The disappearance of darkness

Eric Stevens wrote:
On Wed, 22 May 2013 16:50:22 -0400, nospam
Whisky-dave wrote:

I'd call it current but each to his own.

technically it's current, but it doesn't change anything.

It changes the magnetic field of the coil.

That's just a relativistic effect.

[...]
Electricity doesn't make sound. (Can you plug wires into your head and
listen to music?)

It's called a 'cochlear implant'.

-Wolfgang

On 2013.05.22 23:26 , Eric Stevens wrote:
On Wed, 22 May 2013 21:19:48 -0400, wrote:

Next time you're near a hydro tower, listen to the hum of the wires and tower...

What is a 'hydro tower'?

In Quebec 98% or so of power is hydro derived - the utility is called
"Hydro Quebec" so we say "hydro tower" (poles, service, lines, ...)

This is common in several areas in North America.


Wires hum without electricity. It's just the wind.

Not at all. Power lines have an audible 120 Hz hum esp. when it is
humid. (would be 100 Hz in places with 50 Hz service). One place I ski
has 315 VAC power lines go right over the area immediately before the
chair lift and on very humid days it is quite loud.

The space between the wires and the ground is a dielectric - it is being
charged and discharged continuously (a power waste that does not occur
with HVDC). While the lines are aluminum they have a stainless steel
core and that vibrates with the continuous charge/discharge from the
line to the ground. (Or perhaps water droplets get charged and then
react to the field charging and discharging).

When it is really dry there is a crackling sound. (Corona discharge).

--
"A Canadian is someone who knows how to have sex in a canoe."
-Pierre Berton

On 2013.05.22 23:30 , Eric Stevens wrote:
On Wed, 22 May 2013 17:45:24 -0400, Alan Browne
wrote:

On 2013.05.21 20:10 , Eric Stevens wrote:

It's well known among some sections of the audiophile community that
the ear is much more sensitive than any instrument.

People who believe their ears have more dynamic range, phase sensitivity
and frequency discrimination than instruments have a really bad name for
themselves:

audiophiles.


To a point they are right. Nobody has yet reduced the functioning of
the ear to simple mechanics.

No need to - the point is "Enough already! I can hear the fricken music
quite well - now leave me alone!"

"But, but! You don't have spikes for your speakers and that is proven ..."

"But, but! You need porcelain insulators to keep your speaker wire off
of the carpet!"

"But, but! You need to condition the air in the room to remove charged
particles ..."


--
"A Canadian is someone who knows how to have sex in a canoe."
-Pierre Berton

On 2013.05.22 23:33 , Eric Stevens wrote:
On Wed, 22 May 2013 21:19:48 -0400, Alan Browne
wrote:

On 2013.05.22 21:01 , wrote:
On Wed, 22 May 2013 17:45:24 -0400, Alan Browne
wrote:

On 2013.05.21 20:10 , Eric Stevens wrote:

It's well known among some sections of the audiophile community that
the ear is much more sensitive than any instrument.

People who believe their ears have more dynamic range, phase sensitivity
and frequency discrimination than instruments have a really bad name for
themselves:

audiophiles.

When it comes to phase detection, our brains (not ears) are pretty dam good - we
can detect sound direction within a few degrees by phase comparison, equal to
any PLL, and better than any equipment I own! (phase has nothing to do with spk
wire!)

Too bad we're not as good at detecting merde du boeuf!!

Two companies I've worked for have equipment that will measure fine
phase differences at frequencies FAR BEYOND human hearing. The audio
range is a piffle to do very fine phase comparisons in a very cheap DSP
even at modest sampling rates.

I mentioned phase just to add to colour about the worthlessness of
"fancy" wire statements from audiophiles.

To be clear: Plain copper wire should not affect phase at all in the 20
- 20 kHz spectrum of audio systems. BUT if you start to do fancy things
to it and change the impedance (as someone mentioned) you can be sure
that there will be phase and amplitude changes within that spectrum.

If you even increase the resistance of the wire (another "someone
mentioned") then the frequency response of the speaker system would
suffer and I would not doubt that there would be phase issues as well to
"colour" the sound.

Some people think the coloured sound is an improvement. That's what
lies behind half the talk about 'musicality'.

All that a sound system should do is reproduce as accurately as
possible. When it "goes beyond" and "adds" to the performance it is
just distortion.

