In audio impedance mismatch might occur relative to two outputs (and their sinks), which could possibly affect an amp. As far as impedance mismatch between source and sink causing reflection in a cable then the relevant numbers would be 20KHz and 344m/s (speed of sound; since the electrical waveform mirrors the waveform in air, one simply being the other run through a transducer). This gives a wavelength of 17.2mm. One quarter of that would be 4.3mm... about 1/6th of an inch. In Power Audio System impedance match between the power amplifier and the cable or between the cable and speaker is not relevant because of the electrical wave length of an audio signal in a cable.
Since the wavelength of high frequency sound is much smaller than dimensions in average room only small portion of energy is reflected back to the speaker. Speakers ( at lest voice-coil constructed ) have efficiency about 1% meaning that much electric energy is actually wasted during transformation into the air pressure. The efficiency is the same when converting air pressure into the electric energy.
The problem is that the speaker wire and the speaker are not part of the feedback loop. Correction.
The problem is that the speaker wire separates the speaker from the feedback loop.
That is why speakers sound better on cables with lower resistance.
Anyway, after twenty odd years playing with loud PA systems I doubt if I could tell the difference between a $7000 set of speaker leads and a bit 1.5mm^2 mains wire. Right on target. What is the point in using super-expensive super-fat cables if the power supply or internal wiring is done bad.
I suspect that someone at Monster just has too much time on their hands, and likes making cables that cater to certain frequency ranges. No. They are just trying to make cable more than it is.
A cable is just a cable. Feeble cables sound feeble. If you want rich, full sound, use cable with more copper in it.
I am (not) an engineer, but I am an audiophile and I do make speakers and power amplifiers. I agree on most of Your post. However I have to add some tips to Your shopping list.
Avoid feeble cables. Good line-level cables have thick foam insulation around core wire and rich shielding. Balanced coaxial cables are better if they are connected as balanced. For line level cables and interconnection cables low capacitance is a must.
The connectors must be of same alloy, otherwise a corrosion might occur. Nickel plated is minimum, Silver is not an option for an audio, Gold plated and Gold-Cobalt alloy is an excellent choice, and there is Rhodium too at the extreme price.
Note. Some alloys are bitch to solder. Gold can poison soldering alloy making solder brittle. I would never recommend RoHS compliant soldering alloy for god plated components.
Speaker cables need to have low resistance. A good speaker cables have resistance less than 1/30 of the speakers they power. There is no such thing as low inductance speaker cable. Inductance is related to length, the longer the wire, more the inductance.
Some speaker cables have wires with more space between them. That makes them sound brighter.
The speaker connectors and terminals add some resistance, so the common way to compensate is to use the overkill cables. Speaker connectors and terminals must have excellent contact and low resistance. Overkill size is not needed. Low contact resistance is good enough.
Some materials tend to fuse over time if pressed hard enough ( like brass ) and can make excellent contact. Gold alloys are good for speaker connectors. Soldered connectors perform better.
Cables are just another part of audio system. There is no need in spending xxxx$ on pair of speaker cables.
I hate "romantic" articles on audio equipment. That is why I do not like reading audio reviews. Cables are something measurable and technically describable in great details. No hype is needed in audio.
There is nothing wrong with #22 wire for a normal residential installation. We are dealing with high grade romantic audiophile-freaks in TFA. Most of them do not care (for some reason) or can not hear does they sound better than next one. They just care about price or review. The higher the price, or the better the review the better the gadget.
Parent is right on thing or two.
Thicker cables sound better because most speaker crossovers are crap, and adding small resistance in series with crossover does weird things to the phase of sound.
Just about anything high-class audiophile stuff is controversial.
You are wrong on one thing. Music is, or at least had been made on superb studio-class equipment. It's a shame to listen it on low quality equipment including the bad cables.
Speaker cables need to have low resistance. This is needed to keep sound quality. A good cables have resistance less than 1/30 of the speakers they power. The connectors add some resistance, so the common way to compensate is to use the overkill cables. #12 is quite common and usable up to 5 meters for 8 ohm speakers, for 4 ohm thicker wire is needed.
There is the other way to compensate for the cable resistance and other problems. Negative feedback point can be moved away from the power amplifier output terminals to the speaker terminals. This however makes more problems, this time much worse from an audiophile view on subject.
Worse than that.
Each wing is equipped with a long fork pointed forward. When this sucker hits some speed forks will start to vibrate violently... I can already see wings ripped off.
R2 is goner.
Worse than that.
Each wing is equipped with a fork pointed forward. When this sucker hits some speed forks will start to vibrate violently...
