JSharp

Useful, but much modern equipment uses jacks that allow 1/4" 2 conductor or 3 conductor plugs to be used. All the discussion in the thread to be considered when you start using 2 conductor plugs and cables and connecting balanced and unbalanced lines...

Go ahead and put your Sony CDs in your drive....the malicious spyware won't get installed unless you click yes in an install window. So if it requires you to install a program to play the disc, then simply cancel the installing and not play that particular CD. It seems the Sony rootkit is now about as dead as it can be. Even MS anti-spyware is treating it as it should be treated and will remove it. http://list.windowsitpro.com/t?ctl=1944F:25787 "For example, Microsoft initially responded cautiously when questioned about its position on Sonys use of rootkits, but Jason Garms, a member of the Microsoft Windows Defender team (formerly Microsoft Antispyware), announced in the Windows Defender blog this weekend that Microsoft is also releasing signatures and a cleaner for the rootkit."

Not Craig and not pertaining to tube amps, but this is commom design practice on all types of circutry. You'll see a bulk large value electrolytic bypassed by a smaller tantalum bypassed yet again by a still smaller ceramic. It's done because the different types of parts of different values have different characteristics at certain frequencies. You would think that going larger in value would always work better for bypassing, but in fact, you often see reduced noise by going from something like a .2uf or.1uf part to a .01uf part. Youre' dealing with the fact that different cap types have different ESR/frequency curves and different self resonant fequencies even if they are of the same measured capacitance. Lead length and postioning matter too since they effect the overall characteristics of the circuit with the components connected. These issues are typically far above the audio range though...

Here are a couple of notes that are applicable to this conversation I think. About balanced and unbalanced connections - http://www.rane.com/note110.html About grounding and shielding - http://www.rane.com/note151.html The common instrument balanced to unbalanced transformers are not useful for a preamp-amp connection because in addition to performing this conversion, they also perform an impedance transformation. They are typically used to adapt something like a high impedance 50K ohm microphone to a low impedance 300 balanced panel input. Unbalanced line level inputs and outputs are commonly 600 ohm impedance so while we theoretically need some impedance matching, it's not of the same magnitude as the microphone case. Balanced inputs and outputs don't have any practical advantages with short cable runs between low impedance circuitry. The advantage appears as the cable runs become longer and any noise sources become of greater magnitude relative to the signals. In the case of balanced line that noise will be a common mode signal and not seen at the differential inputs of the devices. I have a pro style eq with balanced inputs and outputs with the connections tied single ended on both sides connected in the tape monitor loop of my preamp. I can hear no difference in the noise floor with the eq switched in or switched out using 3' cables between the components. It's likely though that if I increased those cable lengths that would no longer be true...

Opps... As if this wasn't predicted too... "Viruses exploit Sony CD copy-protection scheme SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) - A controversial copy-protection program that automatically installs when some Sony BMG audio CDs are played on personal computers is now being exploited by malicious software that takes advantage of the antipiracy technology's ability to hide files. The Trojan horse programs -- three have so far been identified by antivirus companies -- are named so as to trigger the cloaking feature of Sony's XCP2 antipiracy technology. By piggybacking on that function, the malicious programs can enter undetected, security experts said Thursday." http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/technology/personal_technology/13134753.htm

The Radio Shack part numbers are 64-4336 for the pen applicator, and 64-4338 for the spray cleaner and lubricant kit. They even call it DeoxIT in the catalog. Sounds like the drones at your local RS stores are even worse than usual... http://www.radioshack.com/search/index.jsp?kw=deoxit&kw=deoxit&kwCatId=&fbc=1&f=Brand%2F1000312%2F&fbn=Brand%2FDeoxIT

I just noticed this. It was filed right away. That didn't take long at all did it- http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2005/11/calif_ny_lawsui.html "A class-action lawsuit has been filed on behalf of California consumers who may have been harmed by anti-piracy software installed by some Sony music CDs." "The suit alleges that Sony's software violates at least three California statutes, including the "Consumer Legal Remedies Act," which governs unfair and/or deceptive trade acts; and the "Consumer Protection against Computer Spyware Act," which prohibits -- among other things -- software that takes control over the user's computer or misrepresents the user's ability or right to uninstall the program. The suit also alleges that Sony's actions violate the California Unfair Competition law, which allows public prosecutors and private citizens to file lawsuits to protect businesses and consumers from unfair business practices. '

