Are high end power taps and cables a crock of bull?

[Edwards]

Edwards from Toukyo, here. Not many of us Japanese sluts I think.

So all the rage in Japan lately has been the use of high-end multi-outlet power taps and cables. Everyone seems to be using them. I see them popping up in studios everywhere, mostly made by Oyaide: OYAIDE ELEC,co,.ltd.

Their rational seems to be because they are made of OFC or PCOCCA with plugs made with Gold or Rhodium contacts, that they pass electricity faster and pairing certain cables with certain gear (mainly people are using them for computers and audio interfaces, sometimes preamps) that the performance is more stable and brings out different characteristics.

Even simply plugging in an Oyaide multitap into the wall then plugging computer, interface, and monitors into it has been said to produce increased center of sound picture and clarity. Everything seems centered on providing clean, stable power.

As I said EVERYONE here seems to be falling for this. Really respected musicians and engineers alike. Is this mass insanity or is something really happening here? There are many companies making high end power taps and cables, but the Oyaide products seem to be what has caught on.

I ask because my setup has reached the point where I want to invest in some power distributors or taps purely or convenience (outgrew my setup).

Should I jump in and try an Oyaide power multi-tap and cable?
Or should I get a Furman-style power distributor (Tascam makes a good model sold only in Japan). I'm not ready for a full-fledged conditioner, so don't suggest it please.

[Ethan Winer]

Originally Posted by Edwards

Is this mass insanity or is something really happening here?

Mostly mass insanity, because folks don't understand how short-term human hearing is. In a proper blind test, the perceived improvement from "power" products (and expensive speaker wires etc) is never confirmed. Look, if these products really did affect the audio, that improvement would be trivial to measure. But the snake oil vendors never have such proof.

--Ethan

[Subversounds]

That will only have an actual effect if you have ground issues or a bad electricity system. It is not really insanity, has some basis, but is not 'wow now i have another sound'. Electricity do alter sound, in a minor way. Have you messed with the power cable of your TV to fix the image? I know i did that tons of times. With the audio is just the same. It is usually a bad connection or plug. No U$300 dollar will fix if plugged to the same bad connector to a lame electric system. It dont need to be expensive or hype. Furman has lots of great power conditioners and power stabilizers from 100 to 300 dollars, if properly connect to the wall, your problem is fixed. Your $5 bucks cable will fit.

[James Lehmann]

Anyone who thinks they can bring something new to this tired debate should do a search and read all 18-pages of this classic Gearslutz thread (and a number of others like it) before posting yet again on the subject of AC Cables.

[Elk]

Oyaide products are hideously expensive in the states. Are they similarly expensive in Japan?

[larry b]

I take a simple business approach to it. When i spend big money i want to see big returns. Ridiculously expensive power cables and power equipment are a high expenditure with generally very small returns (if any at all) unless you have a specific power problem.

For example, i have an Equi=tech 1.5R balanced power transformer at my studio because it's a rented space in an existing building, and said building has several hundred florescent lights (on other circuits). The ballast boxes create reactive current that is generally all-pervasive on the entire electric service at the building. It shows up as 60 cycle hum in my control room, and the Equi=tech unit only attenuates it down to a workable level. It does not solve the problem 100%. It's a strip mall, and my studio is in a converted space above a Kids For Less. Haha. Rent is killer though, security is good, and i have 24 hour access. But...its a 50 year old building and the power sucks.

But thats a whole different story.

[ezjohn]

"Are high end power taps and cables a crock of bull?"

YES

[Sean240]

total crap.

Gold is supposedly justifiable where you want a connection that wont oxidize like copper will. Lots of elements/metals conduct electricity better than copper, but copper is the best compromise for cost/conductivity/strength/availability/malleability.

If a standard IEC cable cost $2 and lasted only one year before exhibiting some corrosion, and your $300 cable lasted your lifetime, wouldn't you still be better off tossing dodgy corroded IEC cables out and replacing them? (Unless you have another 151 years to live I guess)

As for hearing any difference... c'mon. Your electric utility company is hard pressed to keep their transmission voltage within 10% during any 24 hour day. As people move around a city (changing regional loads), turn on and off lights (time of day), electric heaters (seasonal) etc. etc. the phase reactance of those loads drastically changes the phase of the supply (inductive and capacitive reactance - i.e. the flow of current lags voltage or leads it). Transmission interruptions, brownouts, squirrels and wildlife shorting lines, rain fade... In summary - what comes out the wall is NOT stable in the first place. Unless you have a