Audiophile Musings

Monday, October 15, 2012

How Many Stars?

As one would imagine, observing a UFO is a significant emotional event and one that I personally am re-living over and over. I am a pretty practical, logical, and down-to-earth person who knows intellectually that there are billions of stars in our galaxy alone, each of which are capable of sustaining some form of life. This life may not be what we are familiar with, but regardless EACH of these billions of suns have the potential for sustaining some sort of life. The current estimate for our galaxy (called the Milky Way) is about 300 billion stars, give or take a few billion here and there.

From the sheer numbers of these stars, if say 0.0000001% (one out of 10,000,000) were capable of sustain intelligent life, that means that in the Milky Way alone, there are 30,000 stars in our "neighborhood" that could possibly sustain intelligent life, give or take a few thousand.

Our galaxy is pretty typical spiral-type galaxy meaning that there is a black hole at the center and everything slowly rotates around it like a child's pinwheel toy. Stars are grouped into arms that spiral toward the black hole in something called the central bulge meaning that at the center there are a lot of stars in more than just the galactic plane of the pinwheel. Like a basketball, these stars protrude above and below the galactic plane and the numbers of stars "per square foot" so to speak (stellar density) is much higher there than at the outer edge of the galactic plane. Below is an image from the COBE satellite of what our galaxy looks like from our vantage point.

Our star (the sun or Sol) is about 2/3 of the way out from the center in a pretty uninteresting part of our galaxy. Although there is no way for us to see a top view of this position, the picture below is of a galaxy nearby that we believe to resemble our own and from the arrow you can see roughly where on the pinwheel our sun is located.

There are so many stars, they appear to blur together like a cloud but in reality they are VERY far apart from each other. To give you an idea of how much emptiness there is between these stars, the star closest to our sun is about 4 light years (or about 24 trillion miles) away. Without getting into particle physics, molecules are believed to be made up in a similar way - that is, there is a lot of nothing in between electrons and the protons and neutrons so the really big is sort of an example of the really small.

From edge to edge the Milky Way is about 6x10¹⁷ miles (0.6 million-trillion miles) in diameter; that’s 24,000 times further than the closest star. In other words, it is a very long way from one side of the pinwheel to the other and it takes light a long time to go from edge to edge (about 100,000 years).

So the point is this. There is a lot of distance between us and these 30,000 stars that could possibly sustain intelligent life in the Milky Way and to get from one to another employs a technology available only in the minds of dreamers. How did they do this?

I have given this some thought and it runs a little contrary to current wisdom but is based on what else: sound. The fact that there was no sound (no engine noise or sonic boom) meant that these two UFO did not disturb the atmosphere while passing through. Putting it another way, instead of slicing through the air like the wing of an airplane, these UFOs literally moved through the molecules of the atmosphere without disturbing their position or direction. In essence I believe they were able to pass through a solid wall like a ghost in a cheap Halloween movie.

How they did this is beyond my wildest imagination but I assume that somehow they manipulated the phase of their matter as compared to the phase of our matter thereby guaranteeing their molecules would pass unharmed right through ours. If you are youthful and are intrigued by this, I urge you to apply yourself and consider how something like this would be possible. Just think of what a technology like this could yield in the way of creating a speaker driver!

It will probably take a while for me to calm down and get the image of the UFOs out of my mind so please bear with me while I run off on a tangent to the high end for a while.

Yours for higher fidelity,
Philip Rastocny

I do not use ads in this blog to help support my efforts. If you like what you are reading, please remember to reciprocate, My newest title is called Where, oh Where did the Star of Bethlehem Go? It’s an astronomer’s look at what this celestial object may have been, who the "Wise Men" were, and where they came from. Written in an investigative journalism style, it targets one star that has never been considered before and builds a solid case for its candidacy.

My other titles include:

Friday, October 12, 2012

My UFO Sighting

Another hobby of mine is astronomy. I go out with folks and usually spend a good portion of the evening gazing up into the heavens spotting faint fuzzy globs that look more like free floating cotton balls or wispy clouds or a groups of densely-packed stars. I have been hooked on this hobby since my early teens and now have two pretty nice instruments. Last night I was working with the bigger of the two with four other friends and their scopes enjoying the first clear skies we had in quite a while.

