On Fri, 13 Jan 2006 21:22:54 GMT, "Trevor Wilson"
wrote:

**Of course not. There are no mysterious qualities associated with cables.
Just those characteristics predicted by conventional electrical theory.
Unfortunately, conventional electrical theory keeps getting forgotten by
those who should know better.


Having read the ads from these high-end cable companies I find the
idea that they might ever have known any electrical theory quite
amusing.

d

Pearce Consulting
http://www.pearce.uk.com

"Jim Lesurf" wrote

General cause: Awful design of the electronics. IMHO.



An interesting and (almost) usefully informative post - pity you don't
choose to name the deck as it seems to represents a crappy and
potentially dangerous design....??

The owner tells me that the TT is a Pink Triangle PT Export. No idea of
the
manufacture date, though.

He is very happy with the performance as a TT, but like myself somewhat
surprised by the electronics in the PSU.



OK, I suspected as much - ties in with my own experience with my LPT1...!

(So 'PT' = 'Pyro Technics' then!! :-)

Thanks for that - it's not so much which make of deck it *was*, as all the
other 'makes' it wasn't, IYSWIM!!

"Keith G" wrote in message
...

"Roderick Stewart" wrote in message
om...
In article , Jim Lesurf wrote:
Just before Christmas a colleague brought me the electronics from his TT
as
it had stopped working. (Well regarded UK brand.)

Examining it, and working out the circuit, worried me.

There was no mains transformer, and no mains switch. The circuit was
therefore live all the time the deck was plugged into the mains,
regardless
of the switches and indicators visible/useable on the deck.

There's a lot of dodgy design nowadays, the commonest manifestation being
the
"lumpy mains plug" type of power supply with no switch, connected to the
equipment via one of those horrible little co-axial connectors with no
standardisation of physical size, voltage or polarity - if it even has a
polarity, because some of them are AC and some of them are DC. The only
power
switch is in the low-voltage circuit, and being fitted to the equipment
itself
probably gives the unsuspecting owner the comfortable feeling that when
it's
switched off it's switched off.

Separate power supplies are so common nowadays, and almost unheard of
when I
was young, that I wonder what can have changed? In reality, two boxes are
more
expensive than one, considerably more ungainly, and with the huge variety
of
power requirements a splendid opportunity for error, so there seems no
practical sense in not building the power supply into the equipment. My
best
guess is that perhaps it is the result of some committee's misguided
notion of
a safety feature, but does anybody know why?


Yes, there's wacky legislation afoot that any device with a captive power
lead must be capable of being suspended by that lead, hence the advent of
kettle leads.


Hmm. is this something very new, coming up in the UK?
Over here (and I would have thought that standard EU
regs apply everywhere) no equipment may have a
fixed three core power cable.

Iain

"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message
...
In article .com,
Joe
Folly wrote:

Jim Lesurf wrote:


Afraid that I don't normally bother with such 'forums' sic though as
I find them a relatively inconvenient and expensive way to discuss
things.

Expensive!! He asks with a puzzled look on his face?

I generally only go online for a few mins per day to send/fetch mail and
usenet traffic. [1] I then read and write items offline. Since I pay for
my
phone by the minute, having to read (and write if I wish to participate)
discussions on a 'forum' would mean spending much more time (and money)
online.

If someone else wants to pay my phone bills, I could consider altering my
established practice. :-) Although even if they did, I'd still find it
less flexible and less convenient than the way I currently operate.

e.g. one of the refs given a while ago actually leads to 20 successive
pages, all with extras like images and quite bloated HTML+javascript.
Downloading all these as you read them takes far longer than just fetching
"new news" from your friendly new servers. Also not exactly friendly to
find things like pages with fixed widths wider than your usual screen
modes, etc.

