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"The Heat Pipes are coming"... The Heat Pipes are

What is a Heat Pipe? and why you should care. A Heat Pipe( hp from hear on out)is a heat transfer mechanism that combines the principles of both thermal conductivity and phase transition to efficiently manage the transfer heat between two solid interfaces. And why should you in Audio-land care. In short the Heat Pipes (hp) transfers heat from audio equipment and audio listening rooms to make them both sound better. That's a bold statement for sure. But before you boil over and get ready to blast my post, remember there is Heat Pipe (hp) in the very computer or Laptop you are on right now. It's keeping everything in your computer cool inside so it can work as efficiently as possible. A hp contains no mechanical moving parts, and typically require no maintenance. The hp's are PASSIVE devices that are place on top of equipment and placed in your listening room. In short my dedicated listening room with sound reinforcement, diffusers, dedicated lines, and all kinds of isolation devices for my equipment. I Have never addressed the heat coming from my equipment. Since I have all solid state gear, I never thought it was necessary. But when I started putting the hp's on top of my amps near the transformer. There was a noticeable improvement. Then I did the same with my preamp near the power supply the same improvement. Then I put one on all 4 of my players, SACD,DVD-AUDIO,CD, CD 5-DISC players I was sold. The cherry on top was when I put the extra hp's around my listening room. IMPORTANT: I did not have to remove one piece of sound reinforcement when I introduce the hp's in the environment. They just make what's there work better. They look like Aluminum heat sinks with two copper tube coming out of them. I do have one that has 4 copper tubes in it, and looks to be all copper heat sinks included. I even have some that do not have any copper tubes at all , just all aluminium. The ones with the copper tube are better than the all aluminum ones everywhere I compared them at, which was everywhere. So let that Heat Pipe (hp) in your computer go to work and give me your feed back if you think like me that the "Heat Pipes are coming"... "The Heat Pipes are coming".
jejaudio
elizabeth
6,726 posts
 
No thanks. i just wondered what is going on here. Sort of a lets all cheer the new idea? I would guess.
My stuff is no problem on heat as is. Beyond understanding what the cheering is about, I am not too interested.
I would think folks who keep the system in a built in cabinet might be more interested.
gsself
46 posts
 
Jejaudio

Heat pipe are definitely not new. We employed heat pipes to cool high speed digital instrumentation back in the mid 1980s and we borrowed the technology from another application.

A heat pipe is a closed loop method of providing a *very* efficient transfer of heat. In our case a heat pipe was used to transfered heat generated away from pin electronics into a chill water system.

Physical contact is essential for optimum thermal transfer which means that a conductive paste and /or a mechanical connection is required to take advantage of heat pipe efficiency.

Having said all that, it doen't appear you are using the heat pipe for its thermal conductivity. Rather it appears that you are using it as some kind of Shakti hallograph soundfield optimizer.

What am I missing?

Greg
jejaudio OP
110 posts
 
Hi, Elizabeth. Your idea of people with there system in a built in cabinet makes alot of since. But all my gear is on open design racks (2). Both amp sit on (2) open amp stands. My all solid state gear get only moderately warm on the amps when cranked up. My point is you don't have to have Hot or Moderately Hot or very warm gear for the Heat Pipes to work. My dead cold preamp sounds better with the Heat Pipe on top of the power supply. Heat Pipes by design are super efficient at transferring heat. That includes even small amounts of heat off the surface of your equipment. Even gear that has heat-sinks and gear that does not. My purpose at posting my findings are to inform other about something out there that is already being used one way. But could be used another way to make your gear sound better. This could be put to the test by others. So Elizabeth: If there is to be any cheering going on. Let it be by those who are very doubtful of the Heat Pipes effectiveness, but try it anyway. If they reap the positive benefits of something they did not think would work , that would be worth cheering. I'm sure you would agree.
elizabeth
6,726 posts
 
Sorry, seems to be an answer for which there is no question.
For gear that is running class "A" and the user wants to get the heat out of the environment, or in a cabinet, maybe, but with NOTHING that shows it actually extends equipment life by a noticable proven margin, (And that is a cost effective thing at that, anyway) nor any audible benefit, i cannot see a reason to even bother with it. I do not want to rain on your parade, but just because something can be made, doesn't mean it is going to be a useful idea folks will pay for.
jejaudio OP
110 posts
 
Hi, Greg. I am of the belief that you don't have to have "optimum thermal transfer" for the passive Heat Pipes to work on top of audio gear. But on my power amps they actually work better with the base end with the conductive paste on top, with the fins touching the amp chassis. I'm no expert hear but my thought on this was that the Heat Pipes were working along with the heat-sinks to absorb the stray heat coming from the amps top chassis. Buy transferring the heat coming to the top of the amps. It aided in an already existing heat transfer system. BTW I had the Heat Pipes on my gear a week before I got the wild idea of trying them as some sort of sound optimizer. So if you made me chose the way the Heat Pipes work best. I would smile and say BOTH.
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