As the sky grew dim, we spotted the Space Station floating in the west and sprinting eastward to the horizon. Bright, big, and just a bit faster than a high-altitude airplane, it's white image and unusual shape were seen by all of the members of the group through their binoculars or unaided eyes. It was quite a way to start an evening's observing session. The folding chairs came out and everyone started settling into seeing whatever they wanted to find in the plethora of unique offerings in the heavens.

The rest of the evening was uneventful although the sky cleared, the humidity dropped, and the stars glowed prominently everyone dashing back and forth as one person found an object and another and another. Seeing deep sky objects with your own eyes is much like the difference between reading about how to fly an airplane and actually doing it: it's day and night and where the real thrill is in this hobby.

The night ran short starting at about 6:30PM and by 10:00 two of us were left watching a satellite in the northwest making its way to the east. As it faded from view, I was pointing to where it was disappearing and then my eyes and that of my friend's popped. Both of us gasped and simultaneously said, "What the X*&% is that?" Moving from just west of north and soaring across the night sky to just east of south were two dimly orange glowing bird-like objects silently crossing the blackness.

We both thought they were birds at first but these two UFOs were flying at what we estimated to be about 1,000 to 1,500 feet and traveling REALLY fast. It took less than 10 seconds to fly from horizon to horizon behaving a little like crows in flight moving not in fixed formation but next to each other changing relative positions as if they were playing like those fun-loving black birds with each other.

Burnt orange in color, I noticed that they both emitted their own light but that light was not enhanced from the light coming from the other UFO. In other words, they gave off light but they did not reflect light from another source. It was weird since the two were less than a wing-width of each other as they silently dashed across the sky.

Something flying that fast or that close to the ground should have made some sort of engine noise that we should have easily been able to hear and as fast as they were flying maybe even a sonic boom. Alas, there was nothing for these well-tuned ears to hear, only the low chirping of crickets and the faint rustling of leaves.

My friend was the first to volunteer the phrase UFO and I explained that while I had not seen one before, other groups I had been with over the years had told me of similar sightings of unusual and unexplained objects that were not stars, satellites, airplanes, balloons, and the usually lighter-than-air craft. Taking most of these tales as urban myths or boastfulness from big egos, I dismissed their tall tales as just that - until now. I was dumbfounded at seeing them in flight and there was something about observing such an object after looking into the heavens at galaxies, nebula, planets, and their moons, but this was something I will never forget. It reminds me of what President Jimmy Carter must have felt when he spotted a UFO himself.

So here is what they looked like as best as I can describe them. There were two of them, identical in every way you can imagine. Like a pair of fighter jets, they flew so close to each other it was like watching the Blue Angels performing tricks but these two were traveling much faster than any earthling-created craft ever could. If you have ever seen a seagull float in the air without flapping, this is very much what their shapes appeared to be. Two gently-arching wings the entire length of the fuselage with no aerodynamic characteristic of thin leading edges or trailing edges whatsoever. Bluntly rounded and smooth, the arches folded into a straight like across a somewhat difficult to discern central tube also blunt and cigar-shaped. The orange glow was a burnt tangerine color revealing stripes or bands on the two curved wings providing clues to their depth perspective.

They were huge and unlike anything I have ever seen in pictures or descriptions before. If they were flying at 1,000 feet, they would have been about the length of a 747 commercial jet. They had curved wings like that of a seagulls when not flapping but without the tapered leading edge or trailing edge, nor did the wings tapir to a point at the outer ends farthest away from the fuselage. The fuselage was more cylindrical than cigar shaped but both the nose and tail were also blunt. If the fuselage was 20 feet in diameter, the arched wings were 15 feet thick and ran the entire length of the fuselage, not just a small portion like a conventional aircraft or a bird. The drawing below shows the arched wings uncolored in the front view but they were as orange as the rest of the craft (a limitation of my graphics program).

The gray stripes along the bottom and wrapped around the outer edges. The interesting thing about the orange glow was that the craft appeared to emit light but not reflect light from the other craft.

One added note is this: as we watched the two move across the sky, there were two different personalities behind the steering wheel. One ons "serious" and flew straight never deviating from the course; the other was playful and rocked its wings and moved a little above and below its partner in formation. I could not help but think of how crows play with each other while a flock of them cross the sky where one dives and nips at another. I guess even these pilots had a sense of humor, something to think about.

Yours for higher fidelity,
Philip Rastocny

My other titles include:

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Subwoofer Tuning

So you buy or build a subwoofer, hook it up to your system, and viola! Deep bass and a lot of it - at least that's what your first impression is. Explosions in films sound more real, punches to the face are chest pounding, and emotionally it is a great addition. Where there once was nothing, not there is something...right? Well, here is where a few simple tools can help you figure out if what your emotions are telling you is what your ears are hearing.

