No problem, Grant (BTW, my name is Alex, I'm located in metro DC, and you and I have spoken by phone in the past, if that helps in any way). I appreciate your caveats about the time and place Caelin made his recommendation. But I can't fail to note that your spirited defense of what I thought was a pretty trivial comment is taking place here, today, among overwhelmingly power cord "believers", as Tplavas puts it (personally, I think we're considerably past the stage of "belief" or "non-belief" among people who've actually done the critical listening). In this context, in a discussion not without some real controversy concerning whether longer PC's actually do sound better than shorter ones, I don't think it's being too critical or unfair to state the obvious: That recommending a minimum length of 3 ft., when that's the shortest PC's come anyway, and cautioning about why 2 ft. is impractical when everybody knows this, simply isn't saying much of anything. But I apologize for seeming a bit cynical; of course I realize that Shunyata still needs to sell 3 ft. cords same as everybody else in the biz -- if you went too strongly the other way, I guess people would just accuse you of trying to get us to spend more on longer cords! I understand that you and Caelin fundamentally concur with the assertion at hand, and that you came on the thread to lend whatever credibility you could to that stance, so I hope we can just 'agree to agree', as it were, about the larger point here and move on. |
This is basically hogwash. |
Thanks Alex,
Regarding 1meter or less, we get at least 2 dozen direct queries (phone calls) a year for one-meter or less PC's, maybe half of which are asking after less than one meter.
These phone or e-mail queries are all directed to me and I do my level best to inform, not dissuade the purchase of a 1m PC. We will not make a shorter length, but I am aware of companies that will, and do.
There is a growing contingent of "I don't want my wife or I to see any cable" customers. They are out there and I hear from some of them. There is no great savings btw a 1m and a 1.8m power cord as most of the labor is in the terminations, so when I explain, most understand, other than those concerned more with aesthetics. Stll, we made over 900 1m power cords last year, so there are those that just order them outright, and have them. I'm guessing, but I'd predict most of those 1m sales were overseas.
Regards,
Mr Hogwash.
|
Thank you for the constructive remark BOJACK. Are you planning to share somefirst hand experience with us? |
I dunno, Bojack could have meant that my little dialectic was hogwash rather than the topic of long power cords, guess I couldn't blame him if he did...
Grant: I have one 1m and a few 1.8m Sidewinders, and although the shorter cord hasn't sounded better to me, as I might have vaguely thought it somehow ought to, I've never done a rigorous comparison to try and find out (in part because recently I've only used the Sidewinders for my tube monoblocks, and figured both amps should get the same length cords). But I might extend the test to the Sidewinders just for yucks, depending on what I observe with my newer 1.5m vs. 2.5m cords. |
Zaikesman, you should keep equal-length PC's on your amps. No matter which side of the length argument a person falls on, we're in agreement that length does affect sound. I would think that having unequal-length PC's would affect soundstaging.
I'll confess that I'm just itching to tell you what you can expect from your listening tests, but since that would 'poison' your mind, I'll refrain. |
Stop concerning yourself with such nonsense and enjoy your system. No, there is no difference. |
Well, that settles it; the source of all audio knowledge has spoken.
:) |
Here's some food for thought about longer lengths - It may just be true that a longer power cord could actually "sound better" BUT - this will vary from cord manufacturer to cord manufacturer. Why? Because many of the power cords are actually acting as a filtering device between the wall and the component, not just a power delivery device (or wire) that many of us suppose they must be. Recently I did a power cord shootout and discovered that quite a few of the respectable sounding power cords were also filtering as compared to some various DIY copper, silver, different sized guaged and cryod cords I had on hand (all of which were just designed to deliver raw power, period). With this in mind, it makes a perfect hypothosis that some cords will actually sound better (to a point mind you) if they are longer, since they may actually filter the noise to the component much better. Think about this guys, it actually makes sense!
BTW: None of my DIY cords could hold a candle sonically to some of the commercial cords that were obviously filtering in some way. (Have I perhaps uncovered one of "secrets" that differentiates the best cords from the also rans?) |
Ehider,
The difficult part of defining "better" PC performance is knowing what is causing the change in sonics from cord to cord. You can't say with certainty that a cable sounds better because it offers 'filtering' of some sort, unless you've compared the exact same cable with and without filtering. Several power cable companies claim that certain of their cords sound better because of a degree of RFI filtering, and yet they also employ other changes on these cords, such as different geometry, different gauge, or even different connectors. When measured, many of these 'filtering' cables have significantly different inductance and capacitance values compared to a basic "diy" cable, which makes it hard to know if you're hearing the filtering, or the increased inductance.
