maxg

"All being equal, vinyl rules." I for one am definitely not going to argue with that statement. However, just for laughs - I am running a combination of analogue and digital at the moment - but the other way around from most. My source is vinyl, my pre-amp is tube and my amp is digtial....just to be a bit different. Right now - works for me.

Agreed Ray (other 9,999 members in danger of approaching coma but anyway). I refered to this as an initial expansion period after which space/time is established and the speed of light as a reference cuts in. From all references I have seen space/time is presumed to be a closed system - so no pulling of wires through it. We are therefore left with the question of initial expansion prior to the establishment of the universe's own physical rules governing its behaviour (i.e. space/time). I have simply never seen a estimate sufficient to make up the difference between the perceived limit - (t * c) and the figure you quoted. Of course - local expansions of space time are going to be possible within the fabric of the universe - but in theory these should be at the expense of contraction in other places - so no net gain. On the subject of the big numbers that started this - I think that what we are basically proving is that there isnt anything that closes in on statistical probabilities of unlikely events for real biggies. Anything over about 10^30 is gonna have real limited meaning in the real world - although I seem to recall the moves on a chessboard add up to about 10^64 - so lets call it 10^100 as a real practical limit. Your number of 10^(800 and something) is just too out there to be even fathomable. It exists purely as a mathematical expression of probability and nothing more.

"Even that's not a *REALLY* big number. I was reading a book about the inflationary theory of the Universe, and saw a conversation with Alan H. Guth in which he refered to one theory that indicated the true size of the universe might be Ten to the (Ten to the Twelth) - 10 ^ (10 ^ 12) - across. " You know - I don think that figure can be right if the big bang/crunch apply. I happened to have provided an estimate of the age of the universe in seconds - 4 * 10^17 Now if we assume the universe started from a point source is has therefore been expanding at an astronomical pace to get to the size it is today. When I say astronomical we are talking about way faster than the speed of light. In other words the universe should be something in the region of 12.5 billion light years across: (12.5 * 10^9) * 365 * 24 * 60 * 60 * 300,000 = 3.6 * 10^30 kilometers. It is a big place - but t'aint that big! (I should add that within the theory of the expansion of space/time itself there is an allowance for an initial expansion outside of time and therefore unregulated by the speed of light limit - but no estimation as to the effect of this has produced a "time start point" sufficiently pre-expanded to get to the size he estimates - at least none that I have seen.) Of course - I am not going to argue with Alan Guth on this - but how on earth does he get to that figure?

Well this thread has come on a pace since I last looked. Yes - it was the Du Pre / Elgar - and I think it came from the listening session at my house (although I would expect they used the MP3 in the making of the film rather than the recording of the vinyl playing at my house). I would say it was definitively my favorite Cello piece - but then there is the Dvorak Cello and all resolve disappears....[:^)] Still a great piece though- and Du Pre's was the performance of the century on it. BTW - Michael - great explanation on the zerostat - I had no idea....

5*10^813 is quite a big number; so big, in fact, there is nothing physical that comes anywhere near it: Attempt one - age of universe in seconds. If the big bang theorist are right the earth is about 12,500,000,000 years old. That is about 4 * 10^17 seconds. Minute in comparison. OK - lets try something else: Attempt two - weight of earth - in multiples of the electron The Earth weighs about 6 * 10^24 Kilograms. An electron weighs about 9 * 10^-31 Kg. The earth therefore weighs in at about 5.4 * 10^56 electron masses. Still minute in comparison. Replace the earth with the whole universe - that is about 1 * 10^60 kilograms (very estimated). In electrons then - 9 * 10^121 electron masses. Still not the tiniest fraction of the number we have in the example. So here is a question for you Let us forget the monkey idea - and teach electrons to type. Lets assume that the universe is about half way through its life - so we have another 12.5 billion years to go. We will call this number the rest of time (4 * 10^17 seconds). Lets assume my mass number of the universe in electron units (9 * 10^121) is the actual total of electrons in the universe. As discussed recently in a thread in 2 channel - electrons move really quickly down a wire - so lets assume they type in similar fashion. One go per seond. Now - what is the probability that an electron will actually type the original sonnet before the end of time? If you cant be bothered to calculate it yourself - trust me - it is still infinitesimally small. Yup - 5*10^813 is a bigun' alrighty - it so big it dont really exist in this universe.