Confirming or denying that what you just added made the change you wanted can take hours of listening during which time you can get more and more satisfied with your system's overall sound. But there is a short cut for doing this that can reduce the time you spend moving the subwoofer around in the room until you find that perfect spot. There are two things you will need to do this:

A smart phone
An MP3 player (most Blu-ray and DVD players will suffice).

First, go to http://archive.org/details/TenMinutesOfWhiteNoisePinkNoiseAndBrownianNoise and download the Pink Noise file. Put this file on a CD, memory stick, or your streaming music resource. This file creates what sounds like inter-station noise on an old FM radio and is a random but uniform signal source spattering the entire audio band. I use the FLAC version since my music streamer plays FLAC files.

Next, spend the $5.50 and download the RTA Pro app for your smart phone from the PLAY STORE or from https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=radonsoft.net.rtapro&hl=en. The free version works but the paid version offers far better resolution and is worth every penny. Calibrate your phone according to the instructions in a VERY quiet room.

Now, charge your phone and set it on top of a thin vase positioned in your "sweet spot" at your ear level with the microphone end of the phone aimed at your system. Unplug or turn off all electrical appliances (refrigerator, TV, radio, etc.) making your room as quiet as possible. I do this VERY early in the morning to avoid traffic noises and my wife talking to me.

Turn on the phone, start the app, and play the Pink Noise file. Adjust the volume on your system so that the level is somewhere near -10dBFS. Press STOP on the app and then lightly press START being careful not to jar the phone. You will see now what your playback system is producing in the way of acoustic energy as measured from that particular location in your room. Notice the deep bass level under 200Hz.

I can almost guarantee that the sound pressure will not be uniform. Using this tool, scoot the subwoofer around the room until an optimum location is found. Use movements of inches first, then fractions of inches, and once the right place is found, the sound will be about as uniform as you can get it.

You can try raising and lowering the subwoofer itself if possible to get that last bit of tuning out of it as you can but more than likely you will not be able to raise or lower it - but if you can, give it a shot too.

Lastly, if there are large peaks somewhere, try moving furniture and adding sound absorbing panels on the midlines of the walls of the room or in the corners. This is where sound soak works best and tweak away to your heart's content.

I have used this little technique to do a lot of tweaking in my personal system and the results for a total investment of $6 and a bit of time have yielded extremely satisfying results, at least in the bass and deep bass regions.

Although you could use this setup to position your speakers, I have found that this is not the right way to do that. Using your ears and focusing on the height, width, and depth of the sound stage is more reliable and produces far more satisfying results.

Yours for higher fidelity,
Philip Rastocny

My other titles include:

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

HDMI Cables

Interconnect cables have evolved over the years starting with RCA single-ended, maturing to differential, then optical, and today the various flavors of HDMI. With each advancement came promises of simplicity and assured perfection in connectivity. However as time passed, perfection was not always achieved and the old saying of garbage-in garbage-out held fast.

HDMI cables are a wonderful concept for connecting all video, analog, and network signals from one device to another via digital transmission schemes permitting only ones and zeros to pass between them. The theory is that in a digital signal, there is no way for anything to degrade because of the simplicity of digital technology. Well, that's the theory anyway and for most of you high-end videophiles, you are already aware of the significant differences between so-called perfect HDMI cables.

So what's up with this? In theory it should work but in reality it does not. I own several flavors of HDMI cables all connected to my Samsung 52" 650 series television (which I love BTW and have resisted replacing because of not only its good video quality but its fine built-in DACs). I recently connected a DIRECTV DVR to it since my wife loves football (and she REALLY loves football). So out of the box it came and connecting it with my extra 1-meter BetterCables Silver Serpent HDMI cable we were ready for the NFL.

After turning it on, I immediately noticed a huge edginess and pronounced sibilance region up until that time was not present on any of the other devices already connected to the Samsung. While the video quality was pretty good, the audio quality was terrible. Back to the drawing board.

Hoping that it was a burn-in issue, I tolerated the annoying sssssssssssssssssibilance for about a week and then realized that it was not going away. Swapping the HDMI cable with a Monster M series 1.3a 1-meter version, hoping for the best.

