Oppo with Power Cord Anyone?

PolkWannabie

It is however helpful to know, especially by the tweaker, which tweak made it better otherwise it's like playing Russian Roulette.

Early B.

PolkWannabie wrote:

It is however helpful to know, especially by the tweaker, which tweak made it better otherwise it's like playing Russian Roulette.

That's for you to determine. A tweak in my system may have no impact at all in yours.

For instance, some people swear by various isolation techniques. So far, I haven't heard any differences in my system after experimenting with several types of isolation options.

WilliamM2

Some people are very arrogant in their ignorance.

Read your own theories about how a power cable could make make the Oppo more "effecient", and double the output level. Talk about ignorance...

If you're constantly rationalizing the effect of system changes, then find another hobby because tweaking is a major part of the audiophile world. There's no logical explanation for many of these tweaks. They simply work.

And if I don't agree that the magic works, I need to find a new hobby? Talk about arrogant...

jakelm

The laws of physics cannot be changed...Its the Force

But lets not fight over this..

Jake

zombie boy 2000

WilliamM2 wrote:

Read your own theories about how a power cable could make make the Oppo more "effecient", and double the output level. Talk about ignorance...
And if I don't agree that the magic works, I need to find a new hobby? Talk about arrogant...

Whoa... slow your roll, jelly-roll. No need to open fire. Early B is doing us a service here by taking the time to demonstrate his findings. If you don't like what he's selling, then find another fruit stand.

WilliamM2

No need to open fire. Early B is doing us a service here by taking the time to demonstrate his findings.

I believe Early decided to call others ignorant and arrogant first. Perhaps your post is directed at the wrong party.

And reccomending a product based on "magic" that goes well beyond the possible, is not doing anyone a service.

jakelm

I changed my lights in my living room from 75watt to 60watt. My audio system just increased 3 dbs. I dont know how but it did.

LOL...I'm just picking

Jake

Early B.

WilliamM2 wrote:

I believe Early decided to call others ignorant and arrogant first. Perhaps your post is directed at the wrong party.

That is not true. I wasn't referring to anyone in particular. Somehow you took my statement personally. Not sure why you did that.

WilliamM2

That is not true. I wasn't referring to anyone in particular.

Well you did say the last few posts, which were all from myself, Jakelm, and hearingimpaired. I didn't take it personally, I thought you were refering to all of us.

unc2701

Early.. just to explain, it's like you're saying that if you burn a CD on a computer with a 500 watt power supply, it's going to sound louder than if you burn it on a computer with a 300 watt power supply. Digital errors are orthogonal to volume.

Trust me on this... in a fit of boredom I wrote a SAS program to directly produce XXhz sine .wav files and burned these on a CD, then read them back in and error checked, so I'd have a completely noise free digital test disc. I'm telling you that there is nothing that a power cord can do to change digital information to make it louder. You might as well claim that a 9 volt battery in series with your coax will boost the volume.

Can it change the sound? Yeah, sure. But the volume? No.

jakelm

I think the one with the $200 power cord should be blamed for all of it. That person seems to be able to afford alittle blame thrown his/her way....LOL..:D

Its really no big deal...

Jake

WilliamM2

Nonsense unc, as Early clearly stated:

There's no logical explanation for many of these tweaks. They simply work.

zombie boy 2000

IMO there is a somewhat relative aspect to "louder"... I find dynamic passages with a bit more slam in the lower frequencies tend to sound louder on the whole, though not necessarily register as such in terms of decibels. (The smallest noises tend to keep us up at night, don't they?) Moreover, this could be greatly influenced by a particular flavor introduced by a particular cable....

In other words -- if for instance, transients are sharper and more defined, I might perceive the music as being "louder". If I perceive something as louder, I might kick the center channel down a few db's to compensate. And at the end of the day, my perception is also my reality. FWIW amigos

hearingimpared

Early B. wrote:

There's no logical explanation for many of these tweaks. They simply work. And there's only one way to find out...

That is the most logical statement I've heard all day!

I had a guy ask me in another thread about how placing sorbothane pods on a preamp and its outboard power supply (electronic gear vs mechanical) could make the music sound muddy and a few other adjectives I used. The only "logical" explaination I could give was the reduction of resonance. . . but whatever the reason the change was dramatic for the worse. . . so, because there may not be an engineering class explaination for the change, that means I didn't hear it? I heard what I heard when I heard it and it was a blatant in my face change for the worse. . . when I removed the pods the music went back to the original awesome sounding reproduction. Tweaks are called tweaks for a reason.

hearingimpared

WilliamM2 wrote:

Read your own theories about how a power cable could make make the Oppo more "effecient", and double the output level. Talk about ignorance...



And if I don't agree that the magic works, I need to find a new hobby? Talk about arrogant...

