calvinandhobbes

Responses from calvinandhobbes

An electrical engineer on how power cables can impact sound quality
Yes, when I was thinking of teflon and cotton that was in respect to speaker cables.  
An electrical engineer on how power cables can impact sound quality
@erik_squires From the website of a manufacturer of industrial cables:  https://www.elandcables.com/the-cable-lab/faqs/faq-what-is-capacitance There are a number of ways to reduce the capacitance in cable design including: Increase th... 
An electrical engineer on how power cables can impact sound quality
To repeat what @jl35 said, PS Audio does not sell power cords.  
An electrical engineer on how power cables can impact sound quality
@erik_squires That's part of their explanation, but the cable configuration and dielectric material affects capacitance of the power cable. How this  changes  the impedance of the cable is part off how power cables are designed to shunt RF to grou... 
An electrical engineer on how power cables can impact sound quality
They so talk a bit about the products of their respective employers, but most of their discussion is about their work and their own experimentation. I love that their discussions are inspired by their listening but grounded in the science. It's i... 
Wanting to upgrade my streaming sound quality.
This was my rationale for going with a dedicated streamer and external DAC.   As someone coming from analog, I knew the sound of a DAC would be an important consideration for me. Specifically, I was seeking a DAC that sounded more natural (detai... 
Wanting to upgrade my streaming sound quality.
Yeah, there's a huge difference between Qobuz and Tidal, at least to my ears.  Amazon Prime was better than Tidal, but wasn't great either.  Just a comment that the Pro-ject streamer is supposed to sound better than the Bluesound Node (at least t... 
Wanting to upgrade my streaming sound quality.
Also, ditching Tidal for Qobuz would be a substantial improvement in sound quality. Even Spotify Premium sounds better than Tidal to my ears. I'd be happy to post my listening impressions of the major streaming services if that would be of interest.  
Wanting to upgrade my streaming sound quality.
FWIW, I've actively avoided digital audio for the last 30 years because just about everything I listened to would induce listening fatigue pretty quickly along with the tonal quality of digital being not as pleasing to my ear as that of vinyl on a... 
Do high end manufacturers need retail outlets?
If possible, I prefer the ability to actual listen to equipment before buying. If a direct to consumer brand can do that at a reasonable cost, I'm open to listening to equipment that way, but their marketing, professional reviews and consumer revi... 
Affordable vs. ultra expensive speakers - what's the difference?
I can provide some actual listening impressions to address the OP's question. I have the previous-gen Monitor Audio Silver 300s and have been quite pleased with their resolution and refinement especially at their very reasonable price of $2200. Wh... 
Recommended USB Cables.
I compared a Phasure Lush to several low priced cables.  Generic HP printer cable: Free with printer Belkin Gold: $15 Pangea Audio Premier SE: $50 Shunyata Venom: $100-200 Phasure Lush: $253 The Phasure was both smoother and more detailed in... 
Forum Updates 11/24/2021
Thank you, Tammy! Great improvements!    
Acoustic treatment question: do you agree with Dennis Foley that $46k to $65k is required?
I would say that it depends on the specific room. If you set up your system in a bedroom, apparently a large bed makes a great bass trap.  
Power cord choice?
If you want to claim that the engineer in the podcast I’ve posted above doesn’t know about cables since he designs amplifiers, this series of articles might be more to your liking: https://www.psaudio.com/copper/article/cables-time-is-of-the-essen...