I’ve just come across a couple of articles which suggest that for optimal performance of components which draw variable currents, it’s beneficial to reduce the “shared impedance” as seen by each component. I thought it was a great way to explain the theory behind “star earthing”,mains “hydras”, multiple radial circuits etc, so I’ve stored the articles on Dropbox for your enjoyment!

The articles are produced by a company called Powerlines in Connecticut.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/27r5s1s4htdc6 ... e.pdf?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/79l2brrc9303k ... c.pdf?dl=0

The bit that is most relevant to us is on the last page of the first article.

I appreciate that wiring up a system in this way is not recommended for Lejonklou HiFi, but preliminary experiments suggest that the method may have some merit. People who have tried a multiple radial circuit have nearly all said that the sound improves immensely. However the jury is out on whether there’s a musical improvement or not. I’m working on the hypothesis that the theory is correct, but the problems are to do with the implementation eg multiple radial circuits have usually been constructed with at least 6mm cables, and usually 10mm cables. The guiding rule seems to be “bigger is better”. As we know (atm), musicality appears to get worse as the cable gets thicker (beyond about 4mm). It’s possible that RCDs sound worse the bigger they get too. Also, the radials have typically been wired into separate circuit protection devices (fuse, MCB, RCD etc). If there’s any difference in the electrical characteristics of the CPDs it’s not possible to achieve the “shared impedance” requirement, so they would have to be very closely matched or alternatively, all the radials could be protected by just one CPD. Before the “elf and safety” wardens get their knickers in a twist, wiring several radials into one CPD is perfectly safe and allowable. It’s not very common these days, but when it was more popular it was called a “spider web circuit”. It’s not usually used because there’s generally a requirement for separate circuits to prevent the loss of power to every electrical item should only one fail. For our purposes, this isn’t a consideration.

When I’ve got something up and running, I’ll post some recordings so you can hear the effects for yourselves.

Interesting stuff, Spannko.

I'm looking forward to clips of the actual results.

Forgive me if this has been mentioned before on this long and ageing thread.

Something I have mentioned on a forum somewhere before, but which I believe got little response is to consider what happens to mains cables as they sit screwed into sockets.

Now, whether you are on a ring or a spur, the chances are you have lengths of mains cables going from the mains cutout box to socket A. Then another piece of cable from socket A to socket B, then another piece from socket B to ..... and so on until it reaches your hifi mains socket.

Agreed a single spur with no intervening sockets is ideal, but if this is not possible:-

Consider the bare bits of copper sitting side by side in each of the mains sockets, held under one little brass screw. After time these screws loosen. Check - they do. So you have all these little pieces of wire carrying the mains to your valued hifi. With lots of little resistive and noisy sources en route.

The way to get over this is to solder all these bare pair ends together so as they sit under the screw in a socket the mains current passes through a much less resistive, stable and quieter joint. Add this up and the effect is noticeable. It is in my system.

If you don't know what you are doing you may die. And, errr, you will have to run you soldering iron from a different spur, because the one you are operating on should be switched off!

This is a useful tweak that costs virtually nothing.

donuk sunny downtown York

Hi Don. Nice to see you today, and here again too!
As we discussed earlier I have my socket on its own spur straight back to the consumer unit on its own breaker. It was a priority when we decorated to do this. I think it's definitely a good idea to try and do what you suggest. I'm sure Fredrik has a favorite solder that he recommends. I'd ideally like to kill the power completely just to be on the safe side but unless you can run an extension lead from your neighbours' house your soldering iron wouldn't work!
Oh, aren't unswitched sockets supposed to sound better too? I have read that removing fuses makes an improvement but I'm not suggesting people try it for one minute! I haven't and won't be.

Nice to meet up again Ozzy, indeed.

I replaced my sockets with unswitched ones years ago. Can't say I immediately heard a difference, but it means there are fewer contacts in the circuit to get tarnished.

Donuk sunny downtown York

I thought it was about time I gave a bit of an update, with an explanation for why it’s taking so long to find “the optimum mains configuration”.

I started off by trying to find the best combination of circuit layout and cable cross section, and as most of you are aware, the initial results were not too conclusive! I’ve got a reasonably strong feeling that the reason for this was because the two parameters I was working on are possibly the least influential and in making changes more influential factors were confusing the issue.

