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Some questions about power cables


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9 hours ago, StudioConnections said:

Lighthouse-WEB.jpg.cc3712f06bdea1b9af968e1bd88c9716.jpgNOW THATS WHAT I CALL TAKING EARTHING SERIOUSLY (these are each 25mm earth cables)

A picture says a thousand words...This is an ideal earth system for a stereo imaging- separate earth wires, one for all the general stuff- light motors etc, and then four earths- one for each set of electronics. There is one short earth common earth wire that goes into a deep earth gird. Without this ideal 'star earth' the stereo image created by the interference between the left and right channels becomes indistinct and blurred- these separate earth wires to the kit reduce cross contamination of the noise from the various source electronics and power drive amplifiers and so reduce jitter and phase modulation between the left and right, which would deteriorate the clarity of the beamed image, so this gives a superb and reliable stereo projection from the transducers. Sounds like familiar terms and possibly a lot of BS- except the beamed stereo image here is from the radio direction beacons of the Churchill Rock Lighthouse, Southern Ireland. Same stereo principle, different application. How far do you want to go with you mains??? (Couldn't resist posting this pic- it's a beautiful thing to a sad git like me....)

Just curious, but did you miss the decimal point in the "25mm" and mean 2.5mm² ? if it were 25mm² cable, the overall diameter of the cable would be around 10mm to 11mm and the studs also would be of a similar size (from the picture). 2.5mm² cable would have an overall diameter of just under 4mm.

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10 hours ago, StudioConnections said:

Lighthouse-WEB.jpg.cc3712f06bdea1b9af968e1bd88c9716.jpgNOW THATS WHAT I CALL TAKING EARTHING SERIOUSLY (these are each 25mm earth cables)

A picture says a thousand words...This is an ideal earth system for a stereo imaging- separate earth wires, one for all the general stuff- light motors etc, and then four earths- one for each set of electronics. There is one short earth common earth wire that goes into a deep earth gird. Without this ideal 'star earth' the stereo image created by the interference between the left and right channels becomes indistinct and blurred- these separate earth wires to the kit reduce cross contamination of the noise from the various source electronics and power drive amplifiers and so reduce jitter and phase modulation between the left and right, which would deteriorate the clarity of the beamed image, so this gives a superb and reliable stereo projection from the transducers. Sounds like familiar terms and possibly a lot of BS- except the beamed stereo image here is from the radio direction beacons of the Churchill Rock Lighthouse, Southern Ireland. Same stereo principle, different application. How far do you want to go with you mains??? (Couldn't resist posting this pic- it's a beautiful thing to a sad git like me....)

The earthing system pictured is fine for most situations, but not so good for audio. 'Star earthing' is, by far, the preferred method. IOW: All earth wires should go to a single point on the buss bar. 

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Guest Simonon
The earthing system pictured is fine for most situations, but not so good for audio. 'Star earthing' is, by far, the preferred method. IOW: All earth wires should go to a single point on the buss bar. 
Err this type of earthing has nothing to do with power cables and whether the really expensive ones make your system sound better.....which they dont. The earth bar depicted in the picture is basically for earthing equipment racks at telecommunication sites for lightning protection. Each rack will have a copper earth bar which is earthed to the Master earth bar in a star configuration. Internal equipment in the rack will then be earthed to the earth bar in the rack again for lightning protection. This earth is independent of the electrical earth. How do I know this.......well I am currently at a remote tv transmitter site installing a new rack, transmitters and Earth system. 6 more sites to go on a big project. The picture has nothing to do with audio and only serves to further confuse newbies with BS.
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7 hours ago, Simonon said:
13 hours ago, Zaphod Beeblebrox said:
The earthing system pictured is fine for most situations, but not so good for audio. 'Star earthing' is, by far, the preferred method. IOW: All earth wires should go to a single point on the buss bar. 

Err this type of earthing has nothing to do with power cables and whether the really expensive ones make your system sound better.....which they dont. The earth bar depicted in the picture is basically for earthing equipment racks at telecommunication sites for lightning protection. Each rack will have a copper earth bar which is earthed to the Master earth bar in a star configuration. Internal equipment in the rack will then be earthed to the earth bar in the rack again for lightning protection. This earth is independent of the electrical earth. How do I know this.......well I am currently at a remote tv transmitter site installing a new rack, transmitters and Earth system. 6 more sites to go on a big project. The picture has nothing to do with audio and only serves to further confuse newbies with BS.

Sorry- walked into that one- what's highly sensitive equipment that creates a stereo interference pattern got to do with audio? You would have thought the precision of the way the left and right interfere to form the image would both be limited and be subject to the noise floor, and so reducing this modulation would help. I thought physics was physics, and it might be interesting to show a similar principle in other areas of engineering. Is it a different principle?

