Separate spur

I have been toying with the idea of installing a dedicated spur and one of my staff is a qualified electrician who seemed entirely dimissive of the theory that it will produce a cleaner sound.

He suggested a simple test.

1. Play your system under normal conditions.

2. Switch off every electrical appliance in the house, this may be inconvenient, but you must do it. Leave only the HiFi plugged in. This means, of
course, that the Hifi is the only item being fed electricity in your house. This is the same as a dedicated spur.

3. Play your system again and see if you can detect any difference.

He believes that you will hear hardly any difference at all, so what then is the point of installing a dedicated spur.

If anyone can smash his theory to bits let me know and I will pass it on for his comments.

Regards

Mick

Of course the qualified electrician won’t think it’ll make a difference – he probably thinks in terms of “on” and “off”. The philosophy behind the gear we’re all using is way beyond what is required for everyday appliances.

I don’t have a dedicated spur, but yesterday I finally followed a friend’s advice and tried something that must be nearly as good: I checked my entire flat to see which sockets are connected to which breaker and found out that my gear was fed by the same circuit that has my PC, my answering machine, my telephone system, among other things – some of these run with adapters. My bedroom has a separate ring circuit, so I used an extension cord to plug the system into that ring. I would say this made as much of a difference as when I went from passive operation to active, especially as concerns dynamics and clean bass. No bull – I’m not deluded! (Perhaps activating never worked to full potential because other things, like mains, needed to be sorted out first.)

Of course the effect will depend on how “polluted” the respective circuit is to begin with (maybe *your* stereo just happens to be the only load in that ring anyway, and there’s not that much room for improvement).

The above operation took me 20 minutes and made a huge difference (similarly two loose spikes I discovered recently). You get these tips from experienced folk and reckon “yeah, maybe it’ll make a *small* difference”, but if you manage to remedy a small fault like this, all the descriptions suddenly become first-hand knowledge. When I turned the system on again, it took me all of 2 seconds to realise what a stupid ass I’d been not to try this before. A dedicated spur with good sockets will probably be better yet.

As Joe Petrik said elsewhere, the better the gear the more it is susceptible to bad setup and mains. If it doesn’t cost anything, just try it. With some appliances, though, it won’t suffice to just turn it off – you have to unplug it.

Arie,

BTW – nice reply to my fake Naim letter in the other thread. Glad to see you’re not losing your sense of humour, even if we’re losing all patience with you ;-)

Thomas

[This message was edited by Thomas Kunzler on SATURDAY 27 January 2001 at 14:30.]

[This message was edited by Thomas Kunzler on SATURDAY 27 January 2001 at 18:01.]

quote:

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Switch off every electrical appliance in the house...This is the same as a dedicated spur.

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Mick,

the existing ring is probably 10 or 20 different bits of wire joined together by screw fixings which have worked themselves loose over the years.

A dedicated spur would be one piece of wire.

cheers, Martin

Arie

BAM

In my not too vast experience, this seems to be the case, and certainly the more experienced members, i.e. folks who’ve had and built up a high-quality system over years or decades, report this. Check out Mike Hanson’s thread “The Perils of Power”, particularly Joe Petrik’s comments.

I also believe that the more you come to appreciate the qualities of good music reproduction, by buying better gear and gaining experience when you follow the many changes that become evident in the music, the more your perception will become sensitive to these things.

Thomas

I believe that the raison d'etre of an amp is to reproduce it's input signal and nothing else.

So, to me, if the nothing else is in fact something else, then that is a performance limitation and should be spoken of, without embarrasment or fear, as a limitation.

To speak of a performance limitation as a necessary artifact of high performance is absurd.

Furthermore, this limitation is under the control of the designers. I have confidence that Naim could make their design more robust if they choose to address this problem.

BAM

Arie

I guess that you have a new fuse (and cable of course) for the separate spur and old fuses for the rest.

I suggest that before someone sets a new spur he should try to set a new fuse to the ring the system is connected to.

Arie

I'm sorry for my bad English, but I have too automatic circuit-breakers.

So I have to change the sentece "replace the old automatic circuit-breaker that the system is connected to with a new one".

Arie

quote:

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So, to me, if the nothing else is in fact something else, then that is a performance limitation and should be spoken of, without embarrasment or fear, as a limitation

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Quite right. I should think every machine has performance limitations. What I objected to in the other thread was Arie’s favourite pastime of hunting down these limitations and focusing on them to a highly disproportionate degree.

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To speak of a performance limitation as a necessary artifact of high performance is absurd

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A Citroen 2 CV never goes faster than 110 km/h and takes half the morning to reach that speed – no matter what it’s fed. When someone buys a Porsche they start talking about the quality of the fuel and oil having an effect on the performance, and it is widely accepted that it does.

Perhaps certain limitations only become evident once the quality of the product improves. I don’t think anyone here would support a theory implying that susceptibility to bad mains is an absolute prerequisite to good amplification – it may just be a problem that cannot be eradicated (yet) without compromising on other things. Perhaps there are amps of very high quality that are perfectly stoic in the face of bad mains – if so, great! I only owned “2 CV”-type consumer gear before, so I wouldn’t know.

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Furthermore, this limitation is under the control of the designers

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Don’t get them started – the stuff is expensive enough as it is! The dedicated spur is a freebie in comparison. (I grant, though, that in countries with generally inferior power this may not suffice as a remedy.)

Thomas

quote:

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Arie’s favourite pastime of hunting down these limitations and focusing on them to a highly disproportionate degree.