Normally, I do not like Monster Cable products since they have a tendency to color things a bit unnaturally but I had this one lying around and decided to give it a try. The results pleasantly surprised me. While the audio anomaly of sibilance still persisted, instead of it being sssssssssssssssssibilance it changed it to ssssibilance, the best way I can describe it in words. The edginess to the sound is now at least tolerable.

So with this improvement, I decided to start checking the obvious beginning with absolute electrical phase, aka chassis leakage. Results: yes indeed there was a minor issue with the LNB power supply but a quick swapping of the leads on the power transformer resolved that issue. However, the ssssibilance problem persisted and I was left scratching my head again. Eliminating the common problems pointed to the source of the problem as inherent to the design of the DVR.

Additional investigations following my normal troubleshooting steps still uncovered no additional built-in issues I could solve externally. Putting it another way, there was nothing wrong with the system or the way it was connected. Yes, the problem is still there today but I am very tempted to unbutton the lid on the DVR and start poking around. So far, I have resisted doing this willing to try a few more HDMI cables loaned to me by friends and audio-video salons.

For now, we listen to the DVR at low levels so that the fingernails-on-the-blackboard effects of the poorly designed do not make their way to our sensitive ears. If one of you readers could point me to a solution you may have uncovered, I would be eternally grateful.

So folks, this is a plea for help. I hope that at least one of you have solved this problem and are willing to share with others what you did. Until then, I'll be lisssstening to over-the-air signals when critical sound is essential.

Yours for higher fidelity,

Philip Rastocny

My other titles include:

Althea: A Story of Love

Build an Extreme Green Composter

The Extreem Green Guide to Wind Turbines

Build and Extreme Green Hot Water Solar Collector

The Extreme Green Guide to Solar Electricity

The Extreme Green Guide to Improving Mileage

Meditation for Geeks (and other left-brained people)

Build an Extreme Green Raised Bed Garden

Build an Extreme Green Rain Barrel

Build an Extreme Green Squirrel-Proof Bird Feeder

Extreme Audio 1: House Wiring

Extreme Audio 2: Line Filtering

Extreme Audio 3: Chassis Leakage

Extreme Audio 4: Interconnect Cables

Extreme Audio 5: Speaker Wires

Extreme Green Organic Gardening

Extreme Green Organic Gardening 2012

The Extreme Green Appliance Buying Guide

Saturday, September 29, 2012

Those Little Tiny Wires

In the mid 1980s, I purchased a brand new Yamaha YP-D8 turntable and fell in love with it. Stylish, dark hardwood base, and sexy, this S-arm direct drive turntable served me well for about 15 years never failing and providing endless hours of magical entertainment. Two things I really enjoyed about this analog input device was its ease of vertical tracking adjustment and its quiet motor.

In the rural high-altitude mountains of Colorado, 7 miles from the nearest highway and 9,800 feet in the air, my listening room was pretty gosh darned quiet. The only noises came from the upstairs refrigerator and the downstairs hot-water-heat circulation pump, both of which were also pretty quiet and intermittent. As a result, I was able to hear nuances in things that in most listening environments was just not possible.

Once you remove the grunge of everyday background noise and settle into the stillness, you begin to notice things like the blood pulsing in your ears, faint rustling of the trees in the slightest breeze from within closed doors and windows, and of course details deep within the noise floor of your stereo. It was a wishful-sinful push-pull listening room where any decent audiophile becomes restless once an anomaly in the playback chain is noticed.

There was nothing worse than listening to a crescendo in such a quiet place and having the sound stage collapse into the center of the room so the search was on for a reasonable replacement phono cartridge. Not having the funds to toss at the best of the best, I purchased a Monster Alpha One cartridge, my first moving coil.

It was a remarkable step up in inner detailing, especially at the low level down into the noise floor, but it too had its issues. Checking the alignment dozens of times and trying different weight headshells, tonearm modifications, and the like, the only ting left were the headshell wires. Not to overlook anything, I decided to take the plunge and invest in the newly touted linear crystal oxygen free high conductivity version thinking to myself that spending about half as much on four one-inch long pieces of tiny wire as I did on my phono cartridge was about as much of absurd lunacy as one could expect from any audio purist.

I remember the day i changed these wires quite clearly since I immediately noticed a massive improvement in the system's sound. It was as if a veil had been lifted, as if I had taken off my ear muffs after coming in from the cold, and the resolution of inner detailing once laid back and subtle stood out and beat your ears over your head subliminally saying "Pay Attention - This is Important!" I was impressed and it takes a lot for me to be impressed.