R2 is goner.
Speaking of fusion... this looks like pseudoscience too... http://jlnlabs.online.fr/cfr/html/cfrdatas.htm
I was referring to T2O which would be easy to inhale and will stay in body for a long time. That is why I was outraged by the idea of Tritium powered laptop battery.
It is commonly found as HT in nature in TRACES. That means in some ppm quantities. In laptop battery will be pressurized T2 gas ( am I missing something ) to maximize beta particle emitting.
I am simply worrying about container damage and leaking. With Li-Ion batteries it is simple, if they are empty, they can not explode. If they are overcharged or overloaded they explode.
These batterers are always full and hot and can burn if punctured and ignited. And it is the least worrying if they get ignited as soon as they are punctured, nothing violent will occur. But if leaking occurs in confined space, and ignition comes after high concentration of T2 is reached explosion might be dangerous maybe catastrophic in say high altitude flying airliner. And there will be no HTO vapour for sure.
In TFA nowhere is mentioned quantity of Tritium, battery chemistry ( if any ), type or construction or safety containment system. TFA lacks the data, as much as this technology lacks the showcase.
Tritium has a half life of about 12 years. After about 500 years there will be (pulls out calculator) 2^-41.6% of the original material left, or about.00000000000003%...Probably not much to worry about. I agree. After 500 years this battery is safe enough to crack open.
Interesting decay chain indeed.
Does this means that PU-238 battery will work good a hundred years and kinda die away after some time to burst with power after long time and end melting into lead?
(it'll have 1 extra proton and be a... Do You know what are You talking about ?
Tritium is gas, and in no way is similar to water. After say 500 years it will be mostly a deuterium. And it burns like Hydrogen does.
If tritium container cracks, and catches open flame, there will be a fire... a lot more violent than Sony(R) Li-Ion laptop battery, and T2O vapour will be all around, emitting nice low energy beta rays, getting into lungs and ripping them apart from inside.
It's not significant really. The amount of tritium in this, even concentrated, is pretty low, and would make a really poor weapon... Yes, the quantity is not nearly enough to make an nuclear weapon, but release the tritium gas inside of an dense populated building and harm is done for sure.
On the order of throwing florescent bulbs at someone to try to poison them with Mercury vapor. It also disperses pretty quickly, so the lasting effect is minimal in the area. It is not that fluorescent light bulbs are worrying me... The mercury-vapour lamps are the one with significant amount of mercury.
Tritium is available in the environment already; it's a naturally occurring isotope of hydrogen, and it's half life is pretty low (~12 years). ... with natural abundance in traces
So once again we see an alarm that could have been avoided if people patched their system... So once again we see an alarm that could have been avoided if people had erased the player from their system...
It was joke regarding dead pixels on the LCD/TFT monitors
Unlike LCD/TFT technology OLED displays do not need to be made on glass with transparent power supply and control logic conductors, and therefore should be much more reliable. I do not expect dead pixels on OLED displays, but other problems might emerge.
WiFi has shown that the world doesn't end when there's a region of spectrum that anybody can use; modern electronics is smart enough to co-exist, and when there is interferences (Bluetooth vs. WiFi), manufacturers get together and work it out. erm... nop
WiFi and Bluetooth co-exist as cat and mouse do co-exist. They irritate each other until one of them gives up. That is usually the cat ( WiFi ). Bluetooth devices use the frequency hopping. They change the frequency to find the free channel. If they fail to find free part of the spectrum, they choose to work on the channel with less frequency usage. If that channel is used by someone nearby to access the internet or local wireless network then his connection fails because it is jammed by narrow band bluetooth device.
Some WiFi channels overlap the licensed amateur radio bands and ISM band http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISM_band. Here is the link to the amateur radio band frequencies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amateur_radio_high_bands
Next time the WiFi ( or WiMAX ) network fails think of some radio amateur who just finished his 10W transmitter and is testing it using the 15dB omnidirectional antenna.
True, but CCFL have 3000 hours lifetime max. Are You saying that blue OLEDs have less than 3000 hours of lifetime?
I have no idea if blue OLED are loosing brightnes over time ( like CCFLs are ) or they need to be active.
OLEDs are too bright, and all that brightness is not needed. They can be adjusted after some time, and that should fix the problem.
Another solution is to pack the OLED displays with 2 blue segments for the each pixel, switch to the second group of blue segments when the first looses half of its brightness, and switch on both blue segments when the second group looses half of its brightness. That should triple the lifetime of an OLED screen.
