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Japanese Audiophiles Install $10k Personal Electricity Utility Poles
- dozzie 10y agoOh yes, and cork straighteners of electrons in fiber optics so that photons can travel smoothly.
- ommunist 10y ago"Proton lubricator" for fiber optic wires, apply before encasing wire in redwood.
- Relys 10y agoFools and their money are easily parted... I'm no audio expert but isn't this what an digital-to-analog converter is used for in the audio industry? This just seems like overkill with extremely diminishing returns (if any).
- aftbit 10y agoNo. A digital to analog converter (DAC) is used to convert digital audio signals (e.g. on a CD or computer) to analog ones for driving amplifiers and speakers. You're perhaps thinking of a double-conversion UPS or power conditioner, which converts electricity to DC, filters it, charges a battery (in the case of a UPS), then converts it back to AC to power your devices.
- Relys 10y agoOk thanks for clarifying. I was thinking of a feature on a motherboard I recently purchased: "USB DAC-UP provides clean, noise-free power delivery to your Digital-to-Analog Converter. DACs can be sensitive to fluctuations in power from the other USB ports, which is why USB DAC-UP takes advantage of an isolated power source that minimizes potential fluctuations and ensures the best audio experience possible." I've also had to use a 5v step up converter to provide a filtered power source for the camera on my FPV drone I built. I can see why an Audiophile would want filtered voltage supply if they had money to burn I guess.
- nitrogen 10y agoYeah, the isolation in this Japanese case is similar in intent to the isolation your motherboard advertises, but on a much larger scale. It's the isolation that matters. Every mobo has a DAC if it has audio, but not every mobo has an isolated power supply for the DAC.
- cellularmitosis 10y agoRather than employing isolation, you could also use filtering. In the case of the article, $10k would buy you an unbelievably effective 60hz band-pass filter...
- superuser2 10y agoYou're laughing, but an arts building I worked in had a separate electrical system (color-coded outlets) for A/V equipment in its performance spaces. I'm hazy on the details, but professional systems integrators apparently do believe that some components are sensitive to noise in the electrical supply, and it is useful to separate them from the rest of the electrical devices in a large building. Google led me to a whitepaper [0] which indicates that the A/V power system's interesting characteristic was probably that its ground is bonded to building ground at exactly one point. Apparently in this design it's undesirable for an A/V system device to accidentally connect to the main building ground or actual "earth," which jives with my experience that a component accidentally plugged into a regular outlet created an unbearable hum in the audio signal (i.e. the grounds were substantially different). [0] http://www.surgex.com/pdf/PowerGround.pdf http://www.surgex.com/pdf/PowerGround.pdf
- DINKDINK 10y agoWhy not just use a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply)?
- LeoPanthera 10y agoEven a UPS is probably overkill. A Power Conditioner should be sufficient. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_conditioner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_conditioner
- mirimir 10y agoMy thought, exactly. With a dual-conversion UPS, I don't believe that there'll be any noise from the power grid.
- metaphor 10y agoAudiophile Mistake #1: Proposing a sensible solution to a problem which doesn't exist.
- matwood 10y agoLike wooden vs. plastic volume knobs? :) http://bobbyowsinski.blogspot.com/2012/05/485-volume-knob.html http://bobbyowsinski.blogspot.com/2012/05/485-volume-knob.ht...
- errantspark 10y agoThe dude is 82... I wonder what the frequency response curve of his ears is. -__-
- Cyph0n 10y agoMP3 compression is probably overkill in his case, but he wouldn't believe you.
- gwbas1c 10y agoWouldn't it make more sense to just modify his equipment to run off of a battery?
- honkhonkpants 10y agoIt probably draws a large current. Power consumption is a hallmark of high-end audio equipment.
- walrus01 10y agoBig ass -48vdc battery banks, float charge controllers and precision sine wave inverters are a solved problem. If it's good enough for a $235,000 Infinera DWDM platform...
- m_mueller 10y agoFloor space is severely limited in Japanese homes however. I'm not an expert but what you describe sounds large. Most have a little bit of space at least on one side of the house however due to Japanese building code, so your own pole might actually be more practical ;-).
- colechristensen 10y agoAll of that is also going to be expensive.
- walrus01 10y agoLike that ever stopped audiophiles and their $850 ceramic cable supports to hold up their $13,000 cables...
- cellularmitosis 10y agoThe funny thing is, all audio circuits run on DC power, thus necessitating the inclusion of an AC/DC converter in every piece of hifi equipment on the planet. So if you go to the trouble of setting up a battery bank, it would make sense (both financial and sound quality) to ditch the sine wave inverter and hack your equipment to accept DC directly. Take a look at this amplifier: http://www.allegrosound.com/Accuphase_P-400.jpg http://www.allegrosound.com/Accuphase_P-400.jpg Those giant round things and square things along the sides? Totally unnecessary if you already have a (DC) battery bank...
- thatfridayguy 10y agounrelated, but does anyone know how does a websearch of the article works around and displays the aticle on the wsj site while clicking on the link takes the user to the "subscribed aricle" page?