What impressed me is that once the level of a playback system is sufficiently refined, even changes in wires as short as one inch long can make an audible difference in the level of performance. Much like formula one race cars pay attention to aerodynamic drag, weight-to-horsepower ratios, centers of gravity, moments of mass, and the like taking excruciating pains to identify and correct issues to provide optimum performance characteristics, so does attention to this level of minute detail in audio playback systems provide similar positive results. When you rise to the level of a lunatic fringe audiophile, you graduate to that level of attention to detail searching for and eliminating whatever you can in the pursuit of realism.

This morning, I changed out the headshell wires in my Pioneer PL-L1000a to some hand-made versions cobbled together from some small wire-wrap wire I had lying around. The stock wires that came with the Audio Technica headshell, although very nice, were lacking in that same low-level detail I remembered the ones I used with the Yamaha. I installed the little buggers and flipped on the switch. Putting on a familiar piece, I sat back ready to evaluate if I had just trashed a nice set of wires or found a suitable substitute for the L-C OFHC wires of my distant memory.

The cartridge is a Sumiko LMS and I patiently waited about 20 minutes for the system to thermally stabilize by cobbling together this blog. After the warmup period, I spun one of my newer disks and - although not as "hit me over the head" difference - there were more subtle background and inner details that before had not been present. Relieved to find that I had not trashed my system (sometimes this happens when I tweak my system as I am certain with which many of you can relate), I continued to enjoy the Reiner performance of Shubert's Unfinished Symphony No. 5. I have grown to appreciate the Reiner sound for its execution and dynamics and enjoy listening to any of the performances in this fluid-sounding series.

After turning over the album and playing the second side, I began to hear more from the timbre of the instruments that previously perceived and I am now grateful for a nicely tweaked system. There is something in an analog system despite its pops, ticks, and clicks that draws you into the recording and makes you feel like you are there rather than recreating the notes of an orchestra. I still cling to this sound comparing it regularly to the digital world I have grown used to over the years and have hope that it too will one day provide the realism that antiquated but well groomed technology is still capable of trouncing. Without going "digitally deaf," the ambiance and reverberations of the concert hall are all well preserved.

So when you think for a moment that the subtle details to which you pay attention as an audiophile do not make a difference in your musical appreciation, when you feel criticized by intellects who listen to music with their eyes and not their ears, remember that there are those of us who do and truly enjoy the music for all of its essence, not just figures, charts, and numbers. Give everything a try but remember that not everything works. Keep an open mind and by all means trust your ears as the final test.

Yours for higher fidelity,

Philip Rastocny

My other titles include:

Sunday, September 9, 2012

Picking out a TV

A friend of mine is wanting to buy a new TV set but doesn't know what to really look for when judging picture clarity differences. Most people jump into a car and drive over to their favorite big box store or electronics salon and compare images from the myriad number of sets hanging prominently from the wall. Such sales displays are all driven from a video distribution system with little or no chance to evaluate anything since manufacturers push the color levels to unreasonable limits to create the best possible WOW-effect. So how can you tell? Here are a few tips that with even such limited test signals you can see visual differences.

Unless you have a trained eye, it is difficult to see more than color balance differences in sets. Hooking up a dedicated BluRay player, a good HDMI cable, and a good movie source is the best way to evaluate a set, but most showrooms cannot accommodate such a request. So you must look for differences in the signals simultaneously delivered through their video signal distribution system that CAN tell you something about the set.

Most people are familiar with what is called JPG noise in digital pictures, an artifact of a compression and decompression process that leaves speckles in a picture. In HDTV, this video noise appears along the outer perimeter of objects. More easily seen in slow moving things like people walking against high-contrasts backgrounds, a video noise appears highly visible on cheap sets and less to invisible on better sets. Look for this noise and you will quickly sift out the sheep from the goats. Lower speckles means a clearer picture.

Look at the hair clarity on the RH dancer or belly speckles on the LH dancer to see the effects of video noise

If you like action and motion, you must look for fast screen refresh rates of at least 240Hz in LCD TVs (the Sony Bravia KDL-46HX929 has a 900Hz refresh rate). While most taped broadcasts are 60Hz, live events will produce more life-like realism with less motion blurring. An NFL football pass or a golf ball soaring through the air is a good test for motion blurring. If you buy a 3-D TV, buy at least a 240Hz model since in 3-D mode the refresh rate is actually 1/2 that specified (one frame scan for your left eye and one for your right means half the specified rate).

