Tweaks : A sensible investment or a waste of money?

[DaveC]

Stock footers and power cords are probably all different from component to component and the component designer may have used different criteria in choosing those parts. Suggesting they are the best basis for establishing a system baseline seems strange...

Why not buy some relatively inexpensive footers and PCs that are reported to have a neutral effect and use that with every component as a baseline?

The issue with stock is the footers and power cables may have been given absolutely no consideration as to their effect on sound. Maybe they are really far from neutral sounding and are effecting all your other choices? For example cheap cables tend to sound warm and smear detail, so you can't recognize harshness. Then you go to upgrade cables and simply uncover issues you didn't think you had.

 

[PeterA]

Stock footers and power cords are probably all different from component to component and the component designer may have used different criteria in choosing those parts. Suggesting they are the best basis for establishing a system baseline seems strange...

Why not buy some relatively inexpensive footers and PCs that are reported to have a neutral effect and use that with every component as a baseline?

The issue with stock is the footers and power cables may have been given absolutely no consideration as to their effect on sound. Maybe they are really far from neutral sounding and are effecting all your other choices? For example cheap cables tend to sound warm and smear detail, so you can't recognize harshness. Then you go to upgrade cables and simply uncover issues you didn't think you had.

Dave, could you recommend inexpensive footers and PCs that have a neutral effect on the sound of components? Can anyone? I would love to know the answer to that question so I could be done searching. Most footers and PCs I've heard in my system and those of friends all seem to sound different. How can we even be sure they are truly "neutral"? And by whose standards?

Perhaps we could try to form some consensus but I would not even know where to start.

 

[Folsom]

For example cheap cables tend to sound warm and smear detail, so you can't recognize harshness. Then you go to upgrade cables and simply uncover issues you didn't think you had.

I feel like a bunch of high end cords do the opposite, where they make detail and things too high and weird. Some stock cords might be showing how a stereo isn't that talented, too. I'm not into cords that try to make things too over obvious in the tracks. I want timbre, vibrato, tone, and such, not highlights.

 

[PeterA]

I feel like a bunch of high end cords do the opposite, where they make detail and things too high and weird. Some stock cords might be showing how a stereo isn't that talented, too. I'm not into cords that try to make things too over obvious in the tracks. I want timbre, vibrato, tone, and such, not highlights.

I agree. I have heard power cords wildly alter tonal balance and emphasize things or dull things. Some that I've heard make the sound artificial or synthetic, or they rob the music of a natural sense of energy.

 

[Lee]

I feel like a bunch of high end cords do the opposite, where they make detail and things too high and weird. Some stock cords might be showing how a stereo isn't that talented, too. I'm not into cords that try to make things too over obvious in the tracks. I want timbre, vibrato, tone, and such, not highlights.

I think the better power cords should do one thing only: lower the noise floor.

 

[spiritofmusic]

A good example is the pair of DB-25 cables I've just installed. They have so lowered noise floor my system is literally transformed.

 

[DaveC]

Dave, could you recommend inexpensive footers and PCs that have a neutral effect on the sound of components? Can anyone? I would love to know the answer to that question so I could be done searching. Most footers and PCs I've heard in my system and those of friends all seem to sound different. How can we even be sure they are truly "neutral"? And by whose standards?

Perhaps we could try to form some consensus but I would not even know where to start.

Exactly, it's hard to know... so assuming a stock PC or footer isn't having some effect or is a neutral baseline seems like quite a leap!

I think you can go a few directions on a baseline... Go the David K route and get some of his recommended cheap pcs and ics and compare potential upgrades to them. The issue here is they are likely warm and smear detail, but won't do anything too crazy due to very off-the-wall design choices that you can run into in high end audio. Like 12g solid-core cables...

Or you can choose other cables you have heard and believe are accurate. The issue is how to determine what's what... imo comparison is the only way... you can only make relative comparisons. For me, neutral means hearing more genuine detail that adds to musical engagement and an immersive soundstage, as well as realistic timbre in vocals and string instruments primarily. It also means an absence of fatiguing artifacts like glare, accentuated leading edges, etc.

By whose standards? Hopefully your own. It's a lot of work but that's what it takes to gain the experience necessary to make genuine improvements and not just have something different. You need to experiment and try lots of things to get a handle on what you feel is best.

 

[DaveC]

I feel like a bunch of high end cords do the opposite, where they make detail and things too high and weird. Some stock cords might be showing how a stereo isn't that talented, too. I'm not into cords that try to make things too over obvious in the tracks. I want timbre, vibrato, tone, and such, not highlights.

