The Audiophoolery Thread.

[Beobloke]

I'll just leave this one here...

https://gy8.eu/blog/are-fibre-optic-cables-microphonic/

As a point of reference, the author has previously opined that your CD player will sound better if you start it by pressing 'play' on the front panel, than if you start it by pressing 'play' on its remote control...

[Ted Kendall]

[Sideband]

Originally Posted by Beobloke

I'll just leave this one here...

https://gy8.eu/blog/are-fibre-optic-cables-microphonic/

As a point of reference, the author has previously opined that your CD player will sound better if you start it by pressing 'play' on the front panel, than if you start it by pressing 'play' on its remote control...

Where do they get these people from?? It just shows that they have NO IDEA how these things work!

[Craig Sawyers]

Originally Posted by Beobloke

I'll just leave this one here...

https://gy8.eu/blog/are-fibre-optic-cables-microphonic/

As a point of reference, the author has previously opined that your CD player will sound better if you start it by pressing 'play' on the front panel, than if you start it by pressing 'play' on its remote control...

A link on that page brings up the BBC report by Chris Baraniuk on using fibre sensing. But in that report there is a further link to this https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0143816623002075

Which basically says how very difficult it is to measure and use the fibre in sensing mode.

The tiny length of a domestic fibre is totally immune to these effects.

But let's not focus on real science - let's instead fuel the audio punter's paranoia.

Craig

[Uncle Bulgaria]

That fibre optic one sounded pretty reasonable to me. Quotes an article with an interesting premise from a reliable source, and does say "Are the effects of mechanical interference on optical cables audible? I don’t know, but it seems like a good idea to find out" [hypothesis to thesis, good intention to apply the scientific method]

"...especially as remedial action should be reasonably straightforward. Meanwhile, I can’t help chuckling to myself when I consider what the “It’s only ones and noughts” brigade are going to make of this one…"

Well, as Craig has mentioned above it also looks like the 'only ones and noughts brigade' have a leg to stand on...

Rather like the skin effect, it could be another half-understood experimental result that has applications at the very large scale or in highly specialised areas, but in the extremely simple realm of audio amplification has zero practical effect.

[Radio Wrangler]

The audiophile gang have never accepted the realities of error-correction and re-clocking to a low jitter (=phase noise) oscillator. They are all quite routine operations with understandable behaviours and limitations. They argue that as error correction processes begin to work harder, they take surges of power as groups of errors happen, and that some of this, for example, via power supplies must get into the signal path.

In order to become an audiophile, it seems that one has to give up any sense of scale or proportion and take on the assumption that as the discrimination of one's hearing is limitless then no effect can ever be too small to hear.

David

[Craig Sawyers]

Every sense organ is not just the organ itself, but also a chunk of the brain. The optic nerves for example interface directly with the brain

Senses however are surprisingly plastic. There was an experiment sometime in the late 70's or early 80's where subjects were fitted with special prismatic spectacles that inverted everything seen, so up was now seen as down (of course that could be done with VR now).

The subjects blundered around for a days or low weeks, but the brain started to adapt, and by the end of the experiment they were coping perfectly well in their inverted word.

Then the specs were taken away, and the subjects blundered around again in the normal world until their brains readapted to normal reality.

So the question is - why is the ear any different? Both have a dynamic range of about 120dB. However the ear adapts in the same was as the inverted world eye. It adapts.

So for example any notion of a single mains fuse causing an audible upgrade, which many audiophools believe, has to be daft. Particularly those who say that fuses burn in, and don't meet their ultimate sound quality for a month. Really? How would you know?

"Why not put a regular fuse in and do the comparison?". Not surprisingly no-one has accepted this challenge. Having paid a hundred quid or much more for a fuse, I reckon they are scared that there will be no perceived difference.

There are many examples of perceived burn in. Reviewers are the worst in perpetrating this nonsense. If a product does not operate to its best performance within 5 minutes or less, it has been designed by a true incompetent.

The only part in the audio chain that might "burn in" are loudspeaker drivers. But the good driver manufacturers burn in each driver to allow the mechanics to bed in and adhesives used to thermally settle.

