Many Humbug Returns

LIVE UPDATE!

I just polished my mains pins with Brasso, and I SWEAR the sound is cleaner, more forward and the instruments starker, and more soundstaged against a darker background. The pins were medium-tarnished before, I ve sen much worse in my time. Just imagine the gains to be had with really gungy dark pins once buffed up!

400BHP

Hey guys I have a Teac Reference 500 with ixos gold interconnects and firewire OFC speaker cable, it sounds quite good.

Saving for a TagMclaren stereo and B&W nautilus... bit to go still

dsmith

How one earth is the presence or absence of the most minute tiny amount of resistance on a inas plug going to affect the sound ??

If you have a noisy mains supply (nowt to do with tarnished plugs)and your £20K power amp isnt doing a decent job of cleaning it then wtf is it doing for you ?

Has anybody taken their MCB apart and cleaned it - Its a moving copper electrical contact - just like your plug so presumably is just as much at fault.

Everytime I think some people are taking the **** on here I have this nagging doubt they're deadly serious. Just because "I and many others" do it every year doesnt prove anything - other than a certain gullibility. FFS many people go to church but it doesnt prove God exists

Deano

logiclee

Mr Humbug.

This weekend strip down your distribution board and clean that up, also take out every socket on the same ringmain on your hifi and re-do all the connections on the back. The difference should be amazing.

Sorry mate not having a go at you just having a laugh at the thread.

Cheers
Lee

Nigel H

This is is a top thread, it's up there with fuel surge and the Audi TT mod thread for me (It does also contain some usefulstuff BTW).

So Tel how about fitting the mains surge protectors they use for Computers? IIRC they cost about a tenner from Argos and must have some filtering in to take out nasties

logiclee

This weekend I'll bring home a Fluke Scope meter and measure the resistance from the back of the plug socket to the wiring of the amp. I will also view and trace the sine wave generated by the 50hz supply and check for any noise on the supply.

I will then polish my mains plug, fuse holder and re-make the plug connections.

When this is complete I will again measure the resistance acoss the socket and plug and do a trace. I will let you know the results.

Cheers
Lee

logiclee

Nigel,

You have to be careful with filters and conditioners with hifi. Some PC filters will not like sudden changes in demand.

Stand alone surge protectors are different as they usually are only protection against lightning strikes or similar and do not smooth the supply

You may find if you have something like a high powered home cinema system and the amp and sub have to produce sudden high volume and bass for an explosion scene or similar the filter may strangle the supply at this point.

Lee

TelBoy

Hehehe, you know i can't resist a reply!

Deano, first off, the church analogy thing is daft. Proving God exists is all but impossible, but i will guarantee to you too that you would notice the difference between a system before and after the contacts have been cleaned - that's whi "i and many others do it" once a year or so!

Lee, i think i/we're/you're placing too much emphasis on this mains plug cleaning thing. To me, that's just another connection in the chain, not The Most Important One! From my point of view, why *not* do them? I've never used the sort of instrumentation you've got, but if you're going to do all the others, why ignore this one? It can't do any harm!

MHR - not sure if you're serious or not! I suspect not!

Yep, i've has the distribuion box apart, and cleaned every terminal and tightened up the earthing. Not sure why i'm admitting that in public, but hey, what the hell! Once a hi-fi saddo, always a hi-fi saddo!

Agree about mains surge protectors. I never use them, as they tend to flatten the sound somewhat, and with the additional earth spur i have, they're not really necessary.

For comedy value for the thread followers - the daftest thing i think i've ever done is take out the little red LED in a distribution box, just in case it was affecting the signal! Beat that!

Luke

My mail box is going to break!!!! wish I hadnt ticked "Notification"!!!

RichS

LOL - yes, well I guess that would explain it!

dsmith

Telboy - its an extremly appropriate analogy.

Many Christians will swear blind going to churc has improved their life experience - in the face of much scientifc proof otherwise. It can not be be disapproved in any way. Likewise the fact you are sure it has improved the sound (an almost entirely subjective opinion ) can not be disproved.

All imho of course

Deano

TelBoy

Disagree chap.

I could *prove* the difference in a hi-fi. There's nothing subjective about it whatsoever. It's a provable fact. Whether it's "better" or not, i agree, is a matter of opinion. Faith, on the other hand, is 100% subjective.