I agree, I've tested PCs that completely ruined my system. I actually didn't think this would be possible before I tried this one particular cable...

However, the PC in question had a really odd design. This is one thing to consider... using unconventional designs or materials may (or may not) lead to unconventional results. In some cases it can damage equipment, like super-high-C speaker cables. One of my friends who makes speakers couldn't figure out why his speaker sounded like crap in one customers home. He had TUNGSTEN speaker cables. Yes, tungsten. IDK... Other people here apparently build and buy 12g solid-core cables. It's simply nuts.

That said, it's also not too hard to do better than commodity grade cables that come free with most things and are primarily chosen based on length and price.

 

[DaveC]

I think the better power cords should do one thing only: lower the noise floor.

I agree, the ground connection in a power cable does make a noticeable difference in noise. Many cable designers neglect the ground leg, but it's very important... We've also found that some "esoteric" materials like Furutech's NCF material actually do reduce noise on AC power quality meters. Carbon (or graphene, lol) can make things sound a bit unnatural, but it's clear some materials can make a difference in noise.

As far as effecting the sound, it has no choice... whatever you use is going to have some effect. I'd argue that the slow, warm, grainy sound of most stock PCs is anything but neutral, it's just colored differently.

 

[Folsom]

I'd like to hear the one DDK recommends. I do usually find stock cords to be fairly bad, but not always as bad as some of the stringent sounds of others.

Lowering noise sounds like a nice objective, but lots of cords sound wildly different and will be comparable in noise.

Detail is a funny word. I like to hear a violin's inner character of a note, but to me that's more resolution. Detail is more like all the other information related to stuff that is often quiet.

 

[Tango]

I'd like to hear the one DDK recommends. I do usually find stock cords to be fairly bad, but not always as bad as some of the stringent sounds of others.

Lowering noise sounds like a nice objective, but lots of cords sound wildly different and will be comparable in noise.

Detail is a funny word. I like to hear a violin's inner character of a note, but to me that's more resolution. Detail is more like all the other information related to stuff that is often quiet.

The Ching Cheng ddk recommended does not lower noise floor. Doesn't increase resolution. If the system has resolution then it is there. To me it does not seem to do much. If your upstream power is good then it is good. What it did in my system was to sound a little disorganize at first comparing to high end cords, but after that it just well behave.

Kind regards,
Tang

 

[the sound of Tao]

Very much agree that lowering the noise floor is essential but for me its still just part of the equation.

From the experience of the recent generations of Shunyata power cables their truly great value is as much their promised capacity to minimise the impeding of instantaneous current delivery as it is about the cables reducing impacts of external and system generated noise.

There’s plenty of hushed and very lush n lovely sounding gear out there (including power cables) but sometimes these can also be synthetically somewhere between laid back and up to almost syrup-like. There are tweaks out there while initially alluring by all their trails of lovely decay but also where the music just ends up tooo velvety or ethereal without holding the structural cut through of the natural attack in the music.

Much like back in the days when ferrite beads were being overused so we got that smoooth flow with the lovely inky backgrounds but also there was a fundamental inhibition of the dynamic energy and life of the music. So very disappointment when the music is raw and savage and angsty but it all really kinda just sounds choked by the sweet velvety smooooothness.

So yes a low noise floor is critical but also in balancing against achieving the lowest noise floor the other factors that impact on the balance of attack and decay or blunt the natural attack... I’m so not a happy camper when the low noise floor characteristic smoothness of a cable also then strips out the raw emotional content in the music.

 

[Folsom]

Tang, Yes, I want a cord that allows the system to be the way it is, not coerce it a bunch.

 

[Folsom]

enoise from the wall/cable/etc can only be very minimally reduced through a power cable. The effects won't be a lower anoise floor distinctly, as they're not the same thing.

Any cord that doesn't have direct straight runs of wire, it will help attenuate a little bit of noise. Some enoise can be negated that's trying to get in by design and/or shielding. Again, this doesn't translate directly to an anoise floor you can hear. The sound may be less busy in nature, but that isn't really the noise floor.