Mark, Klipsch promedia 2.0's!!!! You can hear it fine with those. Not that I have downloaded it or anything - or converted it into another format upsampling the audio - or created a VCD that will play on any DVD player.....

You probably need to upgrade your version of quicktime to get picture - I know I did.

I saw the bandwidth error too and so decided not to post separately until it is fixed. I might just write to Ken and see if he is happy to let me host the video on a site that has no limits. Will keep you posted on that.

Filmboy, You have quite made my day!! I just watched the whole thing for the first time. Actually it is my system at the very end that everyone is gathered around but you dont see much of it as I spent considerably less than the others and it doesn't look quite as.....dramatic - I guess. I wonder if someone will pick it up and show it on TV - PBS fare over there I would guess - BBC 2 in the UK - who knows? If they do I will be signing autographs......[]

Boy am I with you on this one. I loathe and detest the place. It is yet another in a long line of activities of the modern world I simply do not get. I put shopping at IKEA in the same category as these big brother/survivor/talentless shows. They are incredibly popular by all accounts - but the reason for their popularity escapes me entirely. I see zero appeal. I dont think I will write any more of my list - it will only depress me.

Now that is interesting - especially as I havent yet. Where did you see it? Am I in it? Etc. etc.

"The free wheeling wheels corresponding to the backwards motion of the conveyor belt would mean that the plane itself remains stationary relative to the ground position, as long as the conveyor belt is exactly compensatory with the speed (force) of the engines." D-man, I am massively sympathetic to this interpretation as I was there but 10 hours ago. The error is that, in fact the conveyor belt is not capable of holding the plane stationary - whatever it is doing. It is capable, solely, of making the wheels spin. The motion of the plane is determined by the engines which are acting on the frame itself. Whatever the conveyor belt attempts to do in counterbalancing the force of the engines the plane will move off pretty much as normal and probably take a similar distance to get off the ground. the wheels will be turning at the sum of the take off speed and the conveyor speed - which could be a million miles and hour and still not make any difference. Get it?

Well I am sobbing with joy - at least 2 other people knew it was the Armadillo. My wife was convinced I was the only person on earth other than those that work directly with said creatures. Ray, Speed within the cable is irrelevent as long as it is sufficient to carry the signal without creating a bottleneck - I think - how many electrons per second do you need for stereo sound anyway?[] Assuming speed is equal across the audible spectrum then the only way it might have an effect is if you were to run different cables to each of the stereo channels - which is why I calculated on that basis.

Phew - the whole thread just read. Late to the thread and slow on the uptake - it wasnt till page 23 that I got why the plane will take off. It doesnt matter what the wheels are doing - it doesnt matter whether there is a moving runway or a stationary one - or even which direction it is going in. Boy I can be dumb sometimes. Good question though....

Rick, I chose 0.1C as an extreme case/guess - in other words it really gives them the maximum benefit of the doubt. Erik, We meet again. I am a habitual collector of useless pieces of information - some of which may contibute to something else years later. I also have a habit of trying to calculate things for myself that really carry minimal benefit to my day to day life. Like I said - I need to get out more. Example of a useless piece of info I carry. What is the only creature other than man that gets Leprosy? Hopefully someone else will know as well and I will discover there are 2 of us.... If not I will post the answer in a couple of days.