Black (or contrast level) is another test you can see pretty easily in such an environment although it is best detected in a darker room. When the picture drops out such as a moment between commercials or in a really dark night scene, marginal black representations appear gray. Overly black situations will not show enough detail in darker images or even create weird colors in the shadow or black areas. The center image below shows good black levels while the L image shows too little and the R image is overly black.

Do not be too quick to judge color accuracy and black levels since all sets are calibrated from the manufacturer to give the most wow but not the best color and black level. Buy a test DVD, such as the Digital Video Essentials "HD Basics," and once you narrow down a set, ask the salesperson if you can reset the display settings from its instructions. It takes a few minutes but the results may surprise you as to what a well-respected brand name set can and cannot do.

All sets are compromises but as mentioned Plasma sets tend to find their ways into more demanding homes. The only issue with Plasma is that such sets run pretty hot compared to the others (LCD/LED) and will put an additional load on your home A/C. I have measured as much as s 20 degree F screen temperature difference between models using a hand-held infrared thermometer. This is a parasitic cost of operation that like a tube amp and preamp you just live with if you like what you see.

Whatever TV set you end up getting, use good interconnect cables just as you would for your audio system. Plug the TV into the same power conditioner as your system to minimize noise and ground-loop effects.

Yours for higher fidelity,

Philip Rastocny

My other titles include:

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Evolution of the High End Part 6

Early on in audio, speaker connections used off-the-shelf terminal connection strips to make easily removable speaker wire-to-amplifier and speaker wire-to-speaker terminations. Simple screw strips offered a low cost way to permit interchangeable connections. Little was understood about wire or terminations at the time believing that DC resistance was the primary issue. While correct on that point, other issues were present before a fuller understanding of the function of an amplifier or speaker terminal involved.

Bakelite Terminal Strip

While fully functional, this technology is outdated being replaced by terminals that accept larger wires. Early attempts used the 5-way binding post to allow flexible termination styles and a more positive connection.

5-Way Binding Post

Improved versions of this terminal still appear in equipment today. Improved banana plugs and jacks assure good connections and high-current carrying ability.

But above this lower-resistance and higher-current connectivity came an understanding of the conductivity of different metals, oxidation and corrosive effects of aging, and parasitic losses. Ferrous materials "stole" some of this energy to create a magnetic field so non-ferrous materials like gold and silver became very popular. While silver is a better conductor than gold, the corrosive effects require regular maintenance and so gold fell into favoritism for construction of terminals. Other materials such as high purity solid copper, oxygen free processing, and linear crystal composition all help improve these large connections.

The truth to a connection lies not only in the materials but also in the cross-section area of the termination. When the area of the termination is smaller than the area of the speaker wire, there lies the bottleneck. If the area of the termination is significantly smaller than the speaker wire, there will be an appreciable insertion loss into the amplifier-speaker electrical circuit.

For example, if you use a 10AWG speaker wire, the cross sectional area translates to 5.26 square millimeters (0.0082 sq. in.). This means that the total surface area of the terminals must be at least this big.

Binding posts are 10mm in diameter for a maximum contact area of 5mm*5mm*3.1416=78.54mm. BUT the center post is 6mm in diameter and this must be subtracted from this contact area. 3mm*3mm*3.1416=28.27mm so the maximum cross sectional area of a spade lug on a binding post is 78.54-28.72*2=100mm. This is totally adequate. BUT spade lugs are not this large and do not use100% of this maximum contact area. Roughly 40% of the available area is not used so 40% of 100mm=60mm, still more than adequate.

Do the banana plugs have the same comfortable relationship? Not even close. Contact area of a banana plug and jack are minuscule (very low cross sectional area) unless advanced self compressing styles are used. Then cross sectional area approaches the 5.26 sq. mm. of the conductor.

This means that the best connections possible for 5-way binding posts is the tried and true spade lug.

What you hear when there is a significant difference in cross-sectional area is flabby bass (damping drops) and low transient response (terminals cannot handle high momentary current surges).

So do yourself a favor and convert your speaker wires to high quality spade lugs and sit back and enjoy the difference.

Yours for higher fidelity,
Philip Rastocny

My other titles include:

Sunday, September 2, 2012

Computers - ARGH! - Lessons for Life

It's been a while since I posted anything on my blog but it's not because I have run out of things to say. I have an older Gateway laptop (circa 2008, the P-7811FX) that has served me well and it developed a serious problem: the display would intermittently stop working.