 

[RogerD]

I remember reading about a Shunyata designed cable that it’s design would separate the audio signal from the the EMI or other disruptions. By using a parallel design. I think this kind of cable technology would be key to improving total SQ.
Whether you call it “noise floor” or use another description, when you hear so far into the recording like people breathing, or intakes of air to play the instruments or the Conductor’s physical exertion, can you be at the limit of the recorded information?
At that level of reveal there should not be a downside and it is completely dependent on the system and not a piece meal approach. Although there are many pieces to the puzzle. I use different grades of PC’s and IC’s including microphone cable. At some point I question at that level if PC’s have that much effect.I use to think so,but not so sure anymore. YMMV

 

[Folsom]

Parallel filtering is very limited. You’re saying “hey electrons come over here” and they’re like “I dunno this really low impedance transformer looks great in your stereo.” So in short that’s just marketing garble. In terms of electricity everything technically can only divide. So you can’t redirect every last bit of one thing. You can do more and less, but as you may imagine creating negative resistance or inductance when you want, in the frequency ranges you want, isn’t really a thing.

Your desciption is of “things” you hear, which I would define as detail. The assumption that this is done by just removing enoise is a dated one. Even if the information is there, its usually very low. Why should you hear it if something else is putting out 120db on the stage? Well, it’s fun, as you know. But the types of gear that can pull it forward either tend to elongate the signal voltage, or modulate it to a higher volume. Tubes transformers and classD’s inductors are good at elongating. Remvoing RF protection and grounding boxes are good for modulating signal with RF to increase volume of lower volume music information. (It doesn’t do much for louder stuff because it’s like trying to influence a tidal wave the wake from your row boat)

You would think PC’s shouldn’t have such large effect, but they do. It’s not well understood why so many do, even among very smart people in the field. I recall back when I was like, “it’s 12awg pure copper, that’s all that should matter.” I was wrong.

 

[RogerD]

Folsom you have doubted me....for a long time...come visit...you might learn something new.

 

[PeterA]

Exactly, it's hard to know... so assuming a stock PC or footer isn't having some effect or is a neutral baseline seems like quite a leap!

I think you can go a few directions on a baseline... Go the David K route and get some of his recommended cheap pcs and ics and compare potential upgrades to them. The issue here is they are likely warm and smear detail, but won't do anything too crazy due to very off-the-wall design choices that you can run into in high end audio.

Dave, I did not say that the stock footers are a neutral baseline, I simply said that I use the stock footers that came with my components as a baseline. I have no idea if they are neutral. I can say that when I compared the stock footers of five components recently to some highly touted specialty footers, the system presented the energy of instruments and vocals in a much more natural way with the stock footers. I also preferred the stock footers on a friend's amplifier to some inexpensive "Herbie" footers, though I think my friend preferred the Herbie footers. So, I stick with the stock footers until I find something that sounds better to me.

I have followed David's advice and am currently directly comparing some ultra cheap Radio Shack ICs to three other ICs. They actually sound excellent and compare quite favorably to the others, and do not in fact seem warm with smeared details. Some of the other cables seem to highlight details and certain frequencies and sound less natural as a result. Go figure.

I am also comparing power cords and am quite pleased with the sound of the stock cords. I have more testing to do, but, based on my recent experiments, I am quite comfortable using the stock footers and stock power cords as a baseline against which to compare more expensive and often discussed alternatives. I am quite surprised at what I am hearing.

 

[RogerD]

Dave, I did not say that the stock footers are a neutral baseline, I simply said that I use the stock footers that came with my components as a baseline. I have no idea if they are neutral. I can say that when I compared the stock footers of five components recently to some highly touted specialty footers recently, the system presented the energy of instruments and vocals in a much more natural way than did the fancy footers. I also preferred the stock footers on a friend's amplifier to some inexpensive "Herbie" footers. So, I stick with the stock footers until I find something that sounds better to me.

I have followed David's advice and am currently directly comparing some ultra cheap Radio Shack ICs to three other ICs. They actually sound excellent and compare quite favorably to the others, and do not in fact seem warm with smeared details. Some of the other cables seem to highlight details and certain frequencies and sound less natural as a result. Go figure.

I am also comparing power cords and am quite pleased with the sound of the stock cords. I have more testing to do, but, based on my recent experiments, I am quite comfortable using the stock footers and stock power cords as a baseline against which to compare more expensive and often discussed alternatives. I am quite surprised at what I am hearing.

Peter....I just wonder since your keen on clarity, what effect if any has your experimentation effected it so far from your original everyday system......thanks.

 

[PeterA]

Peter....I just wonder since your keen on clarity, what effect if any has your experimentation effected it so far from your original everyday system......thanks.

Roger, I don't really understand what you are asking. What do you mean by my "original everyday system" and are you asking about clarity as a sonic attribute or in terms of effective communication?