Power snakes

Christmas is near. Santa, Santa, how I wish I could get my desired tonal balance without breaking my bank. I am so close but not quite and sometimes I wish that I would not be so fuzzy on sound. A mind game? I hope not.

 

Power cord skepticism, those garden hose, ah.... I used to disregard power cord. Man, if you have not tasted decent power cords in your system, you do not know what you are missing!  I don't blame you. How would two meters of aftermarket power cords affect the sound since our current travels hundreds of kilometer from sub stations to our home? And since our in wall wires are standard, why does power cords matter? And why do ugly guys get pretty chicks, why? You need to break the norm to achieve betterment.

Go see a psychiatrist? Good for you that you can't hear the benefits of power cord and go live a peaceful life. You can walk away from here and keep your money in your pocket. Stereotype is a stumbling block, there are many answers to a question and when you don't get answer, you must let God to come in. Free your mind, open to ideas, listen and be convinced. Ostrich head in sand will do you no good. The problems with fi today is that they rely too much on reviews and measurements.

Power cord is the lifeline to a system, it has a far greater weight than interconnect and speaker cable, in my humble experience of course. This goes without saying high quality power supply has a very strong say on good sound, circuit design and component selections come later. Spending hours research on power cords, by looking at the geometry and metallurgy, gives clues of how their sonic characters. I would draw a conclusion that there are four schools of power cord.

The school of metallurgy purity 
Best represented by Furukawa, Japan and Neotech, Taiwan, focuses on the drawing of copper to achieve highest purity they know how. Prof Ohno invented PCOCC and Neotech refined it with UPOCC. PCOCC has become a trademark for Furutech and so is UPOCC for Neotech.

OCC, Ohno as of the inventor, Continuous Casting, not the crazy guys in Orange County Chopper. In short, these processes are to achieve not more than 10 parts per million oxygen impurities as opposed to OFC, 200 - 500 PPM. Mind you, Taiwan has the highest consumption of copper in the world, the birthplace of many reputable OEM brands. There are only handful of cable companies in the world that capable of drawing OCC wire.

The benefits of higher purity are a super smooth, high density sound and better resistance to oxidization. The downside is unable to draw a higher gauge wire, I think.

The school of Geometry
Typically Americans, with heavy emphasis on geometry, scientific research and measurements. These are trickle down technologies from NASA, telecommunication, military etc meeting their own set of unique requirements were then make available to audio. Noise rejection, phasing, speed, wide bandwidth, durability are their selling point drawing their customers. Oxygen Free Copper OFC is favored here, sometimes precious metal mixture for a specific character.

The downside is greatly system dependence.

The school of Neutrality
Mainly represented by Belden, Mogami, Canary, Supra, Sommer, Monster etc and lately from Switzerland like Swiss Cable, Vovox and Gotham. The later seem to burst into scene in a few years back thanks to the coverage from 6moons. They are largely colorless and honest, you get what's on the disc.

Their primary target market is pro sound, the volume is big. Volume does matters in almost every business. Neutrality is their goal but none of these cable sounds alike.

The downside is these cords are rather seclusive, some are not widely available.

The school of DIY cable
The sprouting of DIY cables in the wake of exorbitant cable prices, rose to offer greater run for the money. The move was started by Anti Cable, as the name implies. There are also many rebadging companies that use off the shelf cables as customized cable. Those cables that have strong association with specific speakers also fall into this category as well. Brands like Ocellia, Jorma Design, YBA, ASI and Audio Note came into my mind. Skogrand is on the higher end of DIY cable. Selling direct via web store, these groups of cable mostly run as home business. Personal touch is their strength, they personally talk and answer your questions. Certain chemistry will tend to form and many offer 30 days return if not satisfied.     

They are a miss and hit. OK to great performance, good value and poor resale value.

We are spoiled with a plethora of power cord choices. It is impossible to go through exhaustive testing of power cord. Borrowing power cord from friends to try it out in your system is the way to go. My first power cord sting took place after Wywires Blue power cords powered my DAC. And there was no turning back, my skepticism turned religion. So much so that the thought of power cord influences are greater than interconnect and speaker cable sinks its teeth in my head.

I am a semi audio hermit, I found great pleasure researching on the net. There and then, I decided to get Wywires Silver power cord that I posted sometime back, a step up from Blue. Wywires Silver representing the sweet spot of Wywires range of products, the Silver shares the same house sound but with a full sound. Like a Vampire with the first taste of blood, I was unstoppable. Nordost Vishnu was my second catch and lastly Reality Cable power cord. Their applications were rigorously tested in my system after swapping them with only one goal, to achieve the most preferred tonal balance. That includes the correct AC polarity that I have had my wall sockets wired in phase and out phase to cater for this purpose. Incorrect phase will cause the staging restricted in between the span of the speakers. To add to the complexity, some gear work better with out phase. No chances taken. Cable loom, you say? I do not buy the idea simply it imposes a strong sound character and serves no avenue for sound tuning.

Power cord is one hell of difficult topic to write. Some are good for front end, the other at the power amp. "Put your best cord at the front end" therefore cannot be established. A safer rule is placing your most detailed power cord at the front, I am subscribing the thought of "what is lost is forever lost" and nothing you do can recover the loss.

Contrary to many, I am particularly fond of solid core power cord. All my power cords are solid core design. A super clean bass is my upmost priority, follows by clear not lush mid band and extended highs. Trust me, you don't want dirty bass plaguing the rest of the frequency range. Dynamic, O yes, I could not have enough!

