Optimal House Wiring

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tokenbrit
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Re: Optimal House Wiring

Post by tokenbrit »

Charlie1 wrote: I will get the ring main put back, probably without the garage tagged on.

I feel all this effort and expense has been a complete failure.
Not a failure as you discovered the garage was on the same fuse, and that can be moved to the new board leaving your favoured old ring main to itself in the old position, without the extension... I can't think that the extension and extra connector would be at all beneficial.
Maybe the new spur will be ok when/if it settles down, but since you preferred the ring main you've not lost anything (except for some £) and might have gained something with the ring, and the spur.
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Re: Optimal House Wiring

Post by lejonklou »

tokenbrit wrote:
Charlie1 wrote: I will get the ring main put back, probably without the garage tagged on.

I feel all this effort and expense has been a complete failure.
Not a failure as you discovered the garage was on the same fuse, and that can be moved to the new board leaving your favoured old ring main to itself in the old position, without the extension... I can't think that the extension and extra connector would be at all beneficial.
Maybe the new spur will be ok when/if it settles down, but since you preferred the ring main you've not lost anything (except for some £) and might have gained something with the ring, and the spur.
Yes, the old ring on the old fuse but without the garage might be the best of all.

Another tip is that it doesn't sound good if the electrician overtightens the connection of the copper cables to the fusebox. I don't know if he uses any special tool with a torque, if so he probably has legal reasons and then just leave it. But if he tightens by hand, like a screw with a screwdriver, it's important that the cables are simply "tight", not overtight.

Some tend to instinctively think that if this special cable is really important, well then I'm going to tighten it as hard as I can, to ensure it performs at its best. But too tight just sounds strangled and harsh.
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Re: Optimal House Wiring

Post by tokenbrit »

beck wrote:Dare I say that you cannot know for sure that tagging the garage off will be an improvement. :-)
Stranger things have been reported, but I'd be surprised if putting the garage circuit on its own fuse degraded the now solo old ring main & musicality of Charlie's system... Unless he's into garage music ;)
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Re: Optimal House Wiring

Post by Charlie1 »

tokenbrit wrote:Unless he's into garage music ;)
Boom Boom! ...I’m assuming you remember Basil, as an ex Brit :)

Appreciate the comments and humour. Thanks guys.

And you’re right, it might be saved yet, although right now I would settle for getting it back to before. This is the downside or risk of tweaking!

Fredrik, I will ask him about tightness of fixings.
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Re: Optimal House Wiring

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Charlie1 wrote:
tokenbrit wrote:Unless he's into garage music ;)
Boom Boom! ...I’m assuming you remember Basil, as an ex Brit :)
Yes, I am old enough (& not too old) to remember Basil Brush. Hoping that's a precursor to you enjoying solid & tuneful bass lines, and that this doesn't turn into a farce of Basil Fawlty / Fawlty Towers proportions :)
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Re: Optimal House Wiring

Post by ThomasOK »

OK, finally had a chance to listen to the clips posted 3/1. Tried track 1 as I have a bit of free-form jazz and I find often times it can be really useful for comparisons as things wrong sound really wrong. I mentioned the difference between the John Coltrane Africa/Brass being jumbled noise on an SME 20 and yet enjoyable enough to make me decide to buy it after hearing it on an LP12 SE (even before Radikal). Similar reaction here. First clip sounded pretty good, second clip - WTF!, thats not very nice at all, third clip not horrible but not as good as clip 1.

Track 2, really the same order. Clip 1 the most musical, clip 3 Ok but not great, clip 2 the worst but not as aggressively bad as with track 1.

From this it seems that the original ring main is preferable.

I can't get the other two new clips posted 3/2 to work. They go to my dropbox page and say the "folder doesn't exist"
Last edited by ThomasOK on 2018-03-03 20:24, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Optimal House Wiring

Post by ThomasOK »

lejonklou wrote:
tokenbrit wrote:
Charlie1 wrote: I will get the ring main put back, probably without the garage tagged on.

I feel all this effort and expense has been a complete failure.
Not a failure as you discovered the garage was on the same fuse, and that can be moved to the new board leaving your favoured old ring main to itself in the old position, without the extension... I can't think that the extension and extra connector would be at all beneficial.
Maybe the new spur will be ok when/if it settles down, but since you preferred the ring main you've not lost anything (except for some £) and might have gained something with the ring, and the spur.
Yes, the old ring on the old fuse but without the garage might be the best of all.

Another tip is that it doesn't sound good if the electrician overtightens the connection of the copper cables to the fusebox. I don't know if he uses any special tool with a torque, if so he probably has legal reasons and then just leave it. But if he tightens by hand, like a screw with a screwdriver, it's important that the cables are simply "tight", not overtight.

