The *NOT BORING!* Hi-Fi faff chat and sales

kaiser":sqv97xum said:
I'm needing to hook up some rear home cinema speakers, because I need 20m I was erring on the cheap side. Am I cheating myself by going with the long cheap lengths from ebay? It would only be for the rears, I've enough other stuff for the other speakers.

Cheap stuff will be fine as long as its not bell wire!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0026IAOZ0/r ... wo=&hvqmt=
 
electronicaeric":2m0krs8k said:
Here's a good test tintin...

Listen to the hifi at usual volume in usual sort of surroundings with lights on kettle on the boil may be even washing machine on.
Then go round the house and tun off as many things as you can and see if you can notice a difference,especially on vinyl.If you can then a filter may just be the thing.But before buying one,check your earthing around the home.Check you have all the earth bonding on taps/pipes etc.This could be an easy fix for a less eggs and bacon sort of time.Some say its best to leave equipment on all the time as the equipment takes time to settle down,but I cant get my head around the fire risk(small as it maybe).
Maybe good shielded power leads might make a difference.I tried these but highlighted other problems with the system.So I went back to "in the box" power cables until I ever get the urge to spend some real money.
One thing I did think improved things are them half round bits of rubber stuff for feet.There are some that say wood feet are better because they dont keep energy stored in them as the rubber ones do,but I had good results with them,even on CDs.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/8x-SORBOTHANE ... 288wt_1163

Sorry if you are aware of all this,but there may be others reading who havent come across dirty mains before or realise why their cds sound great at low volume but at proper listening volume they sound poor :D

All good advice. I live in a studio flat so no need to go from one room to anther. All other appliances are off as i hate all that noise when music is on.
A proper hi-fi stand one day will be good. When i move to a bigger place.
I don't have a record deck. Thinking of buying a Dual 505-2 which was my last deck i owned.
 
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If your fuses keep blowing it's more likely that there is a fault in the headphone amp than the mains. A badly-designed power supply will have a high inrush current on switch-on and can blow fuses or trips.

All decent amps etc have mains filters inside. The cost is only a few pence in components!
 
Agreeing with Hamster and Big Cheese here really.

Mains cables cannot make a difference - we are talking 50Hz here. Cables have effectively 'no' loss at this sort of frequency, and ALL mains is dirty. Screening them makes not one iota of difference as the ring main in your house is a far better radiator (it's a ring after all!) than a metre of flex will ever be! External power filtering is a waste of money also. If it makes a difference, consider writing to the manufacturer of your equipment and suggesting they hire someone who understands power supply design, rather than someone who believes in fairies.

Taking money off hi fi folk is like shooting fish in a barrel. Not many *want* to believe in physics and engineering because it would reveal they've wasted a load of money on snake oil.

However, there is solid reasoning why cables sound different. It isn't down to the shite that eBay sellers spout. Like Big Cheese says, it's down to the electrical properties of the cable - impedance - which is a function of it's reactance, and how that matches the components innate impedance. Speaker cables affect things like damping factor. There is no magic, honest.

However, if you want to spend sh*t loads, drop me a mail, I can help with that :D

I'm not trying to be a smart arse. This is what I do for a living. I know a little about this sort of thing, I manage the Automotive department of a fairly large EMC test facility :)
 
apache":m6w1nu3t said:
Agreeing with Hamster and Big Cheese here really.

Mains cables cannot make a difference. External power filtering is a waste of money also. If it makes a difference, consider writing to the manufacturer of your equipment and suggesting they hire someone who understands power supply design, rather than someone who believes in fairies.

Taking money off hi fi folk is like shooting fish in a barrel. Not many *want* to believe in physics and engineering because it would reveal they've wasted a load of money on snake oil.

However, there is solid reasoning why cables sound different. It isn't down to the shite that eBay sellers spout. Like Big Cheese says, it's down to the electrical properties of the cable - impedance - which is a function of it's reactance, and how that matches the components innate impedance. Speaker cables affect things like damping factor. There is no magic, honest.

However, if you want to spend sh*t loads, drop me a mail, I can help with that :D

Phew! I thought I was on my own here...
 
You can get a seperate spur for your hi fi off the mains box.........so fridges going on/off etc don't make popping noises......
 
Sorry, edited after dropping the missus at work.

I bet most of my test kit is far more sensitive than the the ears of the best listener in the world - and if that says 'no difference' then I'll go with that rather than a hifi 'expert'.

However, my test kit doesn't have a 'psychosomatic' or 'placebo' facility - which I guess is a valid discriminator in the hifi world. If you *believe* it sounds better, then it does, and who am I to argue? :)
 
greenstiles":2hmlfzfw said:
You can get a seperate spur for your hi fi off the mains box.........so fridges going on/off etc don't make popping noises......

Only if the noise is conducted rather than radiated. If it's radiated (and switching noise frequently is broadband radiated noise from the wee spark in the switch) then you're screwed. It's also transient, and can only prove a nuisance rather than affecting the quality over time.
 
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