The circuit breaker test I described can be done by anyone, any time. I have described this test at least a half a dozen times now. Once you have your system warmed up and running it takes at most a few minutes. As far as I know no one has ever bothered to try it.
This is the one area I have yet to hear anyone talk about. It is great what Harley and Atkinson did. For some reason people get all caught up in BSD. I say good for them. But Atkinson compared normal wire to dedicated lines with a conditioner. Harley likewise wired his room, one and done.
I thought all good audiophiles know you must make only one change at a time to be able to comment on what did what? That is still a thing, right?
So there really is no conflict at all between what I am saying and what these guys did. All that is missing, neither one of them can say what contributed to what.
Because I did all my stuff 30 years ago back before the internet I had no choice but to try and see. So my room was wired first the normal way, because the electrician and everyone else had me convinced it couldn't possibly be worth a dedicated line. Then I changed one thing, to a dedicated line. That right there was huge. I have actually done just this one thing, and heard the difference. Then I changed that dedicated line to larger gauge. So I know what that does. Then changed it from 120V to 240V with a step down. Then I added a dedicated earth ground. So I know what that did. Then ripped all the wire out and had it cryo'd. Same wire, nothing else changed. So I know what that does. That was all years ago. Now the last few years I've done a whole slew more things, to the point virtually every inch of wire from where the service comes in the breaker panel to where it solders onto the drivers is treated one way or another.
The thing about ground loops and hum, it is not a case of if you do it wrong you will get hum. Lots of people get away with doing it wrong, for a couple of reasons. One, it takes a pretty decent voltage differential to result in audible ground loop hum. How much? Depends! And two, a lot of AC "noise" is inaudible as noise. You do not hear it as noise, per se.
That is the whole point of the test. To educate yourself and your ears to actually maybe understand what everyone else is merely talking about. The fact of the matter is until you have actually done this stuff you just don't know. Atkinson and Harley know they have it better now. They just don't know for sure why, because of the way they did it.
Having done this stuff has taught me every inch of wire is an antenna funneling noise into the system. I would not want more wires running to my system simply because that is more antenna, more noise. Also I know the value of treating the wires. The more wires the more wire treatment. Double the treatment does not yield double the improvement. It just costs double.
You see the difference? You see why it is possible to learn so much from seemingly simple tests like flipping breakers? It is nice to cut and paste stuff others have done. Do you see the difference between cut and past and knowing from experience?
This is the one area I have yet to hear anyone talk about. It is great what Harley and Atkinson did. For some reason people get all caught up in BSD. I say good for them. But Atkinson compared normal wire to dedicated lines with a conditioner. Harley likewise wired his room, one and done.
I thought all good audiophiles know you must make only one change at a time to be able to comment on what did what? That is still a thing, right?
So there really is no conflict at all between what I am saying and what these guys did. All that is missing, neither one of them can say what contributed to what.
Because I did all my stuff 30 years ago back before the internet I had no choice but to try and see. So my room was wired first the normal way, because the electrician and everyone else had me convinced it couldn't possibly be worth a dedicated line. Then I changed one thing, to a dedicated line. That right there was huge. I have actually done just this one thing, and heard the difference. Then I changed that dedicated line to larger gauge. So I know what that does. Then changed it from 120V to 240V with a step down. Then I added a dedicated earth ground. So I know what that did. Then ripped all the wire out and had it cryo'd. Same wire, nothing else changed. So I know what that does. That was all years ago. Now the last few years I've done a whole slew more things, to the point virtually every inch of wire from where the service comes in the breaker panel to where it solders onto the drivers is treated one way or another.
The thing about ground loops and hum, it is not a case of if you do it wrong you will get hum. Lots of people get away with doing it wrong, for a couple of reasons. One, it takes a pretty decent voltage differential to result in audible ground loop hum. How much? Depends! And two, a lot of AC "noise" is inaudible as noise. You do not hear it as noise, per se.
That is the whole point of the test. To educate yourself and your ears to actually maybe understand what everyone else is merely talking about. The fact of the matter is until you have actually done this stuff you just don't know. Atkinson and Harley know they have it better now. They just don't know for sure why, because of the way they did it.
Having done this stuff has taught me every inch of wire is an antenna funneling noise into the system. I would not want more wires running to my system simply because that is more antenna, more noise. Also I know the value of treating the wires. The more wires the more wire treatment. Double the treatment does not yield double the improvement. It just costs double.
You see the difference? You see why it is possible to learn so much from seemingly simple tests like flipping breakers? It is nice to cut and paste stuff others have done. Do you see the difference between cut and past and knowing from experience?