Sorry about the chest pains. When you pointed out that three "audio capacitor companies" were using parts built by the same manufacturer, then pointed out that a couple of other more common passive component companies didn't build parts in many of the values needed for crossovers, I assumed you were pointing out that there were few manufacturers of these devices or that the volumes were low. Do those statements mean something different to you? If so, then what is it? It's true by the way, there just aren't that many actual manufacturers of these devices nor is the volume large on them comparatively. How many 30uf 250 volt audio caps do you think get sold worldwide compared to something like a .1uf, 10volt smt0402 ceramic capacitor? Or Bob's GE motor runs for that matter? It's many orders of magnitude different. And there's the rub. Small volume components cost far more to make than those that are built in larger quantities even when everything else about them is completely equal. It follows that cost has only a loosely coupled relation to the quality and performance of an item or the cost of the raw materials used to build it. We see that last point proven when we notice that less than $.01 worth of sand can end up selling for $300 when it's made into a CPU. Outside of the questionable and unproven audio differences between something like the GE caps and some of the specialty parts, this is my real problem with a lot of the high end audio products. You're not necessarily paying for anything superior, you're often paying for nothing more than manufacturing inefficiency because of design criteria and tight specs that aren't proven valuable, and low manufacturing volume. So while I thank you for the links, I don't see one study that shows any correlation between the more obscure characteristics and construction techniques of capacitors and the audibility of those items in use. But maybe I missed it? That is the subject of this thread isn't it? While you're looking for those, hopefully you'll do some research into manufacturing cost vs. volume curves in electronic component manufacturing so you can see where the costs come from in specialty component manufacturing. Hint - it's mostly not quality, performance, reliability, or any of the other things people might want you to think it is... -- Jim

Craig I think my last post missed the mark by more than 1/2 but I never claimed to be a writer. I wasn't claiming some of these specialty audio components were bad so much as they are very often designed to outlandish and questionable specifications and consequently overpriced, then sold with dubious claims in an attempt to justify this price. And the case of many of them, it's more a function of how they're marketed and the volumes they're manufactured in than it is in any use of superior materials or better manufacturing techniques. As you've said, there just aren't that many people building capacitors of this type anymore so the likelihood of them being built on the same lines as commodity parts is very high, as is the likelihood the performance is almost identical. It's not my point reject any and all hi-end components so much as it is to try to do exactly what you say - find the meat and avoid the bones. I'm probably just oversensitive to ordering "the best tasting chicken meat in the world," paying $20 a pound for it, then being sent a bucket of skinny wings with an endorsement that says they'll taste better than any other wings because they were grown on all natural farms, high in the andes, with soothing music played to them though out their scientifically determined optimum length life. Damn, you did all that and all I wanted was decent quality chicken meat? And to make it worse, the meat tastes just like the meat from the local farms I can buy for $1.59 a pound. In my case, my skepticism is probably caused by spending too many years of trying to engineer to meet specious marketing specifications... -- Jim Jim, Your quoting Dean and addressing me is this a mistake? Craig Yep, it sure is a mistake... Trying to do too many things at once... I'll edit it now. -- Jim

Dean - I think my last post missed the mark by more than 1/2 but I never claimed to be a writer. I wasn't claiming some of these specialty audio components were bad so much as they are very often designed to outlandish and questionable specifications and consequently overpriced, then sold with dubious claims in an attempt to justify this price. And the case of many of them, it's more a function of how they're marketed and the volumes they're manufactured in than it is in any use of superior materials or better manufacturing techniques. As you've said, there just aren't that many people building capacitors of this type anymore so the likelihood of them being built on the same lines as commodity parts is very high, as is the likelihood the performance is almost identical. It's not my point reject any and all hi-end components so much as it is to try to do exactly what you say - find the meat and avoid the bones. I'm probably just oversensitive to ordering "the best tasting chicken meat in the world," paying $20 a pound for it, then being sent a bucket of skinny wings with an endorsement that says they'll taste better than any other wings because they were grown on all natural farms, high in the andes, with soothing music played to them though out their scientifically determined optimum length life. Damn, you did all that and all I wanted was decent quality chicken meat? And to make it worse, the meat tastes just like the meat from the local farms I can buy for $1.59 a pound. In my case, my skepticism is probably caused by spending too many years of trying to engineer to meet specious marketing specifications... -- Jim edit: to fix my mistake...