In order to keep costs down, I was buying cables from internet suppliers and it was only when I ordered a thicker cable from a supplier and received one from a different manufacturer I realised that I possibly wasn’t comparing like with like. There are hundreds of cable manufacturers and distributors search for the best deals in order to remain competitive. This is great from a price point of view, but not for consistency or quality. It’s reported (by the cable manufacturers trade association) that 20% of cables fail to comply with the regulations. Given that they have a vested interest, the real figure is probably about 10%, and then we have cables which meet the regs but are not the best quality.

In light of this, I bought three lengths of high quality German Lapp Kabel in 4, 6 and 10mm2. Having three identical cables, apart from their CSA made it much easier to understand how CSA affects the performance of a HiFi system.

Consequently, it appears that although CSA affects performance, it’s not as great an influence on the music as cable direction or the method of connecting cables together (plugs, sockets, connector blocks etc) or perhaps the dielectric (this needs more experimentation to understand this better). I believe that these initial findings are similar to those of Mr Lejonklou too.

Unfortunately, the importance of cable direction means that half of all HiFi systems are under performing, and could even help explain why some people struggle with the concept of Tune (the Tune is seriously affected). It also means that half of the people who upgrade their mains won’t hear much improvement, if any at all! I think it explains a lot of the controversy around mains installations.

I’m running in the 4mm cable at the moment, so give it another week or so and I’ll be able to post videos of 4, 6 and 10mm Lapp Kabel Classic 110 radials into a “value” mains block and 4 Linn power cables. I’ll also do a cable direction video.

Thank you for the update. Some interesting observations indeed. My thoughts often wonder around the small things (faults) that make us see things differently as you have pointed out.
Looking forward to your clips.

beck wrote:Thank you for the update... Looking forward to your clips.

Echo the thanks for the update, and interest in the forthcoming clips. I am not familiar with the Lapp Kabel - from what I can find, that's stranded, correct? Do you (still?) have plans to compare against solid core, or is this strictly to find the preferred CSA (& direction) of stranded?

Spannko wrote:I thought it was about time I gave a bit of an update, with an explanation for why it’s taking so long to find “the optimum mains configuration”.

I started off by trying to find the best combination of circuit layout and cable cross section, and as most of you are aware, the initial results were not too conclusive! I’ve got a reasonably strong feeling that the reason for this was because the two parameters I was working on are possibly the least influential and in making changes more influential factors were confusing the issue.

In order to keep costs down, I was buying cables from internet suppliers and it was only when I ordered a thicker cable from a supplier and received one from a different manufacturer I realised that I possibly wasn’t comparing like with like. There are hundreds of cable manufacturers and distributors search for the best deals in order to remain competitive. This is great from a price point of view, but not for consistency or quality. It’s reported (by the cable manufacturers trade association) that 20% of cables fail to comply with the regulations. Given that they have a vested interest, the real figure is probably about 10%, and then we have cables which meet the regs but are not the best quality.

In light of this, I bought three lengths of high quality German Lapp Kabel in 4, 6 and 10mm2. Having three identical cables, apart from their CSA made it much easier to understand how CSA affects the performance of a HiFi system.

Consequently, it appears that although CSA affects performance, it’s not as great an influence on the music as cable direction or the method of connecting cables together (plugs, sockets, connector blocks etc) or perhaps the dielectric (this needs more experimentation to understand this better). I believe that these initial findings are similar to those of Mr Lejonklou too.

Unfortunately, the importance of cable direction means that half of all HiFi systems are under performing, and could even help explain why some people struggle with the concept of Tune (the Tune is seriously affected). It also means that half of the people who upgrade their mains won’t hear much improvement, if any at all! I think it explains a lot of the controversy around mains installations.

I’m running in the 4mm cable at the moment, so give it another week or so and I’ll be able to post videos of 4, 6 and 10mm Lapp Kabel Classic 110 radials into a “value” mains block and 4 Linn power cables. I’ll also do a cable direction video.

Thanks!

Your findings do match mine.

tokenbrit wrote:

beck wrote:Thank you for the update... Looking forward to your clips.

Echo the thanks for the update, and interest in the forthcoming clips. I am not familiar with the Lapp Kabel - from what I can find, that's stranded, correct? Do you (still?) have plans to compare against solid core, or is this strictly to find the preferred CSA (& direction) of stranded?

