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Cleanliness next to godliness? |
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RichW
Senior Member Joined: 21 Jan 2013 Location: UK Status: Offline Points: 1471 |
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I well remember the ruinous effect on my system's sound caused by a worn old 2 way mains
adaptor years ago & have had a thing about good clean connections since! I also remember the trouble we had at work with some production test equipment from solder plated card edge connectors & the cheap non-gold plated backplane connectors they plugged into. The equipment would frequently 'go down' with erratic measurements & the solution was usually just a reseat of a couple of cards in their edge connectors to 'clean' the connections. Edited by RichW - 10 Aug 2016 at 9:57am |
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Majestic/Enigma, Accession MM & MC.
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Richardl60
Senior Member Joined: 04 Nov 2014 Location: Yorkshire Status: Offline Points: 1468 |
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Installed the second parallel run of cable last night after a little bit of drilling to my brickwork to enlarge the hole through my wall. The socket proved a little tricky to screw the cables in (even though larger receptacles than normal) but got there. Subject to any other limitations the cable current capacity from my consumer unit to back of my wall socket should now be over 50A.
End result? First impressions on a couple of hours listening (Turn of a friendly card APP and Angel Clare art garfunkel) positive, mainly in soundstage and depth although generally seemed a little cleaner and easier sounding overall. Whilst installing got me thinking whether the basic external junction box I have is the best I can do? For those who do have a dedicated mains feed does anyone have any particular junction boxes they have used? Cheers |
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Richardl60
Senior Member Joined: 04 Nov 2014 Location: Yorkshire Status: Offline Points: 1468 |
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Hi managed to find a high current junction box and after drilling, cleaning and reconnecting finally completed the exercise box should be as moistureproof as I can reasonably make it.
From the rod clean, connection cleans, upgraded through the wall cable and now 60A connector block the overall sound has now kept forward considerably. Which change made biggest difference I wouldn't like to say but overall much bigger, tighter, more open and spacious sound with far bigger soundstage. Sounds very pure now (not in a cold way) with bass tighter, more controlled and seemingly drops down further when there is indeed ultra low bass. Job well done! |
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Richardl60
Senior Member Joined: 04 Nov 2014 Location: Yorkshire Status: Offline Points: 1468 |
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Now the winter appears to be starting to set in I have had another play but internally this time with my mains supply.
I have replaced/upgraded to a 100A connector block (and cleaned the cable ends) in a small distribution block near my consumer unit - brief listening suggested a little cleaner and more open sounding, but not huge. I then replaced my mains socket with a Furutech Gold socket, unusually fiddly to fit. This has been in place for around 22 hours now and sure will take a little longer to bed in fully but for the relative cost per improvement this does rank highly. The internal clamps I believe are substantial gold plated devices and the mains plug is a very tight fit - providing very good contact, not that it will be coming out anytime soon. Differences are relatively different to a lot of other installation, cable and hardware changes. A good deal of extra openness, delicacy and ease to the sound has arrived, with further fine detail. Sound has moved further out of the speakers with greater naturalness and solidity/focus. On a number of well known tracks (CD at present only), there have been quite a few with changes of tempo/speed within bass lines I have never noticed before. On the first one it sounded initially like a bit of wow from an old turntable but became apparent this was the performance rather than a flaw. Other than maybe taming an upper vocal area forwardness there has been minimal change in balance so far nor has there been any significant change in the bass tightness, punch or attack which I had perhaps anticipated. I suspect that the benefits are enhanced by removing other weaker links in the mains chain and will not simply reflect a simple socket change. It does sound increasingly like vinyl which is great and the subjective noise floor does appear lower too as with good vinyl. Very enjoyable and difficult to switch off! I have also plugged in an upgraded DC mains lead to my Accession so once that cable has burned in in 2-3 weeks I will have a switch back to some serious vinyl listening. |
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Suggs
Moderator Group Joined: 07 Oct 2011 Location: France Status: Offline Points: 513 |
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All very interesting stuff, It's incredible that changing something such as a mains socket, plug or cable can change the sound to any noticable degree, well done Richard
Out of interest what upgraded DC cable are you trying now to power the Accession? It will be very interesting to see what you think of that change when you have evaluated it |
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Derek
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Richardl60
Senior Member Joined: 04 Nov 2014 Location: Yorkshire Status: Offline Points: 1468 |
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The DC is custom built, it is using an Oyaide gold DC plug and pure Silver cabling. Won't be trying for a couple to three weeks to allow for burn in- I have noticed significant changes over long periods in the past. There may be no differences but won't know until tried.
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Richardl60
Senior Member Joined: 04 Nov 2014 Location: Yorkshire Status: Offline Points: 1468 |
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Ps where I started this thread I am sure that cleaning/new contacts are also a very good starting point and sure will contribute here also when terminations are cleaned.
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