Product suggestion
Printed From: Graham Slee Hifi System Components
Category: And the rest
Forum Name: Power Sources
Forum Description: Where the power comes from has always been a hot topic - even more so now with new World legislation
URL: https://www.hifisystemcomponents.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=67
Printed Date: 27 Mar 2026 at 1:54am
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 12.01 - http://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: Product suggestion
Posted By: tg [RIP]
Subject: Product suggestion
Date Posted: 26 Feb 2008 at 10:56am
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Might be a little late all things given. But, what, to me, would be a good thing, (and perhaps not too hard to implement) would be a double PSU-1, capable of feeding a Reflex/Exp combination or a Phono stage/Solo combination. The two PSU-1 internals to be fitted in a nice alloy case matching the other units and with an IEC socket input. Also, given the comments elsewhere re RFI - would it be worth while using a shielded cable for the power connection between the supply and phono stage? Seems Trichord Research think so with their fancy (and exxy - gulp) connector for their upgrade PSU. Just a thought. |
Replies:
Posted By: Graham Slee
Date Posted: 26 Feb 2008 at 2:50pm
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Great! Shield the low impedance DC cable but use unshielded on the audio! OK then, we did that and proved it didn't stop RFI. Does Trichord somehow sound better then?  ------------- That none should be able to park up and enjoy the view without a smartphone and the knowledge in how to use apps |
Posted By: Graham Slee
Date Posted: 26 Feb 2008 at 2:53pm
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Just wanted to say I wasn't being nasty in the reply above although it may look that way. The trouble with doing a dual PSU1 is not actually making it but the 10,000 GBP it would cost in having it approved, without which it could not be sold in some countries. Mind you, some manufacturers get away with it... ------------- That none should be able to park up and enjoy the view without a smartphone and the knowledge in how to use apps |
Posted By: tg [RIP]
Date Posted: 26 Feb 2008 at 9:05pm
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It would be easy to take your initial response as rather dismissive and unfriendly. I take you to be saying that shielding of the power cable has been tried and found to be of no benefit WRT RFI interference. see PS It was my intention merely to enquire whether this might be beneficial. I am only guessing that the cable mentioned is shielded, it would have to be something special at the price being asked. I do not have the money or the interest to buy one and see if it sounds better and they will not be sending me a review sample I am sure. The enormous overhead of the bribes necessary to obtain approval was the stumbling block that eluded me. Oh well, it seemed like a good idea at the time. PS - I have now read in another post that you have definitely tried various shielding methods on the DC line with no appreciable effect WRT RFI interference. Thank you for clearing that up. |
Posted By: Graham Slee
Date Posted: 27 Feb 2008 at 10:41am
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TG, I am grateful for your suggestion. It is a very good suggestion and if I were to be allowed to make it without having to spend more than it could make in profit over the next five years I would. My response isn't aimed at you or any of my customers, but is aimed at those that make some of us do things by the book while they allow others to do anything they want. I am talking about the great divide between the haves and have nots - those who have made it big to such a degree that their distributors are willing to risk their businesses to sell more of the stuff, compared to those who are still rather small (like us) who's distributors flatly refuse to break their countries respective safety laws for a smaller profit. Money is used throughout the world as an incentive to do illegal or unlawful things, or put another way - if the stakes are high then it's considered a good risk to break the law. For example - Canada: It is illegal in Canada to sell any mains powered item that does not carry a CSA or Canadian UL approval. Such an approval costs western manufacturers in the region of 10,000 GBP, but is surprisingly cheap for far eastern manufacturers to obtain. However, their is another cost involved which is the cost of designing the item and by that I mean designing it to fit the law. It is relatively easy to design most things, but to comply with the law they must be designed to a particular standard... The PSU1 had to be redesigned to CSA (IEC) 60950 to be able to sell legally in Canada, back in 2003. That involved buying the standard at over 200 GBP, and then reading the near-on 400 pages. Each part of it had to be redesigned to comply. For example, the plastic case, although it had always been flame retardant failed the temperature test, and under an extraordinary "one in a million" situation of the transformer being slightly overloaded causing the fuse to blow only after the transformer had reached a very high temperature after a number of hours, would have caused the case to soften to such a degree and have become hot enough to have caused severe pain to anyone picking it up in that condition. Yes, that is just one of the many tests it had to pass to obtain certification which meant designing a platform having the right temperature stability to spread the heat load away from the case bottom. If you take one apart it is simply a piece of glass fiber laminate that looks as if it serves no purpose at all. Another example is the circular surround under the input socket that looks a bit drab or naff but was required because there was no other way of getting round the mains cable pull-out test. We did wire it with a high quality power cord, but in the confines of the internal positioning of the transformer could not provide the necessary cable retention the standard requires. The only solution was