Those parts may be "motor run" capacitors by application, but in fact, they're actually high quality polypropylene in oil capacitors of the correct values. They're parts with likely conservative ratings, built by a real electrical device manufacturer ( as opposed to audio industry charlatans), and made to operate in severe industrial environments without causing problems in expensive motors attached to possibly multi-million dollar equipment. I seriously wonder what people would think of them if Bob had never mentioned where they came from and instead had sent them out to have some exotic finish applied to them, then charged $90 each for them...

XCP-Aurora Support Please choose an update from the list below. Software Updates Latest Update Service Pack 2 2|Nov|2005, 3.253Mb This Service Pack removes the cloaking technology component that has been recently discussed in a number of articles published regarding the XCP Technology used on SONY BMG content protected CDs. This component is not malicious and does not compromise security. However to alleviate any concerns that users may have about the program posing potential security vulnerabilities, this update has been released to enable users to remove this component from their computers. No matter how much they spin, Sony = 0wned by the internet once again.

Found it - http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/sony-eula.htm The friendly Sony EULA. Good luck getting anything more out of it than "We warranty nothing, we can change our mind anytime we like, and you accept everything." I'd post an embedded link but for some reason the link button doesn't work in Netscape. Anyone have a fix for that? DMCA is a mess. There are unanswered questions like "Who*really* owns the rights to a digital photo if your camera uses a form of encryption to store the file or portions of it, and you don't have explicit permission to unencrypt it from the camera manufacturer."

I don't recall ever seeing an EULA in the package with an audio CD. There's probably some ultra fine print somewhere on the CD label that points you to a website that has it or something else just as disingenuous. Making copies is allowed under DMCA, but tampering with another person's software is a somewhat of a gray area, and doing so to any software that falls under any sort of loosely defined "encryption" scheme is a lot less gray. It would be poetic justice if Sony fell into one of the traps with the law that they've attempted to set for everyone else who they "think" might be stealing their product. Things like this certainly make a person think Sony is crying crocodile tears over their alleged lost revenue. As if we didn't know that already...

Craig - There's probably more going on than can be heard instantly with some form of simple ABX switching. But I think some people use that as a way to sell $5K speaker cables and then claim a person should "let them break in for X hours before you decide" thus getting around the fact that people can't differentiate between those cables and 12ga zip cord from Home Depot. So even though I agree, there's probably a time factor in order to hear small but real differences, I think that conclusion gets misused. And here are two things I can't reconcile - It's hard for me to accept that all these minute sonic differences are just some form of groupthink that large numbers of people are infected with. People with different experiences, with different equipment, in different places, and at different times. But when we can't measure any substantial differences electrically, people have an impossible time determining what's been changed, if anything, unless they have some prior knowledge of the changes. Another <shrug> I honestly don't get it. -- Jim

v count me in on the Class Action Suit ..! Count me in for some $$ when someone puts out contracts on Sony execs. I've spend countless hours in my life removing software like this. I've no patience for it and think it's inexcusable. Lets hope they get a chance to use some of their high priced lawyers to try and defend this behavior...

I don't think anyone disagrees with that quote. Now if I were trying to be snide, I'd ask how business has been of late for the H.H. Scott Company. But I'm not, so I won't. The question I'm interested in answering is more basic. Why is it, that when we take a group of people and have them listen to an assortment of equipment built with simple passive components, and a number of those components are replaced with other components that have substantially similar measured electrical characteristics, that the listening group can't tell the difference without first knowing the identity of the components that were changed? Yet when given the identities and other information about the components, the group is likely to argue at length about the sonic differences among them. Just a guess on my part, but I don't think the answer will come from engineering texts. Books on psychology might be more applicable. Or a field study where we interview an assortment of carnies, magicians, salesmen, politicians, faith healers, etc...