When first LCDs hit the market, no one knew about CCFL lifetime, and I guess 3000 hours ( usually less than that ) was good, and there was "dead pixel" problem too. Soon after that people started buying new laptop every year, like it was fashionable thing to do.
I hope that OLED screens will not enforce alike trend.
... long distance and aviation can use hydrogen or electricity. Liquefied Hydrogen is very low in energy to volume ratio and it is inadequate for aviation as batteries are inadequate for their energy to mass ratio.
I would go for the bio-diesel any time, but after the corn-ethanol fiasco, I guess that Hydrogen is the next madness for the masses...
nah... it is not worth to try...
All those PC trolls do not remember the ASUS Cheat drivers.
It was hit on Counter Strike mod for Half Life. Still is. Cheat star NEVER fades away.
-- /. : U235 Lobbyists, Thorium Brotherhood, PS3 is weak trolling and solar power sucks rant.
We are burning the coal for the hundreds of years now. The radioactive particle pollution is the problem in the USA because USA does not want to lower it's energy consumption or substitute the "dirty" coal with alternative technologies or install better particle filters.
The USA are probably the most suitable region in the world for the solar because of the sun abundance and the high-tech nature of the local industry. Here in Europe where I live people relay mostly on hydroelectric power, the coal is the last on the "wanted" energy list and the solar is the last alternative.
The bad thing about the nuclear waste ( the Uranium and alike ) is that it produces a lot radioisotopes that do not occur in nature in abundance, and have mid to long half-life.
The dilution will not help allot because this will require more dry storage space, a lot more containers, and will not take care of the radioactivity. As time goes on, more and more radioactive waste will have to be diluted, contained and stored.
Run a math for a 500 year period considering 50% of the USA energy needs on radioactive waste dilution and disposal and You will see exactly what I am talking about.
The best Zirconium ceramic containers that we are making can last ~1500 years because the alpha radiation from the some type of waste is converting the ceramics into the glass which is water soluble and brittle.
The dilution will not take care of the radioactivity, and if not done properly ( deep core waste disposal ) will get into the water cycle, rendering wast areas of the land radioactive wastelands.
If You refer to total dilution and releasing ( dispersing ) the radioactivity into the environment, that is another issue and I will not discuss on that matter as I find it absurd regarding the quantity and the radioactivity of the waste that needs to be diluted and dispersed.
Absurdly, the/. is the only place on the Internet where people claim that hydroelectric power is dirty tech, although I have to admit that it has a lot more influence on the environment than it is credited for. Similar goes for solar, an I must say that I fail to understand why are people so reluctant on covering unusable surfaces with PV solar panels or heat collectors / concentrators / mirrors.
Also, it is quite likely that we will someday develop technology to PERFECTLY dispose of nuclear waste, at which time we will no doubt dig up what we already buried and cleanse it. Dude, it will not wait there for you. The nuclear waste containers are affected by radiation and they are decaying too. Just search slashdot articles.
One more thing: If we bury it deep enough, we can be confident that any civilization with the technology do dig it up would have necessarily developed the technology to recognize radioactivity. How deep is deep enough? Can anyone dig 10 kilometers deep hole and make it secure enough for next 10000 - 100000 years?
Why not instead just dump the waste in to the sea, it is deep enough.
Out of sight, out of mind is not a real solution to the problem.
Slashdot Mirror
Since the wavelength of high frequency sound is much smaller than dimensions in average room only small portion of energy is reflected back to the speaker. Speakers ( at lest voice-coil constructed ) have efficiency about 1% meaning that much electric energy is actually wasted during transformation into the air pressure. The efficiency is the same when converting air pressure into the electric energy.
The problem is that the speaker wire separates the speaker from the feedback loop.
That is why speakers sound better on cables with lower resistance.
Anyway, after twenty odd years playing with loud PA systems I doubt if I could tell the difference between a $7000 set of speaker leads and a bit 1.5mm^2 mains wire. Right on target. What is the point in using super-expensive super-fat cables if the power supply or internal wiring is done bad.
A cable is just a cable. Feeble cables sound feeble. If you want rich, full sound, use cable with more copper in it.
I am (not) an engineer, but I am an audiophile and I do make speakers and power amplifiers. I agree on most of Your post. However I have to add some tips to Your shopping list.
Avoid feeble cables. Good line-level cables have thick foam insulation around core wire and rich shielding. Balanced coaxial cables are better if they are connected as balanced. For line level cables and interconnection cables low capacitance is a must.