In a way, perhaps, like excessively done HDR.

--
"A Canadian is someone who knows how to have sex in a canoe."
-Pierre Berton

On Thu, 23 May 2013 16:49:56 +0200, Wolfgang Weisselberg
wrote:

Eric Stevens wrote:
On Wed, 22 May 2013 16:50:22 -0400, nospam
Whisky-dave wrote:

I'd call it current but each to his own.

technically it's current, but it doesn't change anything.

It changes the magnetic field of the coil.

That's just a relativistic effect.

[...]
Electricity doesn't make sound. (Can you plug wires into your head and
listen to music?)

It's called a 'cochlear implant'.


The cochlear implant is a transducer converting electricity to sound.
It doesn't expose the human to direct contact with electricity.
--

Regards,

Eric Stevens

On 5/23/2013 4:55 PM, Alan Browne wrote:
On 2013.05.22 23:26 , Eric Stevens wrote:
On Wed, 22 May 2013 21:19:48 -0400, wrote:

Next time you're near a hydro tower, listen to the hum of the wires
and tower...

What is a 'hydro tower'?

In Quebec 98% or so of power is hydro derived - the utility is called
"Hydro Quebec" so we say "hydro tower" (poles, service, lines, ...)

This is common in several areas in North America.


Wires hum without electricity. It's just the wind.

Not at all. Power lines have an audible 120 Hz hum esp. when it is
humid. (would be 100 Hz in places with 50 Hz service). One place I ski
has 315 VAC power lines go right over the area immediately before the
chair lift and on very humid days it is quite loud.


The main reason wires hum is because they don't know the words.


--
PeterN
Ducking for cover

On Wed, 22 May 2013 14:35:44 +0200, Wolfgang Weisselberg
wrote:

Eric Stevens wrote:
On Mon, 20 May 2013 14:59:08 +0200, Wolfgang Weisselberg
Eric Stevens wrote:
On Sun, 19 May 2013 10:24:12 -0400, Alan Browne
On 2013.05.19 01:35 , Eric Stevens wrote:

The truth is that a simple fat enough good quality copper cable will
have so little impedance at 20 - 20,000 Hz as to be irrelevant in a coil
speaker system.

That may well be true but some of these fancy cables throw in
sufficient reactive components to be measurable. As I quoted, Naim
have specific recommendations for resistance, inductance and
capacitance so they seem to think these things matter.

The sun is changing in brightness. (And I don't mean clouds.)
It's very measurable (to the tune of 2%). It's still invisible
(if only just) and doesn't matter for photography, either.

In response, Nospam has made one of his famous assertions that "the
electrical properties of speaker cables are insignificant" and ever
since I have been trying to get him to tell me the standard by which
he decides whether something is or isn't significant. The truth is, he
can't.

The standard is that when you can use a wire coat hanger as
(part of the) speaker cable and the audiophiles don't hear
a difference in a double-blind A-B-test, then it's not
significant.

Unless the sound isn't meant to be listened to, but measured.

It's well known among some sections of the audiophile community that
the ear is much more sensitive than any instrument.

I see. No need for oscilloscopes, for example, then.

That is probably still true for stereo sound.

I rarely listen to music with the aid of an oscilloscope.

In fact they used to use binaural listening to find the sound
direction sounds of under water[1] --- later they used chains of
hydrophones, strip line compensators connected to delay line
chains[2] (in fact, they still use the idea of that technique) ...

... because apparently the ear is so much more sensitive than
an instrument in detecting such phase differences.

Especially when it comes to high or low, or in front or behind.

-Wolfgang

[1] change the phase by changing the delay of the sound to one or both
ears (e.g. by using a shorter or longer distance
speaker-(through a variable length tube)-ear.) Find when
it sounds "straight ahead".

[2] just detect when it's loudest ...
--

Regards,

Eric Stevens

On Thu, 23 May 2013 16:46:15 +0200, Wolfgang Weisselberg
wrote:

Eric Stevens wrote:
On Wed, 22 May 2013 17:45:24 -0400, Alan Browne
wrote:

On 2013.05.21 20:10 , Eric Stevens wrote:

It's well known among some sections of the audiophile community that
the ear is much more sensitive than any instrument.

People who believe their ears have more dynamic range, phase sensitivity
and frequency discrimination than instruments have a really bad name for
themselves:

audiophiles.

