BTW, back in the early 90s I ran across an ad for a power cord that replaced those that come with an audio amplifier. The 6¹ power cord cost $600 US. I was intrigued or perhaps a better description is the same sort of morbid curiosity expressed in the subject thread, and I called the company, and got the chief engineer/designer/CEO and janitor.
I very respectfully asked him to explain the benefits of this power cord, and he launched into the pitch. The pitch was that audio covers a wide band of frequencies, and all those frequencies come from the ac mains, and that therefore a matched transmission line (his power cord) was needed to ensure that all those frequencies made it from the mains into the music without reflections and mismatch inherent in cheap power cords. I asked two questions. The first was what about the mains wiring in the home or business, and he assured me that was already well-matched, so no worries. The second question was the more obvious; that the ac mains are a single frequency and that the audio frequency current to the loudspeakers comes from the charge stored in the large filter caps and routed to the speakers by the changing impedance of the amplifier's output stage transistors. At this point he got mad and I had to reassure him I was truly interested in the product and how it worked and wasn¹t just baiting him. My curiosity had foiled the intent of the ad copy to filter people like me out. I was just wasting his time. Ken Javor Phone: (256) 650-5261 From: Ken Javor <[email protected]> Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 22:54:50 -0400 To: <[email protected]> Conversation: [PSES] Fuses can affect performance other than safety! Subject: Re: [PSES] Fuses can affect performance other than safety! In the USA anyway, there is no need for a lawyer to review marketing claims that aren¹t health-related and are not obviously factual. You can¹t say the Fiat 500C is faster than a Shelby Mustang, but you can go on forever about the wonderful driving experience. As long as it can¹t be quantified, there is a quite a bit of poetic license allowed in advertising. Next, the terms are not entirely gibberish. They may be unfamiliar to those not in the hi-fi hobby, but I can make out all but one of these terms: Sound staging means stereo separation. Or whatever passes fro that in the age of five and six different channels (I haven¹t kept up with this stuff since it departed from two channels). I don't know how a fuse aids or degrades channel separation, but at least we can understand what is being claimed. Resolution means how clear the sound is. How real does a particular instrument sound? I find that on my ancient Martin-Logan electrostatic speakers, that violins sound much better than on cheap systems. I think (emphasize think) it may be because of the lack of a crossover network and a flatter response across all the frequencies that make up a violin¹s spectrum. How is that affected by a fuse? I don't know that. ³Air² is the term I don¹t understand. I¹m guessing that if I were interested and motivated, I could puzzle it out looking at a few audio blogs or websites. Noise floor is obvious and ³blacker backgrounds² means the same thing; these are redundant terms with the latter based on a TV picture, where black is the total absence of any signal. Again, no clue how a fuse can increase or decrease audio background noise. This sort of product where the marketing totally drives the demand is intentionally designed to appeal not to objective criteria that can be verified by measurement but rather to allow the consumer to feel superior because he can experience something the hoi poloi (that would be us) are too coarse to see/hear/feel/experience. You can write ad copy like this because people want to believe it. And you aren't selling to engineers. In fact ad copy like this functions as the same sort of filter as does the Nigerian businessman who needs to off-load boatloads of money on complete strangers living in the First World. If you have trouble with this ad copy, you aren't going to shop for their products, and you aren't going to waste their time asking your peasant-mentality questions. Their time is more properly reserved for the people with finer tastes and appreciation of the finer things in life, and who coincidentally have money to indulge their desire to impress themselves and others as the connoisseurs they are. And don¹t bother telling the emperor he is naked. It¹s not appreciated. Ken Javor Phone: (256) 650-5261 From: Dan Roman <[email protected]> Reply-To: Dan Roman <[email protected]> Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 22:13:29 -0400 To: <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [PSES] Fuses can affect performance other than safety! I think their guarantee says it all: "guaranteed to deliver a noticeable increase in sound staging, resolution and air thanks to a lower noise floor and blacker backgrounds" It's all jiberish--vague and meaningless claims that cannot be proven or disproved. A marketing company that has a good lawyer to review the weasel words! -- Dan Roman [email protected] -------- Original message -------- From: Richard Nute <[email protected]> Date: 8/22/16 7:12 PM (GMT-05:00) To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [PSES] Fuses can affect performance other than safety! If you put a carefully-chosen fuse in series with a loudspeaker, you can measure intermodulation distortion in the voice-coil current due to the element changing its resistance with temperature. What would be the parameters of a fuse that would minimize the element changing its resistance with temperature and still meet fuse operating requirements? How much resistance change would result in measurable intermodulation distortion? Can you explain any of the claims? ³Synergistic Research Quantum Fuses employ a custom alloy treated with 2,000,000 volts of electricity! SR Quantum Fuses significantly outperform all other high-end fuses on the market and are guaranteed to deliver a noticeable increase in sound staging, resolution and air thanks to a lower noise floor and blacker backgrounds.² ³Synergistic Research RED Fuses feature proprietary alloy burn wires and end caps encased in anti-resonant ceramic bodies. RED fuses are then treated with 2,000,000 volts of electricity in a process we call Quantum Tunneling that alters the conductor at a molecular level for optimum performance. Unique to SR RED Fuses is a new treatment process applied exclusively to SR RED Fuses that realigns the crystal structure of both the burn wire and the end caps for a refinement in high frequency characteristics and improved timbre linearity. All told SR RED fuses significantly outperform every other high-end fuse on the market and are the only fuses guaranteed to deliver a significant increase in system performance or your money back. When compared to our award winning SR20 Quantum Fuses, SR RED Fuses sound more refined with smoother highs and more linear frequency extension from the deepest bass to the highest highs; no small feat given the remarkable performance of our original SR20 Quantum Fuses.² Rich - ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society emc-pstc discussion list. To post a message to the list, send your e-mail to <[email protected]> All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://www.ieee-pses.org/emc-pstc.html Attachments are not permitted but the IEEE PSES Online Communities site at http://product-compliance.oc.ieee.org/ can be used for graphics (in well-used formats), large files, etc. Website: http://www.ieee-pses.org/ Instructions: http://www.ieee-pses.org/list.html (including how to unsubscribe) <http://www.ieee-pses.org/list.html> List rules: http://www.ieee-pses.org/listrules.html For help, send mail to the list administrators: Scott Douglas <[email protected]> Mike Cantwell <[email protected]> For policy questions, send mail to: Jim Bacher <[email protected]> David Heald <[email protected]> - ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society emc-pstc discussion list. To post a message to the list, send your e-mail to <[email protected]> All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://www.ieee-pses.org/emc-pstc.html Attachments are not permitted but the IEEE PSES Online Communities site at http://product-compliance.oc.ieee.org/ can be used for graphics (in well-used formats), large files, etc. Website: http://www.ieee-pses.org/ Instructions: http://www.ieee-pses.org/list.html (including how to unsubscribe) List rules: http://www.ieee-pses.org/listrules.html For help, send mail to the list administrators: Scott Douglas <[email protected]> Mike Cantwell <[email protected]> For policy questions, send mail to: Jim Bacher: <[email protected]> David Heald: <[email protected]>