The connectors must be of same alloy, otherwise a corrosion might occur. Nickel plated is minimum, Silver is not an option for an audio, Gold plated and Gold-Cobalt alloy is an excellent choice, and there is Rhodium too at the extreme price.
Note. Some alloys are bitch to solder. Gold can poison soldering alloy making solder brittle. I would never recommend RoHS compliant soldering alloy for god plated components.
Speaker cables need to have low resistance. A good speaker cables have resistance less than 1/30 of the speakers they power. There is no such thing as low inductance speaker cable. Inductance is related to length, the longer the wire, more the inductance.
Some speaker cables have wires with more space between them. That makes them sound brighter.
The speaker connectors and terminals add some resistance, so the common way to compensate is to use the overkill cables. Speaker connectors and terminals must have excellent contact and low resistance. Overkill size is not needed. Low contact resistance is good enough.
Some materials tend to fuse over time if pressed hard enough ( like brass ) and can make excellent contact. Gold alloys are good for speaker connectors. Soldered connectors perform better.
Cables are just another part of audio system. There is no need in spending xxxx$ on pair of speaker cables.
I hate "romantic" articles on audio equipment. That is why I do not like reading audio reviews. Cables are something measurable and technically describable in great details. No hype is needed in audio.
Parent is right on thing or two.
Thicker cables sound better because most speaker crossovers are crap, and adding small resistance in series with crossover does weird things to the phase of sound.
Just about anything high-class audiophile stuff is controversial.
You are wrong on one thing. Music is, or at least had been made on superb studio-class equipment. It's a shame to listen it on low quality equipment including the bad cables.
Speaker cables need to have low resistance. This is needed to keep sound quality. A good cables have resistance less than 1/30 of the speakers they power. The connectors add some resistance, so the common way to compensate is to use the overkill cables. #12 is quite common and usable up to 5 meters for 8 ohm speakers, for 4 ohm thicker wire is needed.
There is the other way to compensate for the cable resistance and other problems. Negative feedback point can be moved away from the power amplifier output terminals to the speaker terminals. This however makes more problems, this time much worse from an audiophile view on subject.
Worse than that. Each wing is equipped with a long fork pointed forward. When this sucker hits some speed forks will start to vibrate violently... I can already see wings ripped off.
R2 is goner.
Worse than that.
Each wing is equipped with a fork pointed forward. When this sucker hits some speed forks will start to vibrate violently...
R2 is goner.
High power transmitter technology still relays on tubes.
This one http://home.comcast.net/~nwilson343/tubes/8974.html is 2 MW output power.
Speaking of fusion... this looks like pseudoscience too... http://jlnlabs.online.fr/cfr/html/cfrdatas.htm
I was referring to T2O which would be easy to inhale and will stay in body for a long time. That is why I was outraged by the idea of Tritium powered laptop battery.
It is commonly found as HT in nature in TRACES. That means in some ppm quantities. In laptop battery will be pressurized T2 gas ( am I missing something ) to maximize beta particle emitting.
I am simply worrying about container damage and leaking. With Li-Ion batteries it is simple, if they are empty, they can not explode. If they are overcharged or overloaded they explode.
These batterers are always full and hot and can burn if punctured and ignited. And it is the least worrying if they get ignited as soon as they are punctured, nothing violent will occur. But if leaking occurs in confined space, and ignition comes after high concentration of T2 is reached explosion might be dangerous maybe catastrophic in say high altitude flying airliner. And there will be no HTO vapour for sure.
In TFA nowhere is mentioned quantity of Tritium, battery chemistry ( if any ), type or construction or safety containment system. TFA lacks the data, as much as this technology lacks the showcase. Tritium has a half life of about 12 years. After about 500 years there will be (pulls out calculator) 2^-41.6% of the original material left, or about
Interesting decay chain indeed.
Does this means that PU-238 battery will work good a hundred years and kinda die away after some time to burst with power after long time and end melting into lead?
Tritium is gas, and in no way is similar to water. After say 500 years it will be mostly a deuterium. And it burns like Hydrogen does.
If tritium container cracks, and catches open flame, there will be a fire
there
It was joke regarding dead pixels on the LCD/TFT monitors
Unlike LCD/TFT technology OLED displays do not need to be made on glass with transparent power supply and control logic conductors, and therefore should be much more reliable. I do not expect dead pixels on OLED displays, but other problems might emerge.
WiFi and Bluetooth co-exist as cat and mouse do co-exist. They irritate each other until one of them gives up. That is usually the cat ( WiFi ). Bluetooth devices use the frequency hopping. They change the frequency to find the free channel. If they fail to find free part of the spectrum, they choose to work on the channel with less frequency usage. If that channel is used by someone nearby to access the internet or local wireless network then his connection fails because it is jammed by narrow band bluetooth device.
