEG changes or am I missing something ... ??!!??

Enjoy your polymer-filled cable ...Only don't test it blind .. Strange things may happen then ... I am out ...

 

[Nicholas Bedworth]

Perhaps the wording of my post was a litlte vague, in that the effect was totally and exclusively caused by the motion of the EEG leads through the air, not as the result of recording neuronal activity. It was 100% pure artifact, i.e., bogus.

My years of research in clinical EEG and electrophysiology certainly reinforced these "findings", namely, paranoia in the service of real science is a really good idea. It also helps prevent embarrassing yourself in front of colleagues

Is double-blind testing what happens when you close both your eyes listening to music?

 

[DonH50]

Nicholas, I am pretty much a cable skeptic, but it would be very interesting to meet with Jerry. Aurora is an hour or so away, depending upon traffic...

Regarding microphonics, they can certainly be measured in cables (at least the impact of them; it is something we do all the time in the microwave world as cable integrity is a huge challenge). My argument is not that they exist nor whether or not they can be measured; what I question is their audibility in a music system. And I mean that sincerely; I do not know for sure. I have not personally heard any difference tapping on my speaker cables, and rarely on interconnects (special circumstances), but in the past I have heard issues with some cables. Whether the sound was audible while playing music I couldn't say, at least most of the time. The exception was a phono cable, and after a lot of work to minimize mechanical coupling back to the TT and isolating the connectors, I decided the cable itself was indeed the issue. I replaced it and the problem went away. I wrote it off to a bad cable.

I have never heard issues with power cables, but it is not something I have ever really thought about. The Tice Clock did nothing for me, and only very rarely have I measured any difference (let alone heard any) with a power conditioner. Ears of clay, as I said... At least it has saved me a ton of money on power cables! In the primordial past (late 80's) I measured the output of an amplifier's power supply and the signal output into a load resistor before and after an expensive (probably like $100 then) power cable upgrade. There was no measurable difference. Certainly not an exhaustive test, but I remain a skeptic.

Tapping on an unterminated cable is not conclusive as many factors other than microphonics that can cause that nasty sound out the other end, primarily coupling into the open end via normal capacitive/inductive pick-up. When we meaure microphonics, it is with terminated cables carefully anchored at the measuring system. Most of the time in the test lab, it's a tap and a little bending while we observe the reaction on a network analyzer, spectrum analyzer, or DSO. Accurate characterization requires vibration tables and stuff our R&D lab does not have (have to send out to a test lab or back to our main factory). All of this is done for mw/mw (microwave/millimeter wave) cables and cables used in high-resolution/low-noise test systems (e.g. <1 mV down to maybe 1 uV). It often requires a screen room, or at least a screen-box, otherwise radiated signals (over the air noise) will trash the measurements.

I must say, skepticism aside, that I admire the worthwhile give-and-take going on in this thread! Nice when "argument" reverts to its original meaning of defending a point of view rather than being simply a shouting match... - Don

 

[FrantzM]

is double-blind testing what happens when you close both your eyes listening to music?

lol

 

[Nicholas Bedworth]

A. This is a hobby, and supposed to be a lot of fun.
B. Keeping a sense of humor about most things is the key to a long and happy life.
C. Nobody likes the kind of education one gets during a fist fight
D. After your trip to Aurora, come out to Maui and we can dig through my treasure chest of power cables.

 

[The Smokester]

...L, R, C are enough to know what this cable does and doesn't ...(

Franz, You and I usually agree. However, these are very dangerous assumptions...Namely that the "lumped parameters" L, R and C are constants. It is pretty much established that C is not a constant for many standard capacitors. Many capacitors have a long residual tail where the charge continues to drain out in a manner inconsistent with the usual RC time constant. That's why we pay the big bucks for upgraded coupling capacitors in our amps. And inductors can saturate and then they also are not constant or linear parameters. I know you know this but I just had to bring it out.

It is also conceivable that there is some polarization effect going on...After all, I haven't heard anyone here really say what the materials or properties thereof are used in these cables. I sure that the marketing guys would really not want this to be public...We give them enough trouble even when we don't know.

That being said, I wonder how anything that these power cables have to offer can be definitively beneficial for well-designed electronics. After all, they seem to be just as good at being wires as...well...wires.

