I think most trains run on 600 or 1200 volts, not 7 (making popping sound with pinky in mouth) Billion volts.
I can see the next rage in high-end audiophile silliness would be to get the 9600 volt feed common in the US to go into your house, then have them sell you an Oxygen Free silver plated transformer, with cryogenic oil fill . . .
Topic is and always will be contentious. Nothing of it has ever been useful.
Didnāt they think (most of the world) was flat. Turned out it wasnāt.
Scientists continue to discover many things are not what they appeared to be.
The only thing I hope for is I always stay open to learn more of what I donāt know.
In over 55 years of the wonderful world of audio, I never thought I would have experienced these many changes since the transistor radio
Enough of my philosophical soap box. Happy listening to ever how you want to.
Eric Burdon . āItās my lifeā
But baby (baby)
Remember (remember)
Itās my Ears and Iāll do what I want
Itās my Gear and Iāll do what I want"
A word play of my thoughts on the subject.
Binaural is cool, but suffers from proportion/volume issues - the mics seem to pick up more little stuff than real ears. This was an issue in the early stereo films too. The solution was a center channel speaker and less emphasis on the sides.
Listening with your third ear? Sounds like material for a nice sci-fi flick. 
The third earāaka the acoustic properties of the immediate environmentāwas the grain of truth behind the Bose direct-reflecting technology. Lots of mid 1950s movies had sharp left-right zap-zap transitions. I saw them years ago on the AMC or TCM cable channels.
Seriously? Power cable burn-in is a thing? Doing this requires $179?!?!?
āThe Third Ear, that does sound an "Outer Limitsā show.
Iām not sure what this says about the Tuba, then.
That was my thought exactly.
Tuba seems to get praise but I have to wonder about anything from a guy who
makes cable burn in products.
I posted to this gimmick thread because I found the power line burner when shopping for the Tuba. Now I donāt want to have anything to do with the brand.
Hopefully Iāll be able to add something based on listening experience to this discussion fairly soon, although Iām not going to buy that burner.
Iāve always used the free power cable that came with my equipment. However I recently ordered a custom power cable from Cullen Cable that has a right angle adapter for my Pendant, and thought what the hell, letās replace the stock cables on my Bifrost2 and Lyr 3 too. The Pendant cable has an aesthetic purpose (no cables sticking up at the back), nothing to do with sound quality, but the other 2 were bought out of curiosity, to see if I could tell the difference. If I canāt tell the difference, or as long as they donāt somehow sound worse, Iām not really that bothered about the potential waste of money because worst case, they look nice, so they will also go into the āaesthetic purchaseā category.
Patrick Cullen, the owner, said that not only should the cables sound different from stock, but the sound should change over time as the cables burn in. An interesting concept that I donāt understand, but Iāll try to test, although Iām not going to do extensive A-B testing because I really canāt be bothered to turn the equipment on and off every 5 minutes to change power cables. Iām hoping that there is no placebo effect in my listening, based on the fact that I could care less if the power cables make my equipment sound better.
Iāve thought about this and decided itās not possible, for me at least, to take bias/expectations out of the equation.
I recently bought spare tubes for my Drop CTH. It was not for tube rolling or to get better sound, simply to have spares on hand. I bought the same brand as the stock tube.
When shopping I noticed there was a gold version of the tube so I bought one also.
I donāt have expectations on whether the gold will sound better/different - but - my brain is still rooting for it to be better. Itās the gold version after all!
I donāt think itās possible for me to be objective about it. So yeah, the gold sounds better.
A happy $25 spent for a tube I needed anyway. Kind of a win-win.
This is known as corrosion. Itāll take approximately 1,000 years in a dry environment, perhaps 50 years in a wet environment, and 1 year in a salt water environment. The sound changes the most just before the cable stops working.
Iāve been playing with tubes for two amps, and found that the mechanical design/mass inside does have a notable impact. In my testing more mass = deeper tone, less mass = brighter tone. The usage history of the tube matters too, as heavily used/worn tubes are looser and have less high-end.
AFAIK the gold is there to prevent corrosion ā with a newer tube it may not have any impact. With a recently cleaned set of standard pins it may not differ. Please report back.
According to VivaTubes.com:
This is the same tube as the standard Electro-Harmonix 6922 with a few differences. The pins are plated with gold to prevent corrosion and to protect the pins (they also fit more snugly into the socket). Electro-Harmonix selects their best tubes for their āGoldā line.
Could mean nothing, could mean they test for tolerances, etc.
Iāll report back if I notice changes in the future.
Mhmm I clean the contact pins on my older NOS tubes every like 3-4 months and mostly it helps them retain clarity, when they get dirty the sound getās a slight bit of haze or softness
An I usually clean the pins on my New Stock tubes but it never makes a difference and usually thereās little to nothing removed when I clean the pins anyways
Agreed, I came to that conclusion too, or at least thatās my working hypothesis, until proved otherwise.
Related to that, I was just reading this review of power outlets and not only is the reviewer making claims for huge increases in sound quality, but he claims that some of the outlets need massive amounts of time to burn in. Assuming heās correct that the sound has changed, I was thinking the only logical reason was that the manufacturer had added a layer of pixie dust that was distorting the current, and it took time for the pixie dust to burn off, eventually returning you to the clean power of a regular power outlet.
So Iām labeling audiophile power outlets as gimmicks for now, and thankfully Iām saved from my own curiosity because the majority of these outlets are 20A and I only have 15A in my house.
Youāre right, even though Iām trying to convince myself that I can be neutral, I will admit Iām secretly hoping that it sounds better, since I donāt like wasting money. But I do have a rule that I wouldnāt tell someone else there is a difference unless there is a big difference that I can replicate multiple times. If the difference is small and perhaps imaginary, Iāll just tell myself that itās better.
Along those lines, I was debating about whether to post about USB cables in the Cable Recommendations thread or here, tossed a coin and posted it there.
I was curious about whether all USB cables sound the same, found one cable that sounds different to the one I had, initially wasnāt sure if I liked the differences, eventually decided I liked the cable. I donāt understand the science enough to know if the new cable is actually better from an engineering or electronics perspective, but I can definitively say that it sounds different. So not a gimmick, as far as Iām concerned.
This issue has always struck me with usb cables. Being a computer guy, I know data successfully gets from one place to another all day every every day all over the planet.
Why is usb digital audio such a primadonna that data canāt make it safely across 3 feet?
Iāve tried to research it a few times but seemed to require several engineering degrees to unravel the truth. Maybe someone has distilled the essence of the problem.