I have obviously used the wrong type of bus bar in my work - do you think ships will sink because of it? Is this earth bar the wrong type of copper, or maybe the wrong type for audio?

I suppose I should have photographed the audio technical earth in Abbey Road, or Air Studios, the B&W/melt studio in Steyning or the National Theatre, or the English National Opera (I've done work in all of those)- they all look very similar. Should change those earth bars to a different type- if so which type?

The point of showing this is to illustrate the principle of independent earth paths away from the power conductors and the benefit of star earthing and how that is important and used in other areas where relative phase stability is important. Maybe you don't think earthing topology affects ground noise and that ground noise doesn't affect stereo imaging. That's fine. I do though, but I respect your view.   

I agree that more expensive power cable doesn't necessarily make a high resolution system sound better, but good management of earthing certainly does. The earthing is an intergral part of a sytem, and connected, one way or the other - to the system ground plane. If you think about the part that an earth plane plays in an audio system and do the analysis, you may see ways that it can influence stereo audio imaging- and then its logical to take anything relevant you discover and incorporate it into power cable design (it'd be stupid not to really). If it cost more to make a cable that incorporates something different, well that's life. (It s not about money- if you are competent and qualified, and its legal, then save money and do it yourself).

Does power cable make a difference - well as said before, there is a huge cohort on either side of the argument, so you can choose to writing off the 'other side'. Peole are so dogmatic about this, that I thought it'd be enlightening to ‘ask under what circumstances and how does power cabling make a difference’. I think that people are so strident on both sides that it is worthy of enquiry. I have been researching this aspect of cable for about 5 years - intensively- (BTW involved with manufacturing cable for marine, industrial, scientific and other uses for about 20) and I have found it is the earthing aspect in audio cables that has most impact.

Personally, yes – having researched and configured the cable system to work optimally for an audio system- ie squeaky clean earth plane across a system – not just at 50Hz, but across a broadband, I do hear what it does. Can modulation noise abouve 20kHz affect what we hear-  what is the band jitter occures in? Maybe they are extreme systems I work with and the audio source is as good as you get, but the people I have been working with have highly regarded professional reputations and tight commercial budgets, and they wouldn't dick around, and they really appreciate the improvement they are getting from working with the mains cables.

And it really is fine, if you don’t want or can’t believe power cabling in anyway influences the resultant audio image, then that’s fine. But there are people who aspire or consider that actually you could get better sounding audio if you considered the audio system as a whole, and, like me, find that interesting. At least I hope other people do as well….

A forum is a good space for discussing and debating . 

I said I wasn’t going to do anymore long posts… dam it…missed my lunch…

 

 

 

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14 hours ago, Zaphod Beeblebrox said:

The earthing system pictured is fine for most situations, but not so good for audio. 'Star earthing' is, by far, the preferred method. IOW: All earth wires should go to a single point on the buss bar. 

Thi is a star earth for the lgiht house head components. The star earth is the topolgy- and the topology is maintained whether they meet at one bolt or on the bus (ok their might be a few nano ohms difference in the paths, but effectivly the inch or so of extra bar betwen the bolts is just a little more on the lenght of the cable, if you like. Also the imedance of that litle bit of bar is, in comparison to the cabling, zilch). The main thing about a star earth is to avoid circuit loops that stray electomagentic fields will induce current into. (Loops form inductive circuits- an induction hob is a good example of how much current can run in a loop that is in the presence of a varying magnetic field). In this case the individual earth cables have been brought down from the light house head- about 30m,  to about just above the gound, and then commoned- that way the shared earth path is minimised and yet they are all bonded at close to mother earth.

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15 hours ago, bob_m_54 said:

Just curious, but did you miss the decimal point in the "25mm" and mean 2.5mm² ? if it were 25mm² cable, the overall diameter of the cable would be around 10mm to 11mm and the studs also would be of a similar size (from the picture). 2.5mm² cable would have an overall diameter of just under 4mm.

25mm CSA, conductors 6,4mm ovrall diameter,  8.9mm sheath diameter, (type 6491X to be precise)- 10mm studs and I think it was 50mm x 8mm busbar. Thinking of building a lighthouse???!

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8 hours ago, StudioConnections said:

25mm CSA, conductors 6,4mm ovrall diameter,  8.9mm sheath diameter, (type 6491X to be precise)- 10mm studs and I think it was 50mm x 8mm busbar. Thinking of building a lighthouse???!

No, it's just that it doesn't look as big as the mains power cable I ran to my shed, which is 25mm² cable. 