to use a mains connector instead and use an accessory mains cord (the one olli_1963 calls a joke elsewhere on this community - he should try designing to 60950...), but that left a gaping hole where the mains cable used to enter, and that hole was part of the moulding, and to have a new mould done would cost about 100,000 GBP today (no it's not a joke!). Therefore I had to design a cover that looked half decent that also met the standard for temperature. And so we now move on to the "joke" called the mains cord. Because there simply isn't the room for a 3 pin IEC connector, plus fitting one would have meant the unit failed because various countries rules stipulate you cannot use a three wire connector on a two wire double insulated class 2 product, we could only fit the figure eight connector. It is impossible (you may know different) to get a rewireable figure eight, so we have to supply it with a stock moulded cord. Now there are products from supported manufacturers, and by supported I mean those that receive endless press praise and praise from the forums, that don't meet such standards, but because of the grease called money - like I said above - get stocked by the masses in large quantities regardless of the law. For example - The Tom Evans Microgroove phono stage uses/used a power supply in exactly the same moulding as the PSU1, but carried a larger transformer and a direct wired mains cord. Evaluating it against the standard (60950) it would fail on all counts. Now on to the "bell wire". Now, people will spend over a thousand GBP on bell wire dressed up to look like rocket science, and believe all the bullcrap, but when we do an honest thing and leave it as it is, and sell it as part of a reasonably priced product, some call it a joke! It is not an interconnect. It is a DC supply cord. Can it pick up RFI? Not normally, in fact very seldom. To be precise it would be one in ten thousand and that's based on facts gathered over the last 9 years of manufacturing our products. It would have to be very close to a powerful transmitter. It's source is a very low impedance voltage regulator and two capacitors (one electrolytic - one film foil). To any frequency above a few hertz it is a dead-short, and if you shorted an interconnect no signal could appear across it, and that includes RFI. But some people still insist it can pick up RFI. The very same people will believe Nordost's claims that an unshielded cable works as an arm cable when using moving coil and rush out and buy one! The fact is that a moving coil cartridges impedance rises with frequency so is an open circuit at RF! But Nordost and the likes are always right and I'm always wrong? I set up this community to be supportive of our customers and by support I mean sharing engineering truth with them. Unfortunately I can see it is failing because most people, and tg, I don't mean you, have been brainwashed by pretend science. I can tell this is the case because I have to write an essay to explain myself whereas those that deal in pretend science just spin a brief load of garbage that makes my life's work look a load of tosh, and hence, although my products deliver such a fantastic musical experience in their words, it is done using techniques that are a joke? Edit: Perhaps, as one dear friend suggested only the other night, I should tell lies, because, to use his reasoning regarding the hi-fi industry, people believe lies and lies make money. ------------- That none should be able to park up and enjoy the view without a smartphone and the knowledge in how to use apps |
Posted By: tg [RIP]
Date Posted: 27 Feb 2008 at 11:46am
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Graham, I am inclined to verbal shorthand at times, by your initial response I did mean the first post in reply to mine. Not the sum of that and the enlargement you posted shortly thereafter, which more than adequately outlined the main difficulty, at least for me. Having had more experience of bureaucracy than I would wish either to repeat or even to have visited upon those I most dislike; I am more than sympathetic to the various issues you face in that area, the more so in that, for one selling internationally, the issues are severely compounded. For me, such a lengthy and detailed reply was not necessary, but much appreciated in that it has brought forth much additional information. I do feel that I now have a better understanding of the RFI issue than previously and will likely try the chokes on the speaker cables that you mention elsewhere. As to your friends observation, I rather think it should not be confined to the hi-fi industry, as for you telling porkies, I do not think you would be very good at it (even if you could live with them, which I doubt) - maybe hire what Billy Joel called a "real estate novelist" if you feel the need of a "spin doctor". regards, Tony G |
Posted By: Graham Slee
Date Posted: 27 Feb 2008 at 12:14pm
Thanks for your understanding Tony  I do find that the vast majority of our customers are well informed like your good self, and wish to reassure you that my ramblings are aimed at (hopefully) a wider audience, in a bid to enlighten them regarding some of the untruths being bandied about. I would like to encourage and make members here feel confident that by making suggestions they will not be "shot down in flames" as it can be elsewhere. And if it felt like I was doing that to you in any way, please forgive me. And if it could be properly identified that any of our products or parts thereof do actually cause a real problem, then it would be foolish of me to ignore it. I do take all comments on-board and they do get acted upon or researched further, and even though today's science says what it does about things like the DC cord, new (real) discoveries are being made all the time and any new findings will be explored. ------------- That none should be able to park up and enjoy the view without a smartphone and the knowledge in how to use apps |
Posted By: dvv
Date Posted: 24 Mar 2008 at 5:49pm
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Oh Graham, laddie, where have you been hibernating all these years?