 

[MylesBAstor]

Franz, You and I usually agree. However, these are very dangerous assumptions...Namely that the "lumped parameters" L, R and C are constants. It is pretty much established that C is not a constant for many standard capacitors. Many capacitors have a long residual tail where the charge continues to drain out in a manner inconsistent with the usual RC time constant. That's why we pay the big bucks for upgraded coupling capacitors in our amps. And inductors can saturate and then they also are not constant or linear parameters. I know you know this but I just had to bring it out.

It is also conceivable that there is some polarization effect going on...After all, I haven't heard anyone here really say what the materials or properties thereof are used in these cables. I sure that the marketing guys would really not want this to be public...We give them enough trouble even when we don't know.

That being said, I wonder how anything that these power cables have to offer can be definitively beneficial for well-designed electronics. After all, they seem to be just as good at being wires as...well...wires.

Capacitors are an interesting story because there are some people who believe the best cap uses a plastic where the polymers don't line up in an orderly fashion eg. they dissapate their charge faster as opposed to an orderly stacked polymer that will retain the charge longer. For the doubters, look up plastics and look at all the different grades and even how the stacking affects optical clarity. Ought to know because consulted with B-D for many years on their tissue culture plasticware

I once asked Dick Sequerra about the effects of those three parameters on cable performance. Dick's answer was he done all those measurements and it had no predictive value in picking the best sounding cable

 

[The Smokester]

Capacitors...they dissapate their charge faster as opposed to an orderly stacked polymer that will retain the charge longer...

Sad but true. A linear world would be a lot easier to understand.

 

[FrantzM]

Hi Myles and The Somekester

This is trying to kill a mosquito with a bomb ... We are talking about 60 HZ!!.. We are talking about two or three wires in parallel in a liquid which could be water and some polymer (the magic product). There are a few stray RFI and EMI coming from the antenna aka known as the Power Line .. so what do we want here? Bring the EMI and RFI to the system? No! So at best you need to filter them and thus would have to use a LRC network to shunt them to the ground or transform them into heat careully... No! That's not what we have there we have two or three conductors ( or four in an electrolyte which does not sem to do much than bring the capacitance and inductance in line with ANY 10 AWG zip cord .... Basically you have a circuit element whose capacitance ( safely stable for the frequency and material involved) is of no concern to the power supplywhose job is by the way to provide DC .. So by the time it has enough (clean) juice.. It should be doing its own thing ... I don't see how that cable will stop EMI and RFI from the power line ...

We are looking too deep into this ... We are back to Auntie Enid (RIP) shining a light on a panel to change the sound .. Everything change the sound!! .. Be damn that we can't measure the real impact .. We hear it .. only when we see it ... Knowledge removed? We don't .. Shouldn't that awake our skeptical brain from its audiophilia-induced torpor?

Whenever it comes to cables we are sure to venture in advanced Physics, Mathematics, Psychology or Philosophy, thus my inference of calculating an area with an integral when a simple multiplication would have brought the same results, much more efficiently ... A power cable is not that complicated. We don't call Caltech to measure 1/2 pound of sugar in a recipe. (Caltech developed a technique that allows to measure up to a zeptogram which is ten to the power minus 21 ...gram , E 10-21).. Do you think a few milligram in a pound of sugar would make a difference in a recipe .. It does in the absolute but in practical terms, in what we can taste does it? Answer ? NO!!! followed by a "duh"

This cable like all its ilk is very similar to reptilian oil ... it is not that complicated if it were I can guarantee you that's what NASA and the CERN would be using in their laboratories ...

 

[Nicholas Bedworth]

@FrantzM... you might find it interesting to check out the industrial and scientific uses of conductive polymers Their applications were public-knowledge back in, say, 1949, when there was an article about them in Life Magazine, not exactly an arcane publication.

Their use is definitely CERN, NASA and territory. The 2000 Nobel in Chemistry went to conductive polymer scientists.

There's nothing at all magic in the sense of mythical about the polymer; it's simply another form of conductor with unusual properties, which, for the right application, as just the thing. Seems to me that their application to audio cabling shows that someone is really, really smart and, ahem, innovative.

No snake oil here.

 

[audioguy]

Please allow me to join the Frantz camp. Whether the science appllies or not, I think Frantz's sugar example is perfect. And if one of PT Barnums followers wants to spend their money on such an item, go for it and then you can have the bragging rights of having the only liquid filled power cord on your street!!!

If this applies, then maybe one more micron of a specific glass in a wine bottle would change the taste of the wine.

Aaaarghhhh!!!!!!!

 

[FrantzM]

@FrantzM... you might find it interesting to check out the industrial and scientific uses of conductive polymers Their applications were public-knowledge back in, say, 1949, when there was an article about them in Life Magazine, not exactly an arcane publication.