Some tend to instinctively think that if this special cable is really important, well then I'm going to tighten it as hard as I can, to ensure it performs at its best. But too tight just sounds strangled and harsh.
Oh, boy! Now we are going to hear of people going around with their all metal CAL36/4 screwdrivers and electrocuting themselves getting the proper tightness on their AC distribution box! ;-)
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Re: Optimal House Wiring

Post by lejonklou »

ThomasOK wrote:First clip sounded pretty good, second clip - WTF!, thats not very nice at all, third clip not horrible but not as good as clip 1.
That's what I felt too, on the first listen. Really hated the '4 mm spur moved to new board'. Then I listened again and kind of warmed up to it, thought it had something after all. Perhaps I should have trusted my initial reaction.
ThomasOK wrote:Oh, boy! Now we are going to hear of people going around with their all metal CAL36/4 screwdrivers and electrocuting themselves getting the proper tightness on their AC distribution box! ;-)
No! Because only certified electricians are allowed to do this. We ordinary enthusiasts DO NOT touch the mains installations in the house!

In addition, the closer we get to the system, the bigger the musical impact. The power cords matter most, the power strip less, the wall outlet even less, the cable to wall outlet a bit less still and the fusebox the least. At least that's been my experience.
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Re: Optimal House Wiring

Post by macrotech2 »

The power cables being more important than what comes before makes sense to me. Correcting any issues nearest the equipment socket is the best place to do it.

The number of times I have seen the argument that power cables can’t possibly make a difference because of the number of miles the power has had to travel from the generating station to the house. I wonder if these people use a water filter? All the miles that water has travelled from the reservoir, the filter can’t possibly make a difference.
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Re: Optimal House Wiring

Post by Charlie1 »

lejonklou wrote:
ThomasOK wrote:First clip sounded pretty good, second clip - WTF!, thats not very nice at all, third clip not horrible but not as good as clip 1.
That's what I felt too, on the first listen. Really hated the '4 mm spur moved to new board'. Then I listened again and kind of warmed up to it, thought it had something after all. Perhaps I should have trusted my initial reaction.
Yes, it's quite boring.

Thanks for feedback Tom.

What I am not sure about (and this goes for many clips) is whether it's really fundamentally bad or just bad in comparison. By fundamentally bad I mean that any one of us listening to the system for real would think it sounds boring. Or, does it just seem boring to me cos I'm used to something much better? And does it just seem boring to you, across the digital divide, simply in comparison to the other clip? Am I making sense?
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Re: Optimal House Wiring

Post by beck »

Boring is boring. We might not notice at first when listening in front of the system but we will lose interest in the music over time maybe even getting more and more focused on “sound”. At this point we will be lost in the jungle of possibilities offered to us by the industry. That is how they earn most of their money.
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Re: Optimal House Wiring

Post by Charlie1 »

Sparky came and put the ring main back on the main board. He left the garage on another fuse. He also moved the ring main (with HiFi) to the first position in the fuse box, ahead of the cooker and everything else.

System is a bit cold after being off an hour, but glad to report it seems back to normal - phew!

Ring main before works, clip #2 https://www.dropbox.com/s/8gki4abb11eag ... D.MOV?dl=0
Ring main after works, clip #2 https://www.dropbox.com/s/99s3ln7pxzjzf ... D.MOV?dl=0

I've not given up either. We need some work doing in the next 6 months that might facilitate another spur via a different route. This time I will make sure the direction is correct.

Also, the Sparky is coming back again soon to finish off another piece of work and so I've asked if he can wall mount a box that can directly terminate the extension block without any plug. It still requires a fuse but is nearer the kit so hopefully will be worthwhile. I never learn do I?! :)

After all this, I've got to say that I'm not at all surprised audiophiles get into all this. The improvement in clarify of a spur on a dedicated fuse box was very substantial (in the room, rather than on clips) - the sort of benefit that people spend vast sums on for HiFi equipment. If only I can find a way to equal that gain in musical engagement then I will be very happy.
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Re: Optimal House Wiring

Post by lejonklou »

Charlie1 wrote:After all this, I've got to say that I'm not at all surprised audiophiles get into all this. The improvement in clarify of a spur on a dedicated fuse box was very substantial (in the room, rather than on clips) - the sort of benefit that people spend vast sums on for HiFi equipment.
I know what you mean, the sound can become really "interesting". And without a compass such as the Tune Method, "interesting" is always equal to an improvement.

We who use the Tune Method are usually on the opposite end of the spectrum: Very difficult to impress, as we detect the flaws of "interesting".