Computers are an essential part of life for many of us, myself included, and with the passing of this old friend, I have retired its function to that of a streaming video device on my home entertainment system (I watch web videos from it via the HDMI port). It had a very nice 17" display and the Sony Vaio (a VPCSE2EFX) with which I replaced it only has a 15" wide screen.

But as I settle into the new machine, I have learned to adjust as we all do with new technology and devices we add to our habitual collection of stuff. I wanted to revive the gateway but it needed a $200 display and there were a few things I did not like about it: it ran hot and the keyboard was not very good. So...out with the old and in with the new.

I must say that typing speed is greatly improved with this model and my hands stay cooler for a lot longer time. The text is tinier but the full HD display does offer a few nice features that most laptops available today do not.

Shortly after moving into the laptop, my tried and true Network Storage server started giving me a few problems reporting disk errors but recovering from them nicely. While still operating, I have ordered a replacement for this old friend also, so out with the 0.5TB Buffalo Pro Duo (the LS-W1TGL-R1) and in with the 4.0TB Seagate Black Armor (NAS 220) that should arrive Wednesday and occupy yet more of my time in assuring backups.

The lessons here are that everything fails sooner or later and when they do your life gets complicated if nothing else. things that were easy and familiar now become a struggle and changes or special measures are needed during the period of adjustment. The keyboard on the Sony is different from the Gateway and typing although easier requires retraining my brain to where special purpose keys such as the END key are located. (Wonder why they switched the location of the CTRL and FUNC keys?)

I appreciate the newness of change but the transition of adjustment is a drag. It takes a lot of time to get things "the way they were" but what this really means is that I need to rebuild things so that I can use them as I wish. This is what I want to point out about audio: we get used to things the way they are and when we introduce change, we react.

Say for example you buy a new preamp. After listening to your old preamp for ump-de-ump years, you pretty well know its strengths and its weaknesses. When the new piece of gear is inserted to the system, you immediately react to how different it sounds. There is a moment when you realize that things are no longer "the way they were" and part of you wants to go back to the way it was. It is natural for people to do this but what happens from here is an interesting observation of human behavior.

There is a period of adjustment when you scrutinize everything about the new system component and compare it religiously to your acoustic memory of the old component. This process may go on for weeks and finally you begin to notice the big difference: it does this but it no longer does that. So when this realization materializes, you are faced with the really big decision: do you go back or live with the faults of the new component?

The choice is yours but whatever you choose will be another interesting study in your own behavior. Several factors usually tug at such a big decision, such as price, sex appeal (is it better looking than the old component), of course its assets, and other similar reasons. How yo weigh these factors is the interesting part. Watching my mind decide is fascinating to me and puts me in touch with the many different aspects of my humanity. For with this observation and reflection I become a better person who really knows who I am.

One of the things I enjoy - besides listening to new music - is knowing who I really am. I understand a lot and I realize that my mind is what makes most of my choices. But there is another part of my being - a part that hides behind my eyes and observes reality as one would while playing a video game. This is the part with which I am fascinated. This is who I really am and the one that never ceases to amaze me.

Easterners meditate to get in touch with this part of your being but I find that I fall asleep trying to calm my self-talk. So I look for other ways tot do this and such observations - internal reflections and taking pause to analyze my own behavior - is another way of doing so.

My suggestion is this: when you make a change to your system, plan to observe your own behavior and try to understand more about who you really are. There are "eyes" behind the eyes and there are other parts of you that you may not realize. Bringing everyone to the forefront and understanding what roles they play in your consciousness can bring even greater appreciation to this joyous hobby. Listening from all of these part sof your being can change the way you listen to music and allow you to appreciate nuances and details that you never knew were there.

So take a deep breath and slow yourself down. Appreciate the new piece of gear for what it is and then appreciate yourself for who you really are.

Yours for higher fidelity,

Philip Rastocny

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Saturday, August 25, 2012

The 546: Another Political Commentary

This week looks to be very promising as far and changes in the wind go. People have been arriving for the 2012 Republican National Convention, hurricane Isaac is narrowing its sights on Tampa, I've lost and after 3 days found my car keys in my bathrobe, and I have a new faucet on my bathtub (somehow, the last two must be related). All things are evolving as they should.