Yes, it’s stranded. I’m using Classic 110.

I haven’t limited the search to just stranded cables, so thanks for the nudge! I tried some twisted solid core several months ago and it wasn’t as good. BUT, I need to know a lot more about the particular PVC constituents to know if we’re comparing like with like. PVC contains all types of metal stabilisers which could affect the sound. Eg, lead, zinc, tin, cadmium, not to mention the junk in cheaply refined recycled pvc used in the most budget cables! Most manufacturers don’t make the information readily available, so the best approach is probably trial and error.

Stumbled on this in response to the Playground thread - might be of interest:

Date: April 17, 1999 05:33 AM
Author: julian vereker
Subject: direction

Here follows a cut & paste from an earlier post of mine. "I can't tell
you why cables sound different one way round to the other, but I do
know when the 'directionality' happens in manufacture.

It doesn't seem to matter how the bundle (of copper) is drawn, single
direction or mixed direction, but as soon as the insulation is
extruded onto the bundle, the directionality is established. This
means that one can mark the insulation and it will always be the right
way round.

I suspect that the hot plastic insulation anneals the copper in some
way, and this affects the crystaline structure.

But all our attempts, over many years, have failed to find any
measurement to show the directionality or indeed whether one cable
will sound better than another (other than the obvious - resistance,
capacitance and inductance)

Maybe someone out there knows?"

I am not sure about being an ex Physicist, I would have thought 'Once
a Physicist always a Physicist'. However one thing that is often
missed by the 'profesionals' is that audio electronics design is the
most difficult discipline of all - one has to design for 10 octaves
and 130dB at the same time - a huge envelope, and much larger than any
other area of electronics endeavor.

julian

I’ve finally got a comparison which has as many variables eliminated as possible, so I’m reasonably sure that what you’re hearing is representative of the real differences which exist.

We’re comparing a good quality (Prysmian) 2.5mm Twin & Earth (very similar to Romex) configured as a ring circuit, to a good quality (Lapp Kabel) 4mm YY cable wired as a radial circuit. The T&E is solid core cable with the three cores running parallel to one another, and the YY is a stranded cable with the cores twisted down the length. The same mains fuse and wall receptacle was used and they both took a similar route, so the only thing that differs is the wiring in the two circuits.

Ive discovered that my iPad has a recording problem, so I’ve switched over to my phone for these recordings.

Enjoy!

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/dd4wri1c78yp ... SfVxa?dl=0

Aren't you changing two parameters? The wire itself and how it is wired? Regardless, I prefer the 2nd set of clips. To me they are more musical, easier to follow and more engaging and they also sound better - clearer, etc.

Ha ha, yes. Well spotted!

I chose the 2.5mm T&E ring circuit because it’s the standard domestic circuit design in the U.K. and I’m looking to see if this can be improved upon. Call me selfish, but I’m a bit like that!

I am not sure if I like it but I agree with Thomas. ;-)

Yes, me too, much prefer the second set.

B(etter)

Thanks to everyone who gave their thoughts on the 2.5mm Prysmian T&E ring circuit Vs the 4mm Lapp Kabel Classic 110 radial circuit. The overwhelmingly preferred combination was the 4mm radial. We did a similar comparison a couple of months ago using a 4mm cable made by another manufacturer, with similar results, although at that time the sound difference was closer and beck later reconsidered his choice, preferring the 2.5mm ring circuit. This tempts me to suggest that the differences are close enough to make it not worthwhile making any changes, but the difference with the Lapp Kabel is fairly significant and within the context of a high quality HiFi system, is a fundamental and good value for money upgrade.

However, is the 4mm radial the optimum? There’s only one way to find out! So, next up we have a comparison between 4mm Classic 110 Vs 6mm Classic 110.

Enjoy!


https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ug7o2xlxa23b ... bzMTa?dl=0

I like all your tunes!

I preferred A on all three tracks.

I prefer A on all, as well.

I agree with Charlie1 and Tendaberry in that I have a slight preference for A.

A(gree)

Charlie1 wrote:I like all your tunes!

Thank you. If only my Binty did too!

Yep, A on all three. It only took a couple of strums on B of the third clip to hear that something was wrong.

Spannko wrote: .. next up we have a comparison between 4mm Classic 110 Vs 6mm Classic 110.

Both radial - same length, direction, and burn-in?