Dielectric?


I was listening to Bill Frissell "Nashville" last night. This disk has some of Nashville's best studio musicians working with Bill on a fantastically well recorded session. In the second cut there is the tinniest of cymbal, just shimmering in mid air. I'd never heard it shimmer before. As I continued listening I became aware that my system was pure magic and I took full advantage of the opportunity by playing some of my favorites." WOW, this is amazing" I said to myself with a huge Cheshire cat grin. As I was listening I noticed one of my vacuum cleaner hose speaker cables was hanging down while the other was bent slightly up. "This imperfection must go" so down on the floor working the two cables so that they align. ( I know it's sad, but I'm a perfectionist, I've tried to control it, but...) I'm talking maybe one inch or so, the effect on the coppers molecular structure is small, but I've now taken my closed hand and run it over the majority of length in each cable.
The cables looked good so back to my music. "Where is the magic?" I'd killed it completely, the presentation was flat, the shimmer gone. Oh all the information seemed in place, just no life!
My conclusion, the dielectric had over time created a field beyond the confines of the cable housing and I had discharged it, taking away the added benefit of the extended field. My cables are fully suspended so there is nothing within an inch and a half that can effect the extended dielectric. My amps stay on all the time which would retain the charge in the field even when the system is off.
Does this make sense? It's an easy experiment maybe some of you can try it to see if you have a similar result. I'm feeling like the casing of our cables has more to due with the performance than any of the other factors. The dielectric materials used have the ability to retain a potential charge that can be drawn on during high current demands, the cables dielectric in effect is doing the same job the capacitor dielectric is doing only with less efficiency. Plus some materials benefit in the shielding from other wave energy. Is this "the" factor in our power cord and cable discussions that were not giving the proper attention to.
Should we be discussing what materials best retain a charge and best shield wave forces. My reference to wave forces are of course RF, EMI but I've been thinking, there are far more than just that, there is Microwave, Ex-ray, Grama-ray, all emitted daily from the sun. Solar flares and the intense cosmic radiation have been tied to radio fades and power grid failures, I thing there is a lot to discuss here.
I realize I've exposed myself to great ridicule, but I'm far more interested in what I think I'm learning than playing a fool. Thanks for your thoughts, J.D.
128x128jadem6
Great post Al, and welcome. You are correct that all I did was to rub my hand over maybe 50% of the length of the cables. I have two cables, but only for bi-amping so two wires are in each cable. I wanted to share my experience because it's simple to test by others on their own systems. I was hoping to hear if others would experience the same thing. If so it might be interesting to figure out what was happening and see if it was a measurable issue. I will write you soon, maybe the three of us can work on some of these experiments together in that it appears we both are talking with Sq off site.
Thanks again for the post and welcome! J.D.
Just got back from a hectic weekend, and it's great to see all of these interesting ideas. Unfortunately my TV seems to have blown up, so I'll have to think about this some more later. Al, I don't think the change in sound I experienced was a shift in harshness, but I can see that it is possible. I haven't touched a thing since reinserting my interconnect, and the sound has been consistant, a nice balance between a cohesive soundstage and detail.
I read Jadem's post (though haven't gotten to the others). He describes why systems that supposedly burn your cables in before hand are of little use; particularly in mail order, where after going through the burn-in machine are then coiled up, shipped via freight where they are subject to much vibration as well as downtime factor, uncoiled during unpackaging, and then routed into the system.

All this movement blows off virtually all the good a pre-burn in does. The systems can be of some benefit when taken off the machine and soon installed in the system with as little movement as possible; but the only way to really burn in your cables is to install them in your system, route them in a way you are happy with, then leave them alone to cook without any movement.

Time unplayed is also a factor. The more consistantly the cables are played, the faster the burn in occurs; so it's not simply a matter of how many hours you rack up. George Cardas also states that after about two weeks of non being played, most of the burn in effect is reverted close to original condition. He also recommends about 15 minutes of warm up time before each critical listening.

Jeff Delman
Value Audio