Their use is definitely CERN, NASA and territory. The 2000 Nobel in Chemistry went to conductive polymer scientists.

There's nothing at all magic in the sense of mythical about the polymer; it's simply another form of conductor with unusual properties, which, for the right application, as just the thing. Seems to me that their application to audio cabling shows that someone is really, really smart and, ahem, innovative.

No snake oil here.

Nicholas

I may, since these seem to be interesting advance in Science ... I know what a polymer is.. In the French System you better or else you won't get your Terminales Diploma. Since you seem to have a good handle on these polymers, what are these "unusual" properties?

Their use is definitely CERN, NASA and territory. The 2000 Nobel in Chemistry went to conductive polymer scientists.

This sentence contains two classic cases of argumentation fallacies . Ambiguity and Questionable cause. That Polymer are used by NASA is a fact, that the 2000 Nobel Prize was about Polymer the same ...

1) The ambiguity: What is used by CERN and NASA: Polymers or the Cable .. We know the answer to that but ....
2) The Questionable cause : What does that have to do with the Power Cable ??? Whose sole relationship is the tenuous fact that both these entities certainly use some polymer is some application .... Polymers are also found in my car Synthetic Oil and too many products and applications to list here or the entire web site? ??? !! ???

Indeed the use of these polymer with unusual properties is a marketing coup considering the fervor with which some are trying to justify the uniqueness and performance of the device ... On that point this cable manufacturer scored some points..

Seems to me it is easier to sell Ophidian Lipid* than I thought ...


*(Those are the scientific terms for "snake" and "oil" respectively )

 

[The Smokester]

Franz, You are right on target. There is no evidence presented so far as to why these liquid-filled power cords could make any difference whatsoever relative to a regular power cord.

 

[MylesBAstor]

Hi Myles and The Somekester

This is trying to kill a mosquito with a bomb ... We are talking about 60 HZ!!.. We are talking about two or three wires in parallel in a liquid which could be water and some polymer (the magic product). There are a few stray RFI and EMI coming from the antenna aka known as the Power Line .. so what do we want here? Bring the EMI and RFI to the system? No! So at best you need to filter them and thus would have to use a LRC network to shunt them to the ground or transform them into heat careully... No! That's not what we have there we have two or three conductors ( or four in an electrolyte which does not sem to do much than bring the capacitance and inductance in line with ANY 10 AWG zip cord .... Basically you have a circuit element whose capacitance ( safely stable for the frequency and material involved) is of no concern to the power supplywhose job is by the way to provide DC .. So by the time it has enough (clean) juice.. It should be doing its own thing ... I don't see how that cable will stop EMI and RFI from the power line ...

We are looking too deep into this ... We are back to Auntie Enid (RIP) shining a light on a panel to change the sound .. Everything change the sound!! .. Be damn that we can't measure the real impact .. We hear it .. only when we see it ... Knowledge removed? We don't .. Shouldn't that awake our skeptical brain from its audiophilia-induced torpor?

Whenever it comes to cables we are sure to venture in advanced Physics, Mathematics, Psychology or Philosophy, thus my inference of calculating an area with an integral when a simple multiplication would have brought the same results, much more efficiently ... A power cable is not that complicated. We don't call Caltech to measure 1/2 pound of sugar in a recipe. (Caltech developed a technique that allows to measure up to a zeptogram which is ten to the power minus 21 ...gram , E 10-21).. Do you think a few milligram in a pound of sugar would make a difference in a recipe .. It does in the absolute but in practical terms, in what we can taste does it? Answer ? NO!!! followed by a "duh"

This cable like all its ilk is very similar to reptilian oil ... it is not that complicated if it were I can guarantee you that's what NASA and the CERN would be using in their laboratories ...

What about coupling caps in tube circuits? CJ claims that even the quality of the caps makes a difference in the power supply. Tell you one thing. Caps sure make a difference in Xovers and for many, many reasons.

 

[DonH50]

Coupling caps, or even decoupling caps, are apples to an orange power cord... Their impact on performance and place in the signal chain are vastly different. I have not heard a difference changing a power cord, but I have not tried one of these new ones in my system (don't have that much money for a power cord, and/or would rather spend it on DVDs or CDS). I have measured the difference in coupling capacitors; listening tests in my case are somewhat inconclusive because I was tweaking a preamp and changed several things at once. Including the coupling and decoupling caps.