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I think you are wrong. If there is a fault in Naim equipment there is no reason to "hide" it.
(maybe there is for your "Paul Tucker" - but not for me).
As customers, we have no reason to hide what we think as faults and I still think that the sensitivity to power quality as described by MANY MEMBERS HERE is a fault. And if these members don't think it is a fault, if it is not bothering them, they shouldn't mention it here.
They mentioned it because they too think it is a fault - I just said it in simple (and correct) words.
You can agree and you can disagree - the sensitivity to power quality, which limits customers to times when they can listen with pleasure to the very expensive Naim systems they
paid a hard earned money to buy - IS A FAULT !

I wonder what would you say if you'll have a Mercedes, and the factory will tell you that there are hours in a day that the car can't go faster than 50 km/hour.

Arie

And yet - you nearly have me on the point of surrender, Arie.

Thomas

I think that you may say that although it is not okay that Naim is sensitive to power supply you are buying Naim because the advantage of Naim worth more than the "sensitivity" fault. But I don't think you can say that this "sensitivity" is nothing.
Unless you ask, I'll not reply if you answer this and this will let you the right for the last words.

Now I'm worrying that if I'll visit to Mainz you'll not want to meet me.

Arie

Now, if you're like me and know nothing about electronics a little common sense will "unfold" the mystery about Naim's path regarding AC clean-up and their gear. Most (some ?.... who cares) manufactures use some form of filtering in their boxes which will bring *some* benefit to the circuit from a measurements stand-point (and sonic improvement to some degree I suppose). I think most of us will agree here that engineers that design with the "flat earth" in mind believe " Mains filtering" is not a good thing from a sonic standpoint. With that in mind......

Imagine that filtering enforces a performance "window" on the box. The newly filtered box, at best, hits a "6" on a scale of 1 to 10. The scale by the way represents the best *all* circuits could achieve in their purposed attempt to work together to do whatever they are supposed to do, as the designer invisioned. Let's say "1" represents "worst possible performance" and "10" represents "perfect or best possible performance this device could ever achieve".The scale involves electrical as well as sonic performance. Now, bringing common sense back into the picture, what would you as the designer prefer ? Using AC filtering, your gear operating ,at best, at level "6" all the time (remember that filter either by technological limitations or cost STANDS IN THE WAY of sonics) consequently offering *moderately good* performance ALL THE TIME (IT GETS NO WORSE AND NO BETTER) . Or (and this is the BIG ONE) you approach the problem as Naim has (don't hide the problem somewhere else) and produce a product that can achieve a "10" *MOST* of the time and by virtue of superior engineering with the rest of its circuit design then falls to a "7" when undesirable forces ( really bad AC) come into play.

Which approach makes more sense? What would YOU offer? Now, if I've got this all wrong you guys can flame me. If I got it right Paul S. owes me a beer.

regards,

dave

[This message was edited by dave simpson on MONDAY 29 January 2001 at 02:26.]

[This message was edited by dave simpson on MONDAY 29 January 2001 at 02:27.]

I question your premise that filtering mains should limit top performance. Imagine if there were no filtering at all - how much PR&T is there in a distorted 50/60Hz sinewave?

The mains is a nasty, crude source of power at the best of times. It is voltage, phase and noise variant and it is a long distance from you plug to the sub-station. Everyone knows this. So it is up to the designer to decide how much cost will be spent on purifying the supply and also, just as important, on making the amplifier circuits supply noise insensitive.

My contention is this. If I may borrow your analogy, Naim performance probably varies from 7 to 9 today. I believe an excellent regulated supply would reduce the variation and make the performance a consistent 10. But it would cost more to manufacture it.

It all comes down to value expectations as Frederick alludes to. If for the price you paid for your kettle and the utility you want from it you don't care whether the boiling time varies by 20% then fine. Neither would I. My particular expectation is that audio equipment of this price and reputation should not exhibit periods of obviously degraded performance as testified by contributors to this thread. Although, I must confess my expectations are begining to be reset!

Each to his own.
BAM

Your premise says Naim are inept or greedy...which is it ?

....I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

regards,

dave

Do you really think Naim's margins would be significantly impacted enough to warrant the exclusion of a main's filter (as cheap as I understand they are) if the filter would provide *only* positive (maybe large) gains in sound quality ? They can't be stupid. The impact their gear has on the market now would simply shoot through the roof ! Any increased manufacturing costs would be immaterial as they devoured the specialist market beginning with walk-on-the-water reviews and people ripping the doors off hi-fi shops flinging dangerous credit cards at innocent hi-fi salesmen! ;O

... Paul is trembling with glee....

regards,

dave

I think I know the filters you are refering to. These are capacitor/choke units that remove some noise from the mains. I was thinking a little more generally than that - I am assuming a more specialized solution is needed that will not be that cheap. For example, the impedance characteristics of these standard filters may make things worse.

So if you think people would flock to their dealers if this was remedied then tell Naim and maybe they will look into it. I suspect most new buyers will not even consider this as they will assume (rightly or wrongly) that it is a non-issue. And maybe knowledgeable buyers won't be concerned as they are satisfied with the price-performance point OR believe it can't be improved. And I suspect, to a degree, owners enjoy tweaking their set-ups and mains supplies - it adds to the involvement.

BAM

"wisdom is knowing when to avoid perfection"

After reading your post, it occurs to me that maybe the electricity power supply station at your home are doing the troubles.
Are there any requests that the station shohld fulfill and they don't ?

Maybe Naim are working accrding to a known table which is not fullfiled by the pwoer stations ?

If it so - is it a forum for power stations ?

Arie

Hopefully a honcho will respond here with their take on this. I think we have brought up some worthwhile concerns.

best regards,

dave