If that seems to leave the issue 'up in the air', I think that's exactly what some of the cable marketing out there seeks to achieve. |
Since this thread is back to my attention today I'll make good on my threat from above, and report that after additional testing with 1.5m vs. 2.5m lengths of a power cord specifically claimed by its manufacturer to incorporate beneficial filtering -- intrinsically via its lengthwise construction, rather than by some sort of discrete attatched filter (the van den Hul Mainsstream, which BTW is not offered in lengths below 1.5m for this very reason) -- I am reconfirmed as siding with the longer-is-better hypothesis (or at least more pronounced in its effects, which in this case I find salutory). |
Zaikesman,
Did the longer version exhibit less glare, a warmer midrange, and a fuller bass? Or any of those attributes? |
I did a lot of testing many powercables. And yess there are cables who sound better when they are longer. Cables of 1 metre comparred to a cable of 2 metres I found out that a 2m cable in many situations sounds better. For example, Nordost starts with 2 metres for there PC's. I comparred a 1 metre with a 2 metre cable. The 2 metre has more drive in the low freq. and the voices sounds more natural. There was one thing the 1 metre was better, there was a little more resolution. We tested on a system of about e 30.000,- |
Tplavas: Without going into a detailed characterization of the sound of the Mainsstream (although actually, your adjectives, though not the entire story, do happen to apply very well in this case) -- and I hope without being too cute in answering the question -- the simplest and probably best way I can describe the difference I found attributable to length is that the longer version sounds the same as the shorter version only more so, if you take my meaning. With this particular cord, in these lengths and in my system, to me that's a good thing, but I can also imagine by extrapolation the possibility of going overboard (something that could be said about any filtering). However, without a 30ft. cord on hand to compare that's only a guess on my part, and perhaps as has been suggested things just keep getting better and better, or maybe we simply reach a point of diminishing returns without going over into detrimental effects. (Unlike Leonx, I didn't find any loss of real resolution with the longer cord, although the reduced brightness, which I assume could represent reduced modulated noise, might be mistaken for such.)
PS -- I regret to have to add that for anyone interested in trying this cord, be aware it's a model which has been widely counterfeited on the secondhand market, as I found out the hard way before getting enlightened. |
Zaikesman,
The adjectives I used, though fairly broad and basic, were chosen because that's my experience with the vast majority of PC's. So if, as you stated, there was a reduced brightness in the longer Van Den Hul cord, how would one explain that same tendency in cords that feature no 'filtering' of any kind?
The answer is in the inductance and capacitance factors that result from increased length. It's no more complicated than that. Longer cords get 'warmer' with every foot you add, although how rapidly you hear the change depends on the specific geometry of the cord. The VDH cable is an outstanding design, with very low inductance, so it's losses in resolution and dynamics should be more gradual as the length increases. Other cords, which have higher levels of Inductance per foot, will yield a more rapid change as the length increases.
A properly designed PC should be resistant to noise, but if the changes in sonics we're hearing are strictly from filtering out that noise, then where are the measurements to back up that idea? I've seen plenty of powerline conditioners that give specs on their noise filtering capabilities, but have yet to see numbers on a PC. I don't think that's coincidence.
IMO, RLC factors rule the roost when it comes to PC sonics. They don't explain everything (like why cryoing 'sounds' like lowered inductance, but isn't measureable), but they seem to get us most of the way there.
Again, JMO. |
Tplavas wrote: "...if, as you stated, there was a reduced brightness in the longer Van Den Hul cord, how would one explain that same tendency in cords that feature no 'filtering' of any kind? The answer is in the inductance and capacitance factors that result from increased length.
"...A properly designed PC should be resistant to noise, but if the changes in sonics we're hearing are strictly from filtering out that noise, then where are the measurements to back up that idea?
"...IMO, RLC factors rule the roost when it comes to PC sonics." The RLC factors themselves constitute a filter. All cables have RLC factors of course (including all the miles of it leading to the house), so all cords must act as filters in some way, but not all cords intentionally strive to arrange the factors so that the cord constitutes an effective filter for significantly reducing noise from the AC powerline. But that filtration effect, if so designed, is what reduces the noise (other than induced noise which is reduced by the shielding). That these RLC factors, and hence the degree of filtering, and hence the degree of noise reduction, will all be greater the longer the cord, is exactly what vdH posits for their particular cord, and is why they won't sell a 1m version. I own another variety of cord, not purported to act as a powerline filter, that do not affect the sound in the way your adjectives suggest, but instead tends to make it brighter sounding, among other qualities. However, whether this cord becomes mellower in longer lengths is something I do not know -- maybe just the opposite happens. Bottom line -- although I find your contentions somewhat obvious while also a bit self-contradictory in some details -- I don't think we fundamentally disagree here: Whatever a given cord does, a longer one will probably do more of it, and this could be either a good or a bad thing. |