So it seems to me that this particular 'wheel' was only reinvented by/for
people who had no real experience (or awareness) of usenet. Maybe they've
never used a GNKSA compliant mail/news agent and stored their items on
their own machine. ...or perhaps even had to pay their own phone
bills...
:-)

Slainte,

Jim


Jim. Here in "third world" Scandivavia we have 8Meg broadband
as a standard with unlimited access for a fixed charge of EUR 20/month.
Households with children at school or in further education pay nothing.
The same applies to academic professionals.

Iain

In article , Iain Churches
wrote:

"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message
...


Jim. Here in "third world" Scandivavia we have 8Meg broadband as a
standard with unlimited access for a fixed charge of EUR 20/month.
Households with children at school or in further education pay nothing.
The same applies to academic professionals.

That is fine, of course, if your only interest is in providing material on
the web for those specific groups. However one of the key aims of the web,
and html based information, is to make the minimum possible number of
assumptions about the resources and preferences of the audience.

So, for example, when writing webpages on electronics for the 'Scots Guide'
I am mindful that some of those who wish to read the pages may live in
countries or places where they cannot easily afford textbooks in the
schools or even colleges. They also may only have limited access to quite
slow comms links, and using quite 'poor' computers in terms of what you or
I might now be using.

Given that it is actually quite easy to produce simple and flexible html,
etc, it seems odd not to take such people into account. Why make their
access more difficult if there is no need for this?

Ditto for usenet. Why re-invent this particular wheel - particularly in
ways that give the user less control/flexibility and can also bar access to
some?

So far as I can tell, the reason is that those involved have no awareness
of the implications for some others - or do not care.

Slainte,

Jim

--
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Audio Misc http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/AudioMisc/index.html
Armstrong Audio http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/Audio/armstrong.html
Barbirolli Soc. http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/JBSoc/JBSoc.html

"neutron" wrote in message
...

"Keith G" wrote in message
...

"Don Pearce" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 9 Jan 2006 21:00:25 +0000 (UTC), "neutron"
wrote:


"Roderick Stewart" wrote in message
.com...
In article , Stewart
Pinkerton wrote:
I note that FM, when challenged, runs and hides behind the
'thousands'
that such a test would cost. What utter bull****! He's perfectly
free
to do the test in his own salon with his own 'reference' system,
the
only requirement is that a third party changes the power cables,
and
that neither Marshall nor the test proctor knows which cable is
connected at any one time. This can easily be arranged, and I for
one
would be happy to travel at my own expense.

Make sure you take a photographer, a reporter, and several
independent
witnesses, and let us know where we can read about the results.

I'm not sure Stewart would want an independent witness present, he
could
never show his face again.


I think that pretty much without exception, all of us who believe that
competent cables are indistinguishable from high end cables are coming
from a scientific point of view. That means that we would welcome
being proved wrong as a route to further insight into the subject.

It is noticeably the other side that runs and hides when it comes to
the test.

How confident are you, though? Would you be prepared to wager some
cash of your own on your ability? I know it is not part of the deal as
proposed by Stewart, but it would seem like a nice gesture of good
faith - as things are he only stands to lose.



I don't see this 'challenge' will ever be taken up - factor in a
'financial
risk' and I think you can forget about it....

There are plenty of cable believers who have no financial risk, the fact
of
the matter is Stewart is a grade 'A' prick, arrogant to the extreme,
smarmy,
with his head wedged fully up his own arsehole. Would you invite someone
like that into your home?

I agree with Keith that the addition of a wager makes the likelyhood of
people wishing to participate much smaller.

As mentioned elsewhere, I find myself frequently involved in
listening tests and comparisons, sometimes with equipment,
microphones, microphone configurations, loudspeakers,
and often with different versions or takes of the same recording
(though never with cables)

There is never a shortage of "willing ears"

Iain

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
neutron wrote:
Trouble is, most people move on to messageboards years ago, newsgroups
are filled these days with weirdos, social misfit, and assholes.