Craig

[lightning]

l always wonder if the "burn in" advice is so you don't send the item straight back because it made no difference "oh it needs time to burn in"

Over time the listener may think, yes there's a difference even though in fact there's none.

l had a customer who wanted new speaker cables and was about to spend a few hundred (or more)

l've got a box of various high end cables that l've acquired over the years so l said "take these and try them, whichever one you like you can have for £50 the pair"

A couple of weeks later he brought them all back because none of them made any difference. l was almost tempted to tell him they would need time to "burn in" but l just couldn't.

The next time l went round he'd paid £900 for cables. Did it sound better? He wasn't sure. But he'd been told they wouldn't "give their best" for about 100 hours of music and he hadn't had chance to use the system that much.

[Radio Wrangler]

Originally Posted by lightning

The next time l went round he'd paid £900 for cables. Did it sound better? He wasn't sure. But he'd been told they wouldn't "give their best" for about 100 hours of music and he hadn't had chance to use the system that much.

I'd have suggested that he hung on to the old ones for a while, to let the new ones have a pundit-approved length of time to burn-in, and then he could do a comparison between the burned-in new ones and his long-used old ones.

If he could then hear no difference, he could sell the new ones.... presumably for more money than if he sold the old ones.

David

[wd40addict]

Trouble is the author of that article was previously in hot water for regularly extolling how great a certain brand of cables were in a magazine then later on getting a job with the same company...

[lightning]

This is a serious question, l am not having a go at any company.

Is there any way at all, that fitting a posh fuse in the mains plug, can improve the sound quality of a HI-FI?

There's talk of "bottlenecking" but surely if you were worried about electrons queuing up to get through the fuse, you could just change it for a 13A one.

l am asking because l've just read a review of a fuse in a HI-FI magazine where the reviewer was "amazed" at the difference and when he removed the posh fuse and put the ordinary fuse back, the "sound stage collapsed"

As far as l could see, the reviewer had nothing to do with the fuse company so there was no reason for them not to be truthful in the review.

ls there any scientific evidence whatsoever that a fuse can make a difference? What if you were drawing a lot of current from the mains, maybe with a high power amplifier and at higher volumes.

lf the current draw caused a slight dip in the mains voltage surely the regulated output of the amplifier PSU would smooth it out? Or would it?

[m0cemdave]

Originally Posted by lightning

As far as l could see, the reviewer had nothing to do with the fuse company so there was no reason for them not to be truthful in the review.
?

Was there an advert for the company's products somewhere in the magazine?

When I worked for a couple of manufacturers in the pro-audio business, we would get the various magazines phoning up trying to persuade us to advertise (this was in the 1980s when there were lots of specialist print magazines).

"We can offer you supporting editorial" was the favourite chat-up line...

[Sergeauckland]

There's absolutely no way a fuse can affect sound quality. If you think about it, the energy for the sound comes from the reservoir capacitors, not the mains directly, so nothing one legally does to the mains side can have any effect on sound.

There's also a very good reason for these sorts of reviews, money! The reviewer is paid for the review. Similarly, there's a good reason why purchasers of this nonsense hear improvements. In this case it's the money they've spent and a desire not to look stupid.

Money and egos buys a lot of snake oil.

S

[Uncle Bulgaria]

Bottlenecking is a phrase I've only seen reasonably used in PC building, where it is the case that one component can limit the performance of the system. For example, performance in a certain programme or game can cause a less powerful component to run at full power while another is much less stressed.

No, a fuse can have zero effect on the sound quality of a hi-fi (and if it could, surely to attain 'hi-fi' these fuses must be fitted as standard). Just like the audio boards where discussions range around 'ageing' of capacitors; 'burning in' is a reasonable concept, and words like 'soundstage' are used seriously, without ABX testing confirmation bias will make whatever expensive change one has made certain to make an obvious difference.

People want to believe, and there's no way that reason will convince a zealot in any field.

[Radio Wrangler]

Originally Posted by lightning

Is there any way at all, that fitting a posh fuse in the mains plug, can improve the sound quality of a HI-FI?