To a point they are right. Nobody has yet reduced the functioning of
the ear to simple mechanics.

They usually use electricity at some point. Just like ---
the nerve cells in the ear.

Then there are transducers.
--

Regards,

Eric Stevens

On Wed, 22 May 2013 21:19:48 -0400, Alan Browne
wrote:

On 2013.05.22 21:01 , wrote:
On Wed, 22 May 2013 17:45:24 -0400, Alan Browne
wrote:

On 2013.05.21 20:10 , Eric Stevens wrote:

It's well known among some sections of the audiophile community that
the ear is much more sensitive than any instrument.

People who believe their ears have more dynamic range, phase sensitivity
and frequency discrimination than instruments have a really bad name for
themselves:

audiophiles.

When it comes to phase detection, our brains (not ears) are pretty dam good - we
can detect sound direction within a few degrees by phase comparison, equal to
any PLL, and better than any equipment I own! (phase has nothing to do with spk
wire!)

Too bad we're not as good at detecting merde du boeuf!!

Two companies I've worked for have equipment that will measure fine
phase differences at frequencies FAR BEYOND human hearing. The audio
range is a piffle to do very fine phase comparisons in a very cheap DSP
even at modest sampling rates.

I mentioned phase just to add to colour about the worthlessness of
"fancy" wire statements from audiophiles.

Yes, I agree that a measurement device can be superior to our hearing, for sure!

To be clear: Plain copper wire should not affect phase at all in the 20
- 20 kHz spectrum of audio systems. BUT if you start to do fancy things
to it and change the impedance (as someone mentioned) you can be sure
that there will be phase and amplitude changes within that spectrum.

If you even increase the resistance of the wire (another "someone
mentioned") then the frequency response of the speaker system would
suffer and I would not doubt that there would be phase issues as well to
"colour" the sound.

If you do the math, you'll find that a capacitance above 1uf would be required
to affect a frequency below 20khz by more than 1db in an 8ohm system. Getting
such a high value on speaker twinlead would be quite difficult! The value for
inductance would be a similar 'hard to produce' value, needing probably 100' or
more wire. What the audiofools don't know is that "type of material" in a wire
does not affect either of these properties!

I read an interesting report that proved that humans can't hear if a sound has
harmonics in phase or not. In other words; take a square wave; we call it that
because it looks square on a scope when all of the harmonics are in phase.
However, if you can generate all of the required harmonics in random phase,
which would look like an un-synced mess on a scope, it would sound exactly the
same!

verry interesting...

On Thu, 23 May 2013 15:26:32 +1200, Eric Stevens wrote:

On Wed, 22 May 2013 21:19:48 -0400, wrote:

On Wed, 22 May 2013 18:34:32 -0400, nospam wrote:

In article , Eric Stevens
wrote:

They don't listen to electricity.

of course they do. electricity is what moves the speaker coil.

No what moves the coils is the effect of magnatism that does that.

because there's electricity flowing in a coil.

I'd call it current but each to his own.

technically it's current, but it doesn't change anything.

It changes the magnetic field of the coil.

that's the whole point, and calling it electricity or current doesn't
change that.

if it wasn't for electricity, there would be no sound.

if it weren't for the cone compressing the air etc.. they'd be no
sound.

because electricity is causing it to move.

No, magnatism is doing that 'electricity' runs through many wire's in
cables
and they don't all make sounds.

so what?

Electricity doesn't make sound. (Can you plug wires into your head and
listen to music?)

shut off the electricity to your house and let us know how much sound
you get from your sound system.

if there was no electricity there would be no sound. period.

Hey nospam, I'd give up if I were you... you're wasting your time with people
who insist on proving that they have no technical education what so ever!

You have missed the point. nospam thinks that because he knows about
electricity he also knows all about sound systems.

Any flow of electric current produces magnetism. Alternating current in the
audio range can induce movement in anything conductive near the current carrier,
including the carrier itself. Such movement creates sound by definition. (object
vibrating at an audio frequency)

Next time you're near a hydro tower, listen to the hum of the wires and tower...

What is a 'hydro tower'?

Wires hum without electricity. It's just the wind.

Right, a 60hz or 120hz or 180hz wind...

Listen kid, get back to your day care center before they put out an Amber Alert
on you!