Some WiFi channels overlap the licensed amateur radio bands and ISM band http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISM_band. Here is the link to the amateur radio band frequencies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amateur_radio_high_bands
Next time the WiFi ( or WiMAX ) network fails think of some radio amateur who just finished his 10W transmitter and is testing it using the 15dB omnidirectional antenna.
True, but CCFL have 3000 hours lifetime max. Are You saying that blue OLEDs have less than 3000 hours of lifetime?
I have no idea if blue OLED are loosing brightnes over time ( like CCFLs are ) or they need to be active. OLEDs are too bright, and all that brightness is not needed. They can be adjusted after some time, and that should fix the problem.
Another solution is to pack the OLED displays with 2 blue segments for the each pixel, switch to the second group of blue segments when the first looses half of its brightness, and switch on both blue segments when the second group looses half of its brightness. That should triple the lifetime of an OLED screen.
When first LCDs hit the market, no one knew about CCFL lifetime, and I guess 3000 hours ( usually less than that ) was good, and there was "dead pixel" problem too. Soon after that people started buying new laptop every year, like it was fashionable thing to do.
I hope that OLED screens will not enforce alike trend.
defects are LCDs / TFTs unique feature.
Compared to CCFL backlight in LCDs or TFTs ... give me a brake...
I guess at least 100,000 times more than backlight CCFL.
... long distance and aviation can use hydrogen or electricity. Liquefied Hydrogen is very low in energy to volume ratio and it is inadequate for aviation as batteries are inadequate for their energy to mass ratio.I would go for the bio-diesel any time, but after the corn-ethanol fiasco, I guess that Hydrogen is the next madness for the masses
good point.
More details about Hydrogen vs Bio-disel here http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html
Well..
I did my winXP SP2 reinstall 3 years ago... Still works good without any updates ( automatic update and security shield services disabled )
It is plain obvious that some versions of windows do not need updates.
nah ... it is not worth to try ...
/. : U235 Lobbyists, Thorium Brotherhood, PS3 is weak trolling and solar power sucks rant.
All those PC trolls do not remember the ASUS Cheat drivers.
It was hit on Counter Strike mod for Half Life. Still is. Cheat star NEVER fades away.
--
We are burning the coal for the hundreds of years now. The radioactive particle pollution is the problem in the USA because USA does not want to lower it's energy consumption or substitute the "dirty" coal with alternative technologies or install better particle filters.
/. is the only place on the Internet where people claim that hydroelectric power is dirty tech, although I have to admit that it has a lot more influence on the environment than it is credited for. Similar goes for solar, an I must say that I fail to understand why are people so reluctant on covering unusable surfaces with PV solar panels or heat collectors / concentrators / mirrors.
The USA are probably the most suitable region in the world for the solar because of the sun abundance and the high-tech nature of the local industry. Here in Europe where I live people relay mostly on hydroelectric power, the coal is the last on the "wanted" energy list and the solar is the last alternative.
The bad thing about the nuclear waste ( the Uranium and alike ) is that it produces a lot radioisotopes that do not occur in nature in abundance, and have mid to long half-life.
The dilution will not help allot because this will require more dry storage space, a lot more containers, and will not take care of the radioactivity. As time goes on, more and more radioactive waste will have to be diluted, contained and stored.
Run a math for a 500 year period considering 50% of the USA energy needs on radioactive waste dilution and disposal and You will see exactly what I am talking about. The best Zirconium ceramic containers that we are making can last ~1500 years because the alpha radiation from the some type of waste is converting the ceramics into the glass which is water soluble and brittle. The dilution will not take care of the radioactivity, and if not done properly ( deep core waste disposal ) will get into the water cycle, rendering wast areas of the land radioactive wastelands.
If You refer to total dilution and releasing ( dispersing ) the radioactivity into the environment, that is another issue and I will not discuss on that matter as I find it absurd regarding the quantity and the radioactivity of the waste that needs to be diluted and dispersed.
Absurdly, the
One more thing: If we bury it deep enough, we can be confident that any civilization with the technology do dig it up would have necessarily developed the technology to recognize radioactivity. How deep is deep enough? Can anyone dig 10 kilometers deep hole and make it secure enough for next 10000 - 100000 years?
Why not instead just dump the waste in to the sea, it is deep enough.
Out of sight, out of mind is not a real solution to the problem.