There's talk of "bottlenecking" but surely if you were worried about electrons queuing up to get through the fuse, you could just change it for a 13A one.

l am asking because l've just read a review of a fuse in a HI-FI magazine where the reviewer was "amazed" at the difference and when he removed the posh fuse and put the ordinary fuse back, the "sound stage collapsed"

As far as l could see, the reviewer had nothing to do with the fuse company so there was no reason for them not to be truthful in the review.

If you're anywhere in my vicinity, I could put on a little demonstration for you with a high performance spectrum analyser scanning anywhere between 200Hz and 22,000 MegaHertz and looking at over 100dB instantaneous dynamic range and all the power to do this comes through a bog standard 13A fuse in a bog standard 13A plug all wired with bog standard mains flex.
With all that lot going on, if the fuse was inadequate and in any way restricting the flow of information, something obvious would be being seen.

I've got gear here which can measure down to the quantum-mechanical noise floor of the universe, down by the lingering echo of the big bang or something like a big bang... they're having doubts over it again. 13A fuse works perfectly.

To affect the sound, a fuse would need to have a major defect, being blown or arcing would do it.

Just by listening, can these pundits tell what proportions of the electricity they're getting comes from wind, nuclear, gas, oil, biomass, hydro? Uf they can hear differences in tiddy bits of wire, then these should be a doddle.

To calibrate their ears they can check here: https://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk

David

Bottlenecking - Ha!

[Craig Sawyers]

Besides which, the fuse is in an AC line, with the electrons shuffling back and forth by a few microns in a 13A fuse.

Any "audiophile" fuse, bearing the logo of the company cannot possibly be BS 1362. A 13A fuse has to be brown and bear the BS logo. Just as a 3A fuse is red. All other fuse ratings (5A, 10A etc) have to be black.

I suspect the main difference is that putting a new fuse of any flavour has the effect of wiping clean metal. So the contact resistance goes down.

Craig

[knobtwiddler]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

In true A/B/X tests, musicians with young and trained ears are unable to accurately distinguish between high-bitrate MP3 and 44.1KHz CD.

[Radio Wrangler]

You can actually get measurable distortion from fuses in power amp outputs due to the fuse wire temperature changing and hence its resistance. Due to the time-constants involved this is a low frequency effect.

Changes in demanded current through AC mains fuses will be filtered further by the reservoir capacitors, and so any non-linearity through heating effects in the AC fuse are pushed down to still lower frequencies. If any significant effect remains, there will be worse effects due to the loading effect on the charge in the reservoirs. Also acting to reduce the effects of fuses in the power supply (including DC ones on the way from the reservoirs to the power amp circuits, will be the PSRR (power supply rejection ratio) of the power amp. At the lower frequencies where fuse resistance modulation can happen, PSRR is usualy at its highest as the feedback has its greatest loop gain and can do its best work in correcting impairments.

David

[Sergeauckland]

Originally Posted by Radio Wrangler

You can actually get measurable distortion from fuses in power amp outputs due to the fuse wire temperature changing and hence its resistance. Due to the time-constants involved this is a low frequency effect.

Changes in demanded current through AC mains fuses will be filtered further by the reservoir capacitors, and so any non-linearity through heating effects in the AC fuse are pushed down to still lower frequencies. If any significant effect remains, there will be worse effects due to the loading effect on the charge in the reservoirs. Also acting to reduce the effects of fuses in the power supply (including DC ones on the way from the reservoirs to the power amp circuits, will be the PSRR (power supply rejection ratio) of the power amp. At the lower frequencies where fuse resistance modulation can happen, PSRR is usualy at its highest as the feedback has its greatest loop gain and can do its best work in correcting impairments.

David

Indeed, that's why amplifiers rarely have fuses on the loudspeaker outputs. Firstly, the distortion mentioned, and secondly because fuses are rarely fast enough to protect the output transistors. I used to have a power amp that regularly blew the output transistors to protect the fuse! Some power amps placed the output fuses within the overall feedback loop to reduce the effect of thermal modulation, but then the issue of speed still remained.

S

[knobtwiddler]

There was a good thread a couple of years back about the weird and wonderful failure mechanisms of fuses

The unfortunate side effect of fuses having rare, but slightly mysterious symptoms when they malfunction, is in giving audiophool firms something to go on with their marketing... A little like cables having a 'sound'. They do, but only when you use the wrong type for the job in hand.