Paul's Posts — 11 October 2012
By Paul McGowan
We’ve been focusing on streaming audio recently and I want to take a bit of a break and spend some time exploring power and microphonics and I’ll tell you why: I have recently become fascinated with designing a new concept piece that I’ll tell you about in some detail as we go along as I am intrigued and want to spend time exploring this with you. I thought it might be interesting to walk along the development process so you can get a glimpse of how this happens. It’s certainly something that’s occupying my thoughts as of late.
The new product concept addresses two fundamental problems I always give a lot of thought to: power and microphonics. With respect to power I am sure you’ve heard me say that everything in our audio systems starts out as AC power and whether we use analog or digital, the job of our system is to convert AC power into music. Power is a subject I have always been quite passionate about but perhaps not many of you know about my obsession with microphonics.
So let’s start with power, then move on to microphonics and then I’ll fold the two into the new concept piece we’re working on and give you some insight into how this springs from a whacky idea to a real product that makes music come alive. Should be fun.
First, let’s start with some power basics. When I write that everything in our audio systems is really just AC power in a different form, what does that actually mean?
Think of a DAC has having two inputs: power in one, digital in the other. The output is music in analog form but the broader concept of power in one end and analog out the other is something I think needs a bit of attention to fully grasp.
Power supplies are import in any well designed product. Just look under the hood of any modern high end audio equipment and you’ll find nearly equal expense applied to the power supplies as well as the actual amplification and conversion electronics.
But getting our heads around the idea that the digital bits we put in one end of a DAC are merely there to control the AC power coming into the other end is a subject I’d like to spend some time on and starting tomorrow we will.
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socal77
Paul,
This series should be great. I confess to being a bit of a power quality geek (being an EE, nuke submarine officer, and commercial nuke in prior lives tends to do that to you). I really like my P5 and five Noise Harvesters. Noise floor is something you aren’t aware of until it DROPS due to an improvement. You can’t really “hear” it, but know immediately when it is gone/reduced. One product I am hoping you will at least comment on is the Power Port Premier. Even in my wanting to believe it can make a significant difference, I have to smile at some of the reviews I have read that suggest a major difference is audible. Keep up the good work!
Paul McGowan
Thanks, I hope we can keep it interesting and informative.
stuggs
Why is the quality of AC going in such a high priority when most (if not all) of the electronics uses DC. Shouldn’t the focus be getting good quality DC to the circuits?
Paul McGowan
Ahh, but you jump ahead my friend.
Everything starts out as AC and the conversion process is critical – as you well know – so we’ll be touching first on why it’s AC and what it all means. Should be fun.
stuggs
Everyting doesn’t have to be AC. For example, if you use solar PV and keep it as DC instead of converting to AC, you cut the cost of solar enormously. What I have in mind is a solar PV system for a house without an inverter that is used to supply that 99% of appliances that don’t need AC. I realize that this would be a monumental change, but it has the benefit of having making non-polluting source commercially viable while improving the efficiency of energy use. Unfortunately, you would still need AC for those big motor loads.
paulsquirrel
Hi Paul.
Your ideas about microphonics and AC supply are most welcome.
My personal experience is that every modification in footers, base plates, wall sockets, fuses, damping of cable and plugs modifies the quality of sound perceived. Even adding some black quartzes to the electronics often improves the perceived sound. However there is no convincing theory. Mechanical grounding (vibration damping) is one explanation. The other theory comes from influencing the electromagnetic fields in the “surrounding”.
I doubt that one single explanation is valid because both effects are never modified independently. And maybe there are other effects not detected until now?!
However I hope getting some ideas for improving my power plant premiers and quintessence the only devices that still remain untweaked in my stereo system.
Paul McGowan
It’s a treacherous slope and one of the reasons I have stayed away from tackling it. The whole vibration thing and fields and all seem so black magic like that it’s hard to say what’s right, wrong and filled in with snake oil. I want to try and ferret out the real from the not so real as best I can.