- strommen 10y agoMost likely is that WSJ checks the HTTP referer header to see if it's google.com.
- jasoncchild 10y agoLoving the commentary from folks obviously lacking experience or knowledge of electrical engineering and power systems!
- Cyph0n 10y agoWelcome to HN! Everyone knows everything here :)
- S_A_P 10y agoI have been to a house in Dallas that has a separate 110v utility pole to feed a system that costs 4x the house it resides in. The center piece is a set of focal grand Utopias em (160k retail) each fed by custom made 750w mono tube amps. He has a studer 8 track reel to reel and multiple technics sp-10 and sp-15 turntables with 2 arms each and multiple 5 figure hand made cartridges. This is a friend of my uncle. He has a record collection that DJ premier would envy. I spent 3 hours just listening to music on what was probably the best stereo I've ever heard and will ever hear. I don't know what was the halo effect and what was real but it sounded incredible. That said, the music is still the music. I am an amateur recording artist for about 20 years. I've had brushes with major releases and recorded in big studios. here is my point I think it's slightly ironic to see people spend so much money to listen to records that are sometimes recorded on awful gear or made to sound distorted on purpose.
- beachstartup 10y agoi hope he has an awesome non-destructive fire suppression system, especially being in texas (i would say the same thing about california). jeez.
- rdtsc 10y agoHalon fire suppression system for audiophiles. Now, there is a startup idea. There'd be nice big warnings around the perimeter about how "If lights are flashing, not a dance party, get out, halon is discharging"
- userbinator 10y agoBut what about all the wire coming from the power plant to his pole? Isn't the electricity there "dirty" too? I wonder if any of these audiophiles have ever considered their own private power plant.
- cellularmitosis 10y agoThat's all 60Hz AC coming from the power company, and the only thing connected to it are the step-down transformers en-route to your house. Not much there to generate noise. Try the following experiment: Go through your house and count how many "wall warts" you have plugged in. Two decades ago, 100% of those were simple, inefficient, low-noise, transformer+rectifier+caps AC/DC converters. Now? 100% of them are high-efficiency DC/DC switching power supplies. These power supplies create switching spikes -- a kind of noise which is extremely high frequency and has a nasty habit of propagating places you don't want them to go. The thinking which leads to having your own power pole installed is that some remnant of these spikes are propagating into your house from all of your neighbors. Having your own power pole installed is one way to address that, but I'd think that $10k would buy you one hell of a 60hz band-pass filter...
- anexprogrammer 10y agoThere was me thinking running a dedicated spur from consumer unit to hifi, when we rewired, was overkill. Did a very good job of isolating from random clicks/pops compared to being on the house ring though. Fails at being audiophile though, it cost about £20 at most, if you include the new sockets.
- Pyxl101 10y agoCould any electrical engineers comment on this story? How would you measure whether current is "dirty"? What quantifiable factors would you want to examine to figure out if this improvement is real or B/S? Is a personal transformer and electrical utility pole is likely to perform better than whatever typical solution one might employ for power conditioning, like a power supply? How would a personal transformer help with "dirty" electricity? (Does it prevent noise somehow from other devices on the same transformer?) It seems like there could be noise issues with currents that a transformer wouldn't help with though. For example, I had understood that some power plants vary their operating frequency slightly over the course of the day, perhaps dependent on the speed that flywheel or generator is turning. So the frequency of the AC current might very slightly change. A personal transformer wouldn't help with this, would it? If something as precise as our TVs and computer processors can run connected to a power supply to regular AC power, then it seems like stereo equipment should be able to too. Why doesn't a regular power supply compensate for this?
- viraptor 10y ago> How would you measure whether current is "dirty"? http://superuser.com/a/182004/11814 http://superuser.com/a/182004/11814 You can graph the voltage. If it's close to sine wave, it's "clean". If it's a mess, it's "dirty". In more precise terms, you can check how much power is in frequencies further away from the main one (50 / 60 Hz depending where you live). As for the difference in the audio output, it will be very different between different quality audio equipment. On the good side they may go as far as smoothing out the input power internally. On the opposite side, you've got cheap old vinyl players which output a constant 50Hz + harmonics buzz in the output, even with perfectly clean power supply.
- nitrogen 10y agoBetter than plotting the voltage is plotting the frequency spectrum (e.g. via FFT) of the voltage. If there are multiple spikes, the power is dirty.
- Johnythree 10y agoIf mains noise gets into an audio system, it's because of crappy (eg cheap) design. Any Audio designer should assume that the mains is very, very noisy. And if it does happen, a simple noise filter should fix it. Which would mean that the amplifier lacks even basic filtering. There are specs which the electrical supplier must comply with. If you complain of dirty power, the supplier will fit a pen recorder (or modern equivalent) for a week or so to check if it's true.
- ommunist 10y agoHmm. I suppose Russian portable nuclear power stations just got market among Japanese audio purists. What a brilliant opportunity.