I will not bore you further with fluff, more power cords score cards to come next year. I am done for this year. Merry Christmas everybody.

Durian tales

A babe will make me stop from what I am doing, nothing more but drooling. Opposite attraction, I am straight, ok. What makes you stop from what you are doing, sit you down and listen? What float your boat might not float mine. I felt too many pay too much attention to the essential mids. Limited bandwidth is a thing of the past.

Of all, bass is the hardest to get it right. Today's high end is 成也唄士， 敗也唄士, lame bass has no place in high fidelity. Like it or not, bass is still the measure of greatness liken your car to your success. Me? Still driving a soon to be ten years old car, that's not something I am particularly proud of.

"Hey! Been there last night, X got really good vocal. You should go and listen".
"Sad thing no bass".

Great mids, nobody care anymore?

The above conversations shouldn't be unheard of. Probably you have said it hundreds time too. For all the wrong reasons, having great mids get you nowhere. I'm sorry for some that do not have a dedicated room for audio. I feel your pain, don't bite me. Your option is to move to suburb for a more spacious living or make more money or rent a sizable room for audio. You know what people say, there is a will and there is a way. When there is no way, go headphone. Please be warned, using headphone is also the start of gradual hearing loss for inresistible to the temptation of banging away. Your delicate eardrums are vulnerable to those constant beating.

Moving forward, when bass starts attracting your attention that is when you start counting the beat. Because beat is the metering, everything revolves around it. Beat is the sun, the earth is orbiting the sun not the other way around. This is how trained musicians listen, they listen to the beat when to come in and when not, you know what I am saying. Timing is big, inconsistent beat is a turn off, it throw music off, it throw you off as well. This, my friend, does not take educated ears to know.

Bass ranges from 0 - 250Hz. A quick run on bass, upper bass covers 150 - 250Hz, mid bass 80 - 150Hz and low bass 0 - 80Hz. Upper and mid bass are the architecture to Jazz which is predominantly drum. Weak upper bass get you effeminateness, your female vocals get the premature vocality, does not reflect truth. The upper bass gives male vocal the guttural characteristics, full and with body. I suggest you listen first to internet radio via your mobile, you will be amazed how natural the female vocals are.

Pipe organ, piano, bass viola, contra bassoon, bass tuba and tympani step into lower bass region, the foundation classical music. A linear bass down to 30Hz is desirable for most classical fans. Big boys with deep pocket stretch to 20Hz. That extra 10Hz will cost a bomb and when they do, it is not the same playing field where 1 + 1 = 2. Their 30Hz differs in quantity, quality and effortlessness than those lesser capable cousins made out to be.

In dollar sense, you can get decent highs and mids with a pair bookshelf speaker. Cheap bookshelf speakers get you a fun mirror reflection, fun but ain't real. Quality bookshelf speakers get you a passport photo with nothing below. Entry level floorstand speakers get you a portrait with ill-defined images by an amateur photographer. You need to spend quite a bit to have convincing images.

What is your bass preference? Little bass, puny bass, fat bass, smooth bass, hard bass, bulldozing bass, rumbling bass etc, I like my mid bass to be dry as vodka dry. Think fast, attack, tenacity and forward. How do you relate wetness to bass?

For illustration purpose, durian. Craved by the locals, durian is the king of local fruits. It is a matter of love and hate, white people would not dare to come close, neither black people. People in between love them. A good durian is 黃肉乾包, literally means yellow hue with dry texture. A premium durian experience is the fleshy durian pasted on your air way, pack with flavor, the aroma lingers for hours, slowly melts away when each swallow of saliva. Good durian gives fulfilling satisfactions, two seeds are all it takes. On the contrary, overnight durian is poor quality durian, soggy and slurry in nature. Taking these durian give an unfulfilling feeling, you are motivated to hunt good durians.

The dry bass has many resemblances to premium durian, dry and somewhat "dense" texture. Not messy but weighty, solidly defined, consistent and with plenty of grunt. On the other hand, the overnight durian is unassuring, no feedback, poor tenacity and ill-defined. Incidentally, KF can't hide his excitement with his new found "dry bass", climax ever since. He is being blown away, somebody call fire squad. I can see the poor chef weeping tear-lessly for he is far left behind. KF triumphs again.

So KF is getting cute with his dry bass, but I learned a new terminology, "numb bass". When the bass gets big and low enough, they become omnipresent and collide against each others, creating an indescribable intervening numbness sensation. This requires a system that able to go down to 20Hz cleanly in a fairly big room, not those small subs with ridiculous claims going down to 20Hz. They do not cut it and there aren't many systems with such bass caliber, mine included. KF is seeing stars above his head with me now.

Now, speaker makers are out crafting its niche by their voicing to appeal to their consumers. The bass has a profound impact to the sound as long as it does not intrude into mids. When you relate wetness to bass, you are compromising speed, specificity and definition. One acid test, play Michael Jackson's Billie Jeans or The way you make me feel, see if they move you. Count the meter, you'll find what I found. Each stroke of bass should be clean and rhythmic, the timing must be spot on.  The bass dryness will creep into the bread and butter mids, as such, somewhat drier vocals. I do not mind that because the instruments deemed to sound more rightly that way. Listen to piano, listen to trumpet, listen to violin, listen to saxophone, listen listen listen. That's the best I can discern bass. Unless proven otherwise, work on your bass. The reward is there for you to claim.