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On 07/11/2017 at 2:40 PM, Darren69 said:

Just ordered some IEC-lock versions from the Wagner link Zaph put up, for my mono blocks and subs, they always come loose.

These arrived a few days ago and are excellent. You push a little red slide button in, plug in the IEC and release and it's there! Gave one a decent pull and it didn't move a millimetre. Excellent product, thanks for the link @Zaphod Beeblebrox

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Guest Simonon
These arrived a few days ago and are excellent. You push a little red slide button in, plug in the IEC and release and it's there! Gave one a decent pull and it didn't move a millimetre. Excellent product, thanks for the link [mention=106387]Zaphod Beeblebrox[/mention]
Yep use them all the time at work where a pulled cable can result in the loss of an entire tv channel to a city. Worth every cent.
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On 07/11/2017 at 6:48 PM, StudioConnections said:

As far as verifying,  Arne Askelberg at Abbey Road, The head of sound at Opus Audio, Andy Fox, and the guys at Loh Humm Audio (who do musical theatre sound in London's west end) do their own blind tests for their own benefit.

If they can hear a difference with simply replacing an IEC to mains lead then they'll easily be able to show an audibly significant difference in measured output of the DUT as it's very, very easy to measure far better than any human can hear.

 

So, rather than argumentum ad verecundiam, show us the data.

 

Most of what you've been discussing in this thread revolves around dedicated earthing systems for custom installations which is completely irrelevant to a typical domestic abode here (which must follow AS3000).

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On ‎4‎/‎11‎/‎2017 at 5:35 AM, Zaphod Beeblebrox said:

 

Thanks for this, Trevor - but can you confirm that the product "ACS13-LOCK":

  1. locks with a 'normal' IEC case-mounted socket (or does it have to be a special Wagner "locking" socket)?
  2. can be connected to a mains cable (the red handle at the back seems to be in the way of where the cable would be)?

 

Andy

 

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On ‎7‎/‎11‎/‎2017 at 10:36 PM, StudioConnections said:

Lighthouse-WEB.jpg.cc3712f06bdea1b9af968e1bd88c9716.jpgNOW THATS WHAT I CALL TAKING EARTHING SERIOUSLY (these are each 25mm earth cables)

A picture says a thousand words...This is an ideal earth system for a stereo imaging- separate earth wires, one for all the general stuff- light motors etc, and then four earths- one for each set of electronics. There is one short earth common earth wire that goes into a deep earth gird. Without this ideal 'star earth' the stereo image created by the interference between the left and right channels becomes indistinct and blurred- these separate earth wires to the kit reduce cross contamination of the noise from the various source electronics and power drive amplifiers and so reduce jitter and phase modulation between the left and right, which would deteriorate the clarity of the beamed image, so this gives a superb and reliable stereo projection from the transducers. Sounds like familiar terms and possibly a lot of BS- except the beamed stereo image here is from the radio direction beacons of the Churchill Rock Lighthouse, Southern Ireland. Same stereo principle, different application. How far do you want to go with you mains??? (Couldn't resist posting this pic- it's a beautiful thing to a sad git like me....)

I have something similar at work.

earth.thumb.jpg.a37d8a02c463a2152080e71806a3e6ad.jpg

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On 12/6/2017 at 12:00 AM, StudioConnections said:

Thats proably just the framing of the picture...I hope you've star earthed the shed- makes the lights work better you know...

 

Just for a bit of perspective, I don't have any 25 mm²  cable laying around, but I found a scrap of 16mm² to compare.

This is 7 strands of 1.7mm diameter copper conductor ie 7 X 2.27mm² = 15.89mm²

So 25mm² will be bigger again.

7X1.7_16mmsq-1.jpg.5e0a7f717ccfa191da87c29fe86a9fa5.jpg7X1.7_16mmsq-2.jpg.529459a71ab63c71e7f18b713d7c336d.jpg

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On 12/7/2017 at 4:06 PM, bob_m_54 said:

Just for a bit of perspective, I don't have any 25 mm²  cable laying around, but I found a scrap of 16mm² to compare.

This is 7 strands of 1.7mm diameter copper conductor ie 7 X 2.27mm² = 15.89mm²

So 25mm² will be bigger again.

 

7X1.7_16mmsq-1.jpg.5e0a7f717ccfa191da87c29fe86a9fa5.jpg

 

3 of those (with the suitable colour-code) braided ... would make a sensational power cord!  :thumb:

 

Andy

 

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5 hours ago, andyr said:

 

3 of those (with the suitable colour-code) braided ... would make a sensational power cord!  :thumb:

 

Andy

 

Maybe if it was 5 core one a 600A welding supply..... but it would still be too stiff anyway...

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