Easy there sport . . . all we are doing here is having an exchange of information that may improve the sound of our rigs. . . without this kind of information you would be stuck with living with what you purchased. If you buy a really great piece of gear you would expect it to sound really great. . .however, I love eeekkkking out every bit of performance I can even out of my most expensive and "pefectly engineered" equipment. Ya see only I can do that to my rig. If Early says he heard a difference for the better in a tweak he did to his rig, I want to try it in mine, if it doesn't do anything the only thing I lost is. . . .um. . . er. . . NOTHING because I enjoyed doing the tweak thing.

unc2701

zombie boy 2000 wrote:

IMO there is a somewhat relative aspect to "louder"... I find dynamic passages with a bit more slam in the lower frequencies tend to sound louder on the whole, though not necessarily register as such in terms of decibels. (The smallest noises tend to keep us up at night, don't they?) Moreover, this could be greatly influenced by a particular flavor introduced by a particular cable....

In other words -- if for instance, transients are sharper and more defined, I might perceive the music as being "louder". If I perceive something as louder, I might kick the center channel down a few db's to compensate. And at the end of the day, my perception is also my reality. FWIW amigos

Yeah, I mentioned that from the start, but the amount of jitter that would have to be coming out of the box to cause a perceived 3db jump would borderline on critical failure. Also, I think Early would describe the dynamics and attack you're talking about, not just a volume jump.

This is the receiver=>amp ICs or some other change in the system.

Early B.

zombie boy 2000 wrote:

IMO there is a somewhat relative aspect to "louder"... I find dynamic passages with a bit more slam in the lower frequencies tend to sound louder on the whole, though not necessarily register as such in terms of decibels. (The smallest noises tend to keep us up at night, don't they?) Moreover, this could be greatly influenced by a particular flavor introduced by a particular cable....

In other words -- if for instance, transients are sharper and more defined, I might perceive the music as being "louder". If I perceive something as louder, I might kick the center channel down a few db's to compensate. And at the end of the day, my perception is also my reality. FWIW amigos

BAM!!!

This makes sense.

Earlier in the thread when I mentioned a perceived louder volume I also used the word "brighter." To me, bright appears to sound louder, so I turn down the volume to compensate for it.

unc2701

I can't seem to find my code (new computer), but here's one of the references I used to produce those sine waves:
http://www.silcom.com/~aludwig/Signal_processing/Signal_processing.htm

Read through it, but a change in volume would require selectively changing the sample values and once you break it down into binary strings, you're talking about about flipping ones and zeros in a HIGHLY specific pattern or you'd just get random crap noise.

jakelm

I still dont see the physics aspect in having these changes because of a power cord.

shawn474

I was following until someone had to throw out the word "orthogonal".......you lost me Plus I failed calculus in high school so when sine values were mentioned I broke out in a cold sweat and rocked in the corner for a couple hours!

Shawn

Early B.

jakelm wrote:

I still dont see the physics aspect in having these changes because of a power cord.

That's because you're still trying to figure it out with your brain. Sometimes you gotta learn through experience.

Go buy an upgraded power cord, then sit back and listen with an open mind. If it makes a positive difference, that's great. If it doesn't, return it and get your money back.

In the meantime, suspend your judgment.

jakelm

Ok Early.

tryrrthg

I don't know if anyone has mentioned this or not, but could the "perceived" loudness increase be attributed to a lower noise floor? A good cable, with better sheilding and connectors could lower the noise floor a bit. Meaning a blacker background, which could result in a perceived louder presentation because there is less nasty **** getting in the way of the music/movie??? Or am I just full of **** here?

zombie boy 2000

No.... I think you're spot-on.

And Early.. way to be diplomatic about it. And thanks again for posting your impressions. Much more constructive than simply flaming others.

unc2701

tryrrthg wrote:

Or am I just full of **** here?

Over a digital connection, yessir, you are. Noise floor is independent of jitter. I suppose RF could go over the ground on the digital coax and into the chassis of the receiver, but removing this wouldn't be perceived as a volume boost. Rather, Early would have already spent some time poking around going WTF is making that noise???

zombie boy 2000

I thought we were talking about a power cord? In which case, a lower noise floor would be directly correlated to the quality of the cable....

unc2701

lower noise floor where? RF noise (from the power cord) applied to a digital connection will only rarely result in digital errors... and digital errors don't sound like RF noise or boosts in volume.

zombie boy 2000

That's assuming it's a digital error... A high-noise floor limits a system's dynamics. By doing so, a muddied or compressed sound may be perceived as "quieter". The stock power cord is more than likely introducing enough RF to raise the noise-floor. Again, are we still talking about the power cord or have we gravitated toward the digital coax?:p

jakelm

zombie boy 2000 wrote:

That's assuming it's a digital error... A high-noise floor limits a system's dynamics. By doing so, a muddied or compressed sound may be perceived as "quieter". The stock-power is more than likely introducing enough RF to raise the noise-floor.

But wouldnt this be the result in a faulty power cord (bad connection or dirty contacts)? I perfectly good working one, would not have this flaw. Right?

Early B.

tryrrthg wrote:

I don't know if anyone has mentioned this or not, but could the "perceived" loudness increase be attributed to a lower noise floor? A good cable, with better sheilding and connectors could lower the noise floor a bit. Meaning a blacker background, which could result in a perceived louder presentation because there is less nasty **** getting in the way of the music/movie??? Or am I just full of **** here?

Yeah, I thought about that, too, and I think you're right. The main advantage of upgrading power cords is to decrease the noise floor, thus potentially resulting in a perceived higher volume.

Oh yeah, and you're probably full of ****, but not for this one.:p