Erik, I think we are on the same page. I am not knocking the tilting of a speaker in any direction - merely questioning what is the actual cause of any perceived benefit. My limited experience to date indicates that the interaction of the speaker and room is pretty much key to the whole listening experience. Changes in the orientation of a speaker will certainly be expected to affect that interaction. Just as a matter of reference I used to run my own speakers tilted upwards. Later I put the speakers on legs, raising them significantly, and kept them flat. The latter is the better sound to my ears and just about everyone else who heard the speakers both ways. Now I could angle them back as well - frankly I just havent got around to trying it out. As the speaker drivers are now well away from floors / furniture W.H.Y. any sonic difference should be due, in the main, to time alignment. I think.....[:^)]

I mentioned about a week ago that I attended a demonstration of Nordost cables that was, shall we say, clever. Amongst the many and various piece of "science" that were thrown at us during that demonstration was that the Valhala cable, aside from being the most expensive cable they make is also the fastest. How fast? About 0.9 C - or about 270,000 kilometers per second. This was cited as a big advantage of the cable - and it got me thinking. What I thunk was this. What bloody difference does that make? How fast is a normal cable? What kind of timing differences occur if you have a Valhala on one side and a normal cable on the other? With this in mind I did a quick calculation. I assumed that a normal cable is a mere 0.1 C nominally. So: We have a one meter "pair" of interconnects. One is a Valhala and the other something we pulled out of the back of a computer speaker. The signal will travel down the Valhala in 2.7 * 10-8 seconds. The signal will travel down the normal cable in 3 * 10-7 seconds. The difference is therefore 2.6 * 10-7 seconds, or 0.26 millionths of a second. Well that dont mean crap to me - so how far would sound travel in that time? OK sound travels at, give or take, 800 miles per hour. That is 1280 kilometers per hour. Work that out and it comes to 356 meters per second - rounded up. So by my calculations that means that in 0.26 millionths of a second sound travels 0.093 millimeters per second, or, about 1 twentieth of the width of a human hair. I can guarantee that my speakers are not placed that accurately - therefore the speed of the cable is all but irrelevent for timing purposes. I know - I need to get out more.

"You never know, it may gives the Heresey's a little more depth on the bottom end, or maybe tame a peak at around 60, 70 Hz. (If the Heresey suffers from that issue...) It may make things worse, but all you have to do is pull the polyfil back out. " IME Heresy's do suffer such a peak - but I think it is actually deliberate. Having a peak there gives the illusion of having more (as in deeper) bass than reality and I have seen it in many smaller speakers. Frankly it works rather well - until such time as you compare it with real bass and then the difference is obvious. As for the whole time-alignment thing I guess it is going to be much dependent on the height of the listener's ear. I do think you can get quite carried away with this. We are talking about fairly small differences and I would guess the impact of the average listening room would be greater than any change imparted by exact alignment of similar drivers to reach the ear simultaneously. Further, making such changes will also impact the interactions of the output of the speaker drivers with the room itself - changing the reflection times for sound waves coming from the floor, for example. I would suspect that these are actually a greater source of perceived impact on the sound than the measured equidistant woofers.

Well, from the show: CAVS - ugle in looks, ugly in sound. Aint much pretty here either. And you really really have to be into black to want this TT. Nice little tasteful, low profile TT - quite the opposite of the above and yet - both monstrosities... Tumerous small refridgerators, various. Great, great sound - but oh the look of them.... That'll do for now - IMHO there aint much audiophile product out there that doesn't look ugly - oh and those Wilsons look like a prop from a 1950's UFO movie, each to their own.....

Good stuff Who, I'll have a play over the coming days with all possible permutations and see if I cannot find what on earth is causing the problems. Maybe it is just a hummy sub.....and a noisy TT.

