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The Oyaide is a bit too expensive for me.... but furutech has a carbon and brass cover and Acme has a really beautiful Ebony wood cover... then there's all the other various plastic, stainless, brass, etc.
Anyone played around with these? what are the sonic signatures (if any) or how do they affect the sound?
I'm especially interested in the Furutech carhbon and the Acme Ebony cover.
My outlet is a Teslaplex.
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Follow Ups:
The best ones are the cheapie plastic ones from Home Depot
I have thick carbon fiber laminate outlet covers as described by bartc. They help by absorbing energy from the electric fields in common-mode electrical noise. However, adding one of Alan Maher's filters to each outlet further reduced the noise in my setup. I also have two in my circuit breaker panel, and normal-mode parallel R-C filters on my lines.
The Infinity filters do not require electrical wiring. Simply attach them where needed with Nylon ties or tacky poster adhesive (like Blue Tak).
Ebony, of all the hardwoods I've tested with the knuckle-rap, is the least resonant. Too bad it is an endangered species, as larger pieces of it would make excellent audio furniture.
they have the infinity and a facebook special signature cbf. I sent him my system specifics and asked about how many I should start with and where I should put them.
Will report back!
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a signature on the main wire bundle, and infinities on the main breaker, circuit breaker and then possibly an infinity on an outlet.
Thoughts?
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I got my Signature filters after I had installed the Infinity versions in my breaker panel, so I don't know whether the Signature is better than the Infinity at the incoming wires or those going to the audio outlets. Trying one of each is the best approach.
You will need to decide whether you want to take the cover plate off the breaker panel to install the filters. It would be more realistic to replace the cover plate for evaluation than to leave it off. In my case there is a utility company seal on the part of the panel where the wires come in to the meter, so I put a filter instead across the wires that go into the main breakers.
I have one of each type of filter on top of my Wadia. Adding a Signature to the Infinity improved performance at this location. I've also installed Infinity filters on the satellite receiver/DVR and at the power filter box for that cluster of video gear. As bartc said, there are outlets where the filters make no discernible difference, so it is possible to go overboard with these things.
I believe these filters work well in conjunction with parallel (line-to-neutral) filters. I don't know how much effect they have by themselves.
Hi Al,
I don't see a "Signature filters" on the product list at the Alan's site... Is that a new product that we can expect?
Baki
,
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Alan is evaluating sonic results. Contact him for more information.
I have only the original 1, but some observations. When I moved mine around, the most profound effect was with the first one, and with that on the specific breaker whence my audio is fed.When we moved that one around Al's house, I liked the same position there, but he prefered either the main bundle or the audio room outlet.
So it's clear to me that those 3 places are the strongest impact.
We did find that one on the transformer (over the case) on his CDP gave a nice, but more subtle improvement. It works there on mine similarly.
So I can safely say that one is fantastic, those 4 spots are continued improvements. This was pretty much Alan's original advice, as I recall.
Al has many more all over the place, but we did find that every outlet was not effective in his home, so there are limits, less on the number than the specific location and its relation to EMI perhaps more than RFI.
It appears that Alan periodically announces a free extra deal on an order of 4 CBFs. If you can handle the cost of the 4 and wait for the deal, you get one extra then to play with as well. Not bad!
Edits: 02/24/10
...for $25. They took forever to respond to emails, wouldn't quote me a simple price, I couldn't figure out what shipping would cost, they ended up suggesting hundreds of dollars worth of products, and eventually I just stopped trying.Hukk
Edits: 02/19/10
The Maher's aren't always available immediately, but they do respond and are very responsible and reliable sellers, IME.
Meantime, if you're on Facebook, look up Alan Maher and see that he has some kind of special on the CBFs today.
I will report back on the sonic results.
I sent an email asking for an Infinity and within 30 minutes I had a reply and had paid in full. On a Saturday morning! Awesome.
Hukk
Although it is difficult to figure out how to place an order from their website, Alan and Jen have been helpful and have responded quickly to my orders.
I would love to try it.
-Hukk
Edits: 02/19/10
You would have to pry my cold, dead fingers off, etc.
Good to see that you tried again and got through.
