My Crack Too

[spear321]

Here is a couple of pics:

1. My finished Crack, Black Gloss Hammerite, which was a bugger to paint, this is about my third attempt and still not perfect but for me at least (not being good at these things) not too shoddy. base is Danish Oil and wax polish.


2. The CD part of my system, a Rotel RCD 855, chosen cause its got the TDA 1541 chip, and the little silver box is the excellent sounding but cheap Muse 4x TDA1543 DAC, The Main amp is a World Audio Designs KIT6550.

 

[Grainger49]

Wow, with all those tubes your system should give off a nice glow in the dark.

Nice work!

 

[dstrimbu]

I see vinyl at the bottom of the picture... what turntable are you using, Paul?

The Crack looks good!  Is that a custom power cable?

~don

 

[spear321]

Yes it does glow nicely, warms the room too...

Yes the cable is made from 79 strand speaker cable, more than enough cross section, then plaited it using 2 strands as one of the 3, then used this for earth with only front end connected to act as RFI drain a la Russ Andrews, sounds a lot better than the stock.

Always a surprise to me that a power cable can sound different, logic says that as long as the cable provides enough power should sound same, must cut out the crap in the supply I suppose, know Crack sounded much better on the end of my Mains conditioner.

Thanks for the Kind comments

Paul

 

[dstrimbu]

Always a surprise to me that a power cable can sound different, logic says that as long as the cable provides enough power should sound same, must cut out the crap in the supply I suppose, know Crack sounded much better on the end of my Mains conditioner.

We had a discussion about that on the Power Cable forum the other day, Paul... didn't get very far into it, but I have read that there are two key params to keep in mind... number one is current delivery and rise time; the second is re-radiated RFI from a component's power supply that gets sent back up the line to the other devices that share the same power source.

With #1, it's about how fast current can be delivered to the power supply.  In terms of #2, the power cable acts as an transmitting antenna, and a device's power supply as the transmitter.  Other devices nearby pick up the noise radiated from the power cable...

While I can't condone spending $1,000 for a mains cable, I can say this:  smart, thoughtful design of power cables and interconnects can clearly change the sound, and therefore, the overall character of a system.

I personally like my Bottlehead power cable(s).  I think that I'm going to get another one, too.

-Don

 

[Grainger49]

Don,

#2 would be a strong argument for a shielded power cord with the shield grounded at the wall.

 

[dstrimbu]

Don,

#2 would be a strong argument for a shielded power cord with the shield grounded at the wall.

Grainger, didn't you post a link some time back, to a Techflex-like material that is conductive? (I think that it was you, sir...)

That would potentially be good outer shielding wrap for a power cable, assuming that the conductive layer is sandwiched between two non-conductive layers...

At the risk of assuming... <g> ...the outermost shield would _only_ be connected at the wall, correct?  And NOT connected to the ground wire at the equipment end?

-Don

 

[Grainger49]

I think what you refer to is Zipper Tubing.  There are a lot of permutations of it.

I played with it for "active shielded" audio cable.

Yes, the outer shield would be connected to the plug's ground lug at the wall.