Now exactly how, when I'm the one doing the changing would I be able to answer that for you? Even if I wasn't the one doing the changing how could I answer it for the "we" in your question? Hey you folks want to go on listening to your stuff as is or with whatever cap you choose go for it no problem with me. But to say that just because it can't be measured it isn't there is just plan closed minded. Or just because "PWK said this" its the absolute end all is just blind thinking. The biggest advantage to Klipsch speakers is Paul built them to do more with less! If you think they can't do even better with more then my hats off to you. Craig The point I was trying to get to is that if people can truly hear a difference, we should be able to quantify that and duplicate it. If we can't, it means one of two things. That we're not measuring something that's audible and we should be, or that the differences people often claim they "hear" don't really exist as physical effects. One way to eliminate the latter is to remove the possibility of suggestion from the equation. That procedure is a basic part of blind and hopefully objective testing that's done and not just on audio equipment. It's part of the basic foundation of science and engineering. If there's no attempt to get the observers feelings and subjectivity out of the observation it's likely not going to be accurate. For example, I've been in and on a lot of vehicles that "really felt fast" only to discover their real performance wasn't nearly as good as some others that don't "feel" that way. IOW, my butt wasn't nearly as accurate as a stopwatch and thinking, talking, my friends opinion, loud mufflers or a hard ride couldn't change that. I also wasn't intending to try to defend Bob's position, because he hardly needs here it especially from some new guy, but I recently got a set of Cornwall crossovers re-capped by him. I had him do it not because I can't solder and crimp connectors myself, because I can assure you, I've been at those things about as long as he has. I did it because I assumed Bob had done some research into what worked well in those crossovers. It made sense to not attempt to re-invent the wheel when another person had conveniently already done it for me and was willing to provide that to me for very little $$. When I got the crossovers back, I immediately noticed how much better they sounded. Not just better, but a very obvious difference in the mid and tweeter output, and with improved clarity. Of course I wanted to hear a difference, because I'd just spent time and effort and $$ on something I believed would matter. I used the minimal equipment I own and sure enough, the Mid and HF output was measurably higher than before. The instruments confirmed what I thought I was hearing. I could have let it go, but I wasn't willing to just trust what I heard and wanted to see it measured and quantified and explained. I'm satisfied after doing that. So to circle back to the point I was trying to make in my original post, it seems to me that before anyone can decide "this item sounds better than that one," it's important to first be able to show that a given item in fact can even be distinguished from another consistently and repeatably. If we can't meet that minimum standard, and we can't measure any differences either, we'll never be able to agree on "what sounds better" and we'll be dealing with psychology or magic but not any kind of science that I'm aware of. As far as improving what we have in our Klipsch speakers, I'm sure there are a number of people here who have done exactly that. Like any other product, they were made to a set of criteria that included size, price, performance, parts availability, manufacturability, and a whole list of other things I'm sure. No different than any other product on the market. I just think some changes don't really make them better. They make them different and in way that isn't always audible. Nothing wrong with that, it's just hard to sort out what's really "better" if we can't consistantly show they're even different... <shrug> Jim - who's just an old engineer who likes music and loves his old Klipsch speakers.

Ok. But can you still "hear" these differences if you don't know what's changed if anything?

Everything I've read and heard tells me the same thing. This is why I don't feel all that bad about using $.63 Panasonic polypropylene caps in low level circuitry instead of $20 "magic audio caps"...

Who's starting the pool on this? ABX testing, 2 brands/kinds/types of caps within 5% of value as was mentioned. All someone has to do to take the $$ is be able to identify which part is which above the level of random probability. I'm thinking there's a lot of forum members who will want in on this...

More info about this than you might ever want to know is available here - http://www.sysinternals.com/Blog/ "The entire experience was frustrating and irritating. Not only had Sony put software on my system that uses techniques commonly used by malware to mask its presence, the software is poorly written and provides no means for uninstall. Worse, most users that stumble across the cloaked files with a RKR scan will cripple their computer if they attempt the obvious step of deleting the cloaked files." It's all over the net. Google "Sony DRM malware" It shouldn't effect stand alone players. I'm hoping some trial lawyer gets his PC trashed by this virus-like software that Sony installs via their audio CD's. Given that this operation is not mentioned in their End User License Agreement, a person might want to question the legality of what they are doing by re-writing the software on *your* PC...

Commonly known as clipping since that's what the output waveform looks like...

If you don't mind spending the $$, want an iron that works well, will last forever, and has parts available, look at the Weller WTCPT or WESD51 Industrial Soldering Stations These are the same irons our production and repair people use. Both are temp controlled. The WTCPT uses different tips for temperature changes, the WESD51 is a bit lower wattage but adjustable on the station with a temperature display. We don't work with much large stuff, but either of them have enough power to solder heavy lugs and wiring like you see in tube equipment. In light use one woud probably last you a lifetime. -- Jim

Dean's right. The life expectancy is a function of part temperature plus how closely you operate the part to it's rated voltage. The figures are pretty easy to find on electrolytic caps and are usually on the datasheet along with life derating curves vs. temperature. Not so easy to find on films or other capacitor types. I checked 1/2 dozen datasheets and didn't see it listed on any of them. Manufacturers could likely provide it though. At least if they're real manufacturers and not some Audiofool only company selling $50 "audio caps" that they don't even build...