I haven't tried the commercial ones, but have mocked up my own from various readily available materials. YOu can use the archives here on Tweaks to find a plethora of ideas and opininons.
FWIW, 3 items to consider in outlet covers, whether you buy them outright or make them:
1) non-magnetic materials - stay away from steel or ferrous stuff
2) vibration controls
3) RFI controls
You can successfully use: ceramics, metals that are not ferrous, wood, plastic, nylon, etc. They'll all work differently.
For vibration controls, heavier and duller materials work best IMHO. That means that if you tap the materials and they ring, it's not the best, but if they thunk, you're better off. The commercial biggies (Oyaide) use duralimin, a very vibe absorbent aluminum alloy that is thick. I've tried non-ferrous metals of the thin variety, and they do some grounding if set up right and maybe some shielding, but they are not good for controlling vibrations. Wood, ceramic, nylon work better. In fact, the best to test it I've found can be those non-ferrous heavy cast metal outdoor outlet covers. They have weight and will do whatever grounding/shielding closing the metal box gives you (assuming your box in the wall is metal - if not, then you get nothing there.)
For RFI control, nothing I've found beats carbon fiber. I might try the Furu with CF over brass, but I think it's too thin to be tremendously effective. I'm using CF aircraft blanks (thick)over the top of the outlet cover and a couple of CF layers glued onto the back of the cover too. Those work very well.
Lots to play with.
"For RFI control, nothing I've found beats carbon fiber."
Sounds reasonable. I'm curious how you are measuring it and what part of the spectrum you've found makes the most difference to your gear. I'm assuming that it's damping common-mode resonances, is that correct?
I'm interested in playing with it but have been concerned about the small size of the fibers causing the same lung damage that asbestos does. Do you machine it yourself?
Thanks, Rick
No, I haven't measured it. It's subjective.
I did try machining some thick pieces myself. Ended up with a faceful of fiber and figured out how stupid that really was! I can safely machine small sections with a Dremel now or a carbide tipped drill bit, but it's not really worth it.
YOu can get the sleeves, which you don't need to work at all to put around plugs or cabling.
You can also buy the woven sheets and laminate them yourself with resin. Another pain in the ass, but it works. I'd more or less cut it to shape before potting it. Better than machining finished product!
That sounds like a good, albeit messy idea. I'd rather have the mess than try and figure out the industrial hygiene I'd need in my garage to not wipe myself out. It's not quite the same thing as a solid block since the lams are probably effectively insulated from one another but the E-field is in the same plane as the sheets so it may not make any difference.
Did you happen to compare the subjective performance of CF plates and clamp-on ferrite beads?
Thanks for the feedback...
Rick
Don't use ferrites. Read up here as to why they are not favored for RFI control in audio. They can easily restrict dynamics and that's not what you want.
CF is effective. This is not earthshatteringly good, just better. It's a damping phenom. Read up on Al Sekela's posts for theory; I'm just the tinkerer....
OK thanks, I was just curious. I haven't encountered any problems using Z-beads but I understand others have, maybe it's all in how you use 'em. However when it comes to stopping RF they're pretty handy and even if you reckon that they have sonic side effects they might still be useful diagnostically to try and see if something that you are hearing is really likely to be a result of RFI.
Regards, Rick
Hi all ! long time lurker and 1st time posting here . Tweeking always interests me as depending on what your system needs will depend on your direction in tweeking . If you system lacks highs the last you want is to damp out the covers on anything in the system or have them sitting on rubber feet . After all the resonance of the system is an average of all the resonaces in it . The reason a system may have too much upper midrange is there is probably 2 or more things resonating at that frequency in the system . You can prove this by playing a familiar vocal track and then putting maybe a dozen cd cases on top of your cd drive , oops... lots of upper midrange and lower treble ! The part that always entertains me are the people that say "cables dont have a sound or racks cant have a sound" . Everything in the system contributes to the sound , figuring out how to smooth out the system is always the challenge . Btw....different kinds of woods is all I will use to tweek......let the non-believers begin !!
Source dried up. Bought a few to play with off eBay a few years ago. Then the source disappeared. Might be the same guy you're referring to.
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