I have noticed in what little free time I've had that television commercials have shifted gears in tune with the political wind (maybe Isaac has something to do with that too, but I am no psychic). It appears that politicians are spending way too much money to get their candidate elected and as usual the truth behind the matter is clouded in misdirection and misinformation. I just wanted to re-sync everyone's sanity regardless of political beliefs and make sure that you remember the truth about our great country, the USA, as the founders envisioned it rather than what it has evolved into with lies, half truths, quotes out of context, and the major art of the spin. Before we begin, just remember that like those obnoxious drug ads, any ad you see on television is trying to sell you something so there is an agenda behind what they say, sometimes a multi-level agenda and rarely does it have anything to do with the truth.

The United States of America consists of a form of government that elects representatives who hopefully doing the bidding of the people who elected them. Each state, of which there are 50, chooses these representatives in a staggered election so that every two years we have the privilege of and the opportunity to make positive change if some of these incumbent representatives do not do our bidding as agreed. Every six years, we as the governed can eliminate 100% of those incumbents if for some reason insanity grips all of these officials and the country heads off in a direction that is unwise. This opportunity is called an election.

These 50 states elect officials consists of to two governing bodies, what we call the House of Representatives and the Senate. Members of the House hold two-year terms and members of the Senate hold six-year terms. Decisions on issues are decided by simple majority where votes are supposedly reflective of the will of the people but that's another story and we will leave that one alone for now. There are two Senators per State, 50 States, or 100 Senators. House members are elected based on population however the 1929 Congress decided that the wisdom of our founding fathers was wrong and changed this to a fixed number: 435. So far, we have 535 people who as a group decide every issue our country encounters and how to deal with it. Remember this when it comes to those ads pointing fingers.

Two other people are elected (sort of, but we will not get into the process for this): The President and Vice President every four years, so that makes 537. Now the rest of the bureaucracy is appointed or Federal programs authorized by these elected officials and those with power are of primary concern. The Supreme Court, the last governing body who is supposed to settle legal arguments and interpret these arguments by what the US Constitution defines, has nine members who are appointed by the President and approved by the Senate so that brings the total to 546. There are no other elected people who have the authority to make policy, implement change, and spend tax dollars (those with the real power).

The Vice President's only power is to preside over the Senate and cast a vote in the event of a tie. This has occurred 244 times by 35 different Vice Presidents. So it appears that things can get pretty hot and opinionated and even the Senate cannot make up its mind.

Now the interesting question is this: who decides how raise and spend the tax money (your money)? The President proposes an annual budget but the Congress must approve that budget. So the President and VP immediately drop out from having any authority for spending our hard earned cash. Tax revenue is raised by a select members of the House of Representatives called the House Ways and Means Committee. This group of 37 people decide how Federal funds are raised (see this link). Currently, there are 22 Republicans and 15 Democrats on this committee. So who pays what is decided by these folks and nobody else. These are the people directly responsible for raising or lowering your taxes. If you do not like how you are paying out to the government, then do not vote for any of these incumbents regardless of how you believe they are doing their job.

Then comes the next interesting question: who decides how to spend our taxes? The answer to that is the 38 members of the Federal Budget Committee (see this link). Currently, there are 22 Republicans and 16 Democrats on this committee and their decisions effect how we spend our tax dollars (called the Federal Budget). Their proposed Budget must be approved each year by the rest of the Congress (all 535 members of both the Senate and the House of Representatives, not the President or the VP or the 9 Supreme Court Justices). These are the people directly responsible for spending your taxes. If you do not like how your money is being spent, then do not vote for these incumbents regardless of how you believe they are doing their job. (BTW, see www.truemajority.org for a down-to-earth explanation of where your money is going.)

So in your confusion about voting in this year's elections, ignore the nonsense of political banter and emotional advertisements and get back to reality. If you approve the way our money is being raised or spent, vote for the members responsible for this; if not, get these folks out of office and elect someone else who can do a better job. It has nothing to do with party affiliation but rather if those who are in office are doing our bidding. Let's clean house and start fresh.

Six years is all it would take to make complete change. Remember that when you are in your polling booth. We the governed still have the power to effect change if we choose to vote. Regardless of who you vote for, get into your higher consciousness and ask yourself the question: am I better off today as a result of these folks who decide how to spend taxes and raise funds? You still have the power of the vote and if you do not choose to use it, it is your own fault for how your country's policy decisions are made. Just VOTE and use the KISS principle!

Yours for higher fidelity,
Philip Rastocny

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