At the high end show I met an old friend of mine I had not seen in years. He has been busily doing the audiophile thing (actually more the videophile thing) but he is now getting into 2 channel thing - and vinyl to boot. A couple of days after the show he calls me for some advice and we are talking about systems in general. He asks me if I am still using my power cleaner (local product) and when I tell him I am he advises me to get rid of it pronto. Apparently he is in the process of testing a variety of units (we have problems with power over here) and has found that the one I have actually seems to generate noise on the line - as opposed to some more expensive ones that reduce it. Anyway, whilst I am not convinced about any of this (am I ever these days) I decide to take a look/listen to my system properly and discover that it is actually very noisy. Even when there is no record on the system when I turn the volume up the noise level becomes quite intrusive. As I am not sure on the source of this noise I decided to take a step by step approach - last night. First things first - removed the power cleaner and replaced it with another one I had (that is not audiophile at all - bought it from an electrical shop for $50). Guess what - noise level falls - quite dramatically. Now it could be the power cleaner and it could be simply that moving / removing plugs made a difference - hard to tell. Whilst there is a definite improvement it is still far from silent. I then pul every cable (interconnect, power cable, speaker cable - the whole lot) from the system and spend a happy hour reconnecting everything. This time I am much more careful about placement - power cables on one side - signal cables on the other. I also take the opportunity to review the earthing of the system and make some changes there - so the only thing that is now earthed is the pre-amp. As everything connects to that via RCA's I am effectively earthing the whole chain and there is no risk of a ground loop hum. So after much work, a bit of sweat, a cut finger and a few bruises from squeezing into rahter tight spaces I am done. Power everything up and wait a few moments for it all to warm up. Even before I play a record I can tell there has been a massive change. The system is all but silent. Playback is wonderful, but I am left with 2 sources of noise I am yet to be able to account for: The subwoofer. There is a slight hum from the sub - I had not noticed it before - drowned out by the cacophony of the rest of the system probably. Whatever I do it does not go away unless I turn the volume on it to zero. I have run it off both the amp (speaker out connection) and the pre-amp (line out connection) and the hum is the same. When the pre-amp is off completely the noise goes away - whichever connection I am using. Still stumped by this one - but it is only audible when close up to the sub at sub level (on my knees in other words). Might be something I have to live with - not sure yet. If anyone has any ideas I am all ears - it is the same noise whether earthed or not. When the pre-amp is turned to the CD there is effectively zero noise through the speakers at any volume. When turned to the vinyl there is some noise at higher volumes. This is the same whether I use the external phono stage or the phono stage built into the pre-amp itself. This one is another mystery for me - the built in phono stage is MM and I think has gain of about 48 dB. The external phono stage is MC and has a gain of 65 dB. I would have expected the noise level to be higher with the MC stage but it doesn't seem to make any difference. The noise is there even when the turntable is powered off and the cartrdige seated at rest. Now I should point out that from the listening position I dont hear any noise at all - so I am being extra fussy - but I am still intriged as to where this noise is coming from. As previously it does not seem to make any difference whether the phono stage is earthed (via hte power cable) or not. Anyway - the point of all this is that it can make an enormous difference to sound quality simply removing cables and re-seating them. I suspect this might have a lot to do with night and day changes when replacing cables etc. The only thing I have changed on my system is the power cleaner - and this is not a quality unit I have installed - yet with the changes of the cabling (as in removal and re-insertion) I have seen a massive improvement in sound quality. At about 1 am I sat down to listen to the Bach Brandenberg concertos on a new disk - I could have wept it was so good. Bach Brandenburg Concertos English Chamber Bengamin Britten London K38C 70041 Stereo Japan Super Analogue

Carry a good 35 mm SLR camera loaded with an empty film. If it gets too close any loud noise should scare it off - so carry a cornwall too. []

There aren't too many shots of me where I am not smiling - but ACA seems to specialize in them....too much concentrating on the sound (yeah right).

Posted in a separate thread Kaiser - well linked from one anyway. Let me know what you think. Cheers Max

Has been OK'ed and put up within moments. Hot off the presses for you guys - http://aca.gr/event06-11_yorke.htm Let me know if you like it. If you dont like it - pah, what do you know!