Think you've missed out those who still believe in fairies at the bottom
of their garden.
Such people always migrate to closed groups where they can congratulate
one another on their unique perception...

--


Dave. Haven't I seen your name on a closed broadcast group?
The benefit of closed groups is that people are there by invitation
(usually on a professional level) and the S/N ratio is much much higher.

I am a guest on several closed groups, and have never seen any traces
of the self-congratulatory posts of which you speak. In fact, as the
general level of conduct on open groups declines to the level of a bar
room brawl, more and more people are seeking access to closed
groups for serious, informative, open-minded discussion.

Fortunately for the rest of us, there are some to whom
such access is denied:-))

Iain

"Iain Churches" wrote


Yes, there's wacky legislation afoot that any device with a captive power
lead must be capable of being suspended by that lead, hence the advent of
kettle leads.


Hmm. is this something very new, coming up in the UK?
Over here (and I would have thought that standard EU
regs apply everywhere) no equipment may have a
fixed three core power cable.


It was Len Gregory (the Cartridge Man) having a bit of rant a year or so
ago....

(When the mention of amps came up I asked him if he used valves - 'yes, *of
course* I do, nothing but - wot else?' was more or less the answer!! -)

"Keith G" wrote in message
...

"Iain Churches" wrote


Yes, there's wacky legislation afoot that any device with a captive
power
lead must be capable of being suspended by that lead, hence the advent
of
kettle leads.


Hmm. is this something very new, coming up in the UK?
Over here (and I would have thought that standard EU
regs apply everywhere) no equipment may have a
fixed three core power cable.


It was Len Gregory (the Cartridge Man) having a bit of rant a year or so
ago....


But seriously, is this forthcoming legislation?
Fixed three core cables are as I understand it, not allowed because
they cannot be easily repaired, and the equipment to which they are
attached os often heavy (A Studer C37 weighs 100kg)

An IEC cable can be replaced very cheaply. Two core cables on
VTRs etc can be fixed. Besides which, these weigh next to nothing.

I don't fancy the idea of my 50kg amp PSU hanging from the power cords
(it is dual mono)

http://www.kolumbus.fi/iain.churches/Pics/C50_002.jpg

(When the mention of amps came up I asked him if he used valves - 'yes,
*of course* I do, nothing but - wot else?' was more or less the
nswer!! -)

Clearly a man of perception! What else would you expect? :-)


Iain

"Iain Churches" wrote

Hmm. is this something very new, coming up in the UK?
Over here (and I would have thought that standard EU
regs apply everywhere) no equipment may have a
fixed three core power cable.


It was Len Gregory (the Cartridge Man) having a bit of rant a year or so
ago....


But seriously, is this forthcoming legislation?


Dunno, they he put it at the time it certainly seemed it was something he
had received by way of some sort of notification??


Fixed three core cables are as I understand it, not allowed because
they cannot be easily repaired, and the equipment to which they are
attached os often heavy (A Studer C37 weighs 100kg)


That was his point 'imagine a valve amp hanging it's cable' was more or less
the phrase he used....



An IEC cable can be replaced very cheaply. Two core cables on
VTRs etc can be fixed. Besides which, these weigh next to nothing.

I don't fancy the idea of my 50kg amp PSU hanging from the power cords
(it is dual mono)


Swotty said!


http://www.kolumbus.fi/iain.churches/Pics/C50_002.jpg

(When the mention of amps came up I asked him if he used valves - 'yes,
*of course* I do, nothing but - wot else?' was more or less the
swer!! -)

Clearly a man of perception! What else would you expect? :-)


He went on (after another rant about VAT and Maggie Thatcher) to also say
'forget all this high end MC BS and get yourself a Goldring G1042'!! He said
he recommended them to his customers who were waiting for repairs and that
many did so and then phoned him up to say 'OK, there's no rush'!! (It was a
Monday and I think he was having 'one of these' days!! :-)

I have mentioned all this here some time back....