In this world, and in practical, user-friendly terms, there is no more scienece and/or engineering. It has been decided to turn everything over to marketing spinners, and it's been that way for at least 15 years and probably longer.
A small, first hand experience. A well known British company, manufacturing power "conditioners" (in at least 99% of all cases I have encountered, these were what we once used to call filters, but now - they are "conditioners"), and thus a competitor to me, decided Serbia could be a market for them. So, they set up shop with a local guy whom I have known for the last 20 years or so, and decide to organize some presentations. So far, all quite normal and usual.
The man is a truly outstanding salesman, my hat off to him - he's smooth, literate but above all, he knows how to captivate an audience.
So he shows people a lovely slide show, backs it up with several sweeping comments, all of this takes 20-25 minutes, then he answers questions from the public.
I fight my own battle, and decide not to go public, rather I nab him after he's done and offer him a drink. Then I ask - can you tell me what your filtering, or suppression curve is like? Eh, says he? Well, where does your filter being to work, where is its cut-off point of -3 dB? He looks at me like I'm inquring about the Queen's sex life, or some such. All right, says I, what do you tell people, where does it filter, how does it "condition" the incoming power from the grid? Ah, says he, that's simple, you see, it has a high input impedance and a low output impedance, plus the wiring inside is by Nordost, we do a lot of research with them, blah, blah, blah, names get thrown across the floor, the audience is duly impressed.
After half an hour, I never learnt where the cut-off point of the filter was. Quite obviously, he didn't know. The most basic of all possible questions after: "What is this, anyway?" - and he doesn't know.
That was 9 days ago, not 50 years ago.
With this sort of thing going on world-wide, OF COURSE you have to write diatribes of basic engineering truths to TRY to get things off on the right foot.
Where you err is in HOW you do it. Many years ago, I turned the tables on them - when I hear something like "superior sound through technology", I just say: "Really? Please explain". I get the usual sales talk. I sith through it, then ask: "This novel topology, please explain in some more detail." Stunned silence. Perhaps choke and gurgle a bit. Then I say: "Please give a bit more detail on your power supplies. You say they can cover loads down to 2 Ohms, yet you use twin 15,000 uF caps for the whole amp. Simple math shows that's good for around 45 Joules of energy, or 27 Joules per channel, and THAT'S good for only 270W into 2 Ohms - and that only if it's an exceptionally clean load." Deathly silence. Very rarely, a brave one asks where you get your info from? "You really should look over ON Semiconductor/Motorola site, you know, they have some oustanging IEEE and SAE published paper reprints there." That's the clincher.
I honestly don't mind sales talk, but I will not be trated like a moron without responding. ------------- True audio lives on the fringes of the industry. |
Posted By: Charley Phogg
Date Posted: 27 Mar 2008 at 7:38am
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Graham, your fighting a tough battle, as you basically say, for instance, I know how hard it is to get CSA,UlL, etc. approval. And that's just a small portion of it. I never knew it was that much. it's easy to tell that you are a man of your convictions. All I can and is don't give up the good fight man. Keep plugging away. You let your product speak for itself, and that is exactly how I;d do it, and i'd say screw everyonel else, jusy like you. Being on the outside looking in, after knowing what you put into your desings and whatnot, maybe you should sacrifice some of that to develop a following. To get your product out there. I can empathize that it would be hard for you. I've gave up so much in my life because it was so important to me to do what I felt was the right thing, and I always screwed myself. Trust me, I'm not comparing your life to mine, just trying to give you some food ofr thought. It has to be tough selling a top of the lind product without anything leading up to it. I'm running my Solo directly out of my souncard on my pc, and I wonder evey day what dac could improve this sound.Sure, I know it would, but at what expense? I'm sure you have heard plenty of this before, but it seems that you need some introductory lines, and then fill in the gaps to get your signature out there. You get people woeking they're way up your product line, tou'll have it made. I know, easier said then done. You have a sweet product, capitalize om it Now if you;ll excuse me while I go get some serouis mind bloeing experiences from my Solo  |