There is one really astonishing aspect of recording in-room clips with your phone and sharing them with someone, who in turn uses his phone to listen to them:
This very lossy procedure strips away everything that is sonically impressive about the actual in-room performance. No audiophile qualities remain. But for some strange reason, the basic musicality survives. It makes little engineering sense to me that this is the case, but in practice, very subtle musical differences survive the mistreatment. And quite often the clips I record myself of some tiny differences in a circuit give me valuable insight when I later listen to them. They sort of tell the truth on a raw, unrefined level.
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Re: Optimal House Wiring

Post by Charlie1 »

lejonklou wrote:I know what you mean, the sound can become really "interesting". And without a compass such as the Tune Method, "interesting" is always equal to an improvement.
Yes, getting the connectivity back as it was has removed all the "interesting" sounds as you put it. There are now just instruments and voices again, without distractions. It's a fragile, sensitive and elusive thing - just think of the changes that were made in the garage which is the other end of what must be at least 30m of mains cable. I suppose I should at least be grateful it's not as random as the digital world you were reporting on a few months ago.

I should add that I'm now left with a musical improvement too, just in case it wasn't clear in the clips :)
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Re: Optimal House Wiring

Post by beck »

Charlie1 wrote:
lejonklou wrote:I know what you mean, the sound can become really "interesting". And without a compass such as the Tune Method, "interesting" is always equal to an improvement.
Yes, getting the connectivity back as it was has removed all the "interesting" sounds as you put it. There are now just instruments and voices again, without distractions.It's a fragile, sensitive and elusive thing - just think of the changes that were made in the garage which is the other end of what must be at least 30m of mains cable. I suppose I should at least be grateful it's not as random as the digital world you were reporting on a few months ago.

I should add that I'm now left with a musical improvement too, just in case it wasn't clear in the clips :)
I can hear it and in the long run this kind of improvement will be worth so much more to you. I really like the highlighted quate above from you.
I agree 100% with lejonklou’s comments in the above post.
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Ring main direction test

Post by Spannko »

Here’s the first of the ring main tests.

The ring is 25m in length, with a socket inserted 7m along each leg. Only the socket position changes, everything else is identical. The directions (A or B) can be seen clearly on the videos.

TEST 1
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/dcibwzjf26tq ... L1T4a?dl=0

We’ll decide which way round sounds best, then I’ll get sparky in for a morning to reduce the long leg down to 7m in 0.5m increments. Should be fun!
Last edited by Spannko on 2018-03-13 10:28, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Optimal House Wiring

Post by Charlie1 »

I much prefer A.

I Am Kloot?

I think your setup is looking a bit cluttered though. Can't swing a cat for all those HiFi components, racks of CDs and walls of vinyl.

No, of course, it's looking very good - how life has changed for you digital fans.

I do like those speakers.

Can't beat that new-carpet feeling either.
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Re: Optimal House Wiring

Post by beck »

+1 for A
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Re: Optimal House Wiring

Post by Spannko »

Charlie1 wrote:I much prefer A.

I Am Kloot?

I think your setup is looking a bit cluttered though. Can't swing a cat for all those HiFi components, racks of CDs and walls of vinyl.

No, of course, it's looking very good - how life has changed for you digital fans.

I do like those speakers.

Can't beat that new-carpet feeling either.
Haha! Thanks charlie1.

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Re: Optimal House Wiring

Post by Charlie1 »

Spannko wrote:Turin Breaks on The Saturday Sessions (the Dermot O’Leary Show)
Ah, thanks. Heard quite a bit about them but not really listened to much of their work yet. I'll have to have more of a listen on the SDS.
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Re: Optimal House Wiring

Post by beck »

I think it is the first time on this forum we hear clips of an Exact system. More people should listen to your clips above and give an opinion about the best direction for the ring main (the reason I write this post) :-).
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Re: Optimal House Wiring

Post by Spannko »

Thanks beck. To be honest, I’d rather play down the Exakt thing and keep focused on the mains wiring.

I’ve done some more recordings, but just for fun I’ve added a little twist! Everything is exactly the same except I tossed a coin for the naming of the cables (A & B).

TEST 2
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/c3a8a5zq1gbv ... _hTGa?dl=0
Last edited by Spannko on 2018-03-13 10:30, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Optimal House Wiring

Post by beck »

It actually makes me happy that the musical difference is quite clear. Now B gives the most musically satisfying clips. I like what I hear.
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Re: Optimal House Wiring

Post by ThomasOK »

I don't know if you tossed a coin for each one but I felt A was more musical on the first two clips (if that is the word, can't say I'm big on the Chim chim cheree dirge). But I preferred B on all three of the later clips.
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Re: Optimal House Wiring

Post by tokenbrit »

Hey Spannko, thanks for posting. I agree with others here with regards preferred direction for musicality.
One quick question: when you are changing cable direction are you keeping all 3 sections oriented consistently with each other? So:

--- 7m --->[ ]-----11m ----->[ ]--- 7m --->
<--- 7m ---[ ]<-----11m -----[ ]<--- 7m ---
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