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ARSCLIST  October 2008

ARSCLIST October 2008

Subject:

Re: Aren't recordings original sources?

From:

"Richard L. Hess" <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 19:16:51 -0400

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text/plain

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At 06:20 PM 2008-10-20, Larry S Miller wrote:
>         The current discussion of power cables brought me back to my
>days as an audio equipment salesman.

Hello, Larry,

I fully agree with you that making changes in the system can make 
improvements. In the case of the audio cables making a difference, 
and I agree with you that the synergistic effects are the general cause.

Another phrase for this is "using rubber gloves for leaky fountain 
pens". I will credit one of my mentors, the late Hans Schmid, for this.

In my past days as director of engineering for McCurdy Radio in 
Toronto, a maker of high-end broadcast audio consoles, we were asked 
to make an eight-bus mixer for a client. The systems engineer placed 
the card-mounted buffer amplifiers for the bus submaster faders in 
the equipment pedestal, about 15 feet away. He also used relatively 
high-impedance faders (I think balanced 5K or 10K ohms). The test 
department discovered that the frequency response of the console 
through the submaster chain varied depending on where the faders were 
set. Well, this is no surprise, a 10K potentiometer will provide 
about a 2.5K ohm source impedance when the voltage level is at half. 
The cable capacitance was loading this down. We replaced the 
miniature shielded twisted pair audio cable that we usually used 
inside the console with heavy (like about 0.4" diameter) data 
twinaxial cable with far lower capacitance per foot and the response 
variations were then well within specification, and much smaller. The 
ideal solution would have been a buffer amplifier directly at the 
fader, but we did not make enough of this configuration to warrant 
this additional module in our line.

This comes around to the Nakamichi Dragon cassette decks that have a 
similar configuration, but unbalanced. I use short, reasonably 
quality jumper cables between these and the IHF balancing units 
(Aphex 124A) and then run the balanced cables to the patchbay. Only 
those units within about six cable feet of the patchbay use the 
balancing units in the patchbay. In addition, with this 
high-impedance signal being unbalanced, longer runs are more prone to 
hum pickup even from segregated AC Mains cables.

As to the hospital grade receptacle, this could be one of several 
things including lower impedance on the current carrying conductors 
and/or a lower impedance ground connection.

I continue to see comments disparaging my use of the phrase "properly 
designed". I do think that we need to get after manufacturers to 
properly design equipment so that these synergistic cable effects are 
minimized. One major mistake that I think has been made over the 
years -- and I see some correction in this regard -- is insisting on 
unbalanced interconnections between audio components. Balanced, 
low-impedance, voltage-matched (i.e. not power matched) 
interconnections make a lot more sense than unbalanced ones.

Remember my statement at the beginning of this post about "rubber 
gloves for leaky fountain pens". Sometimes you may wish to continue 
to use the fountain pen for sentimental reasons or it has a nib that 
works just right for you, but in a production environment, purchasing 
decisions should avoid purchasing the leaky fountain pen in the first place.

Cheers,

Richard


Richard L. Hess                   email: [log in to unmask]
Aurora, Ontario, Canada       (905) 713 6733     1-877-TAPE-FIX
Detailed contact information: http://www.richardhess.com/tape/contact.htm
Quality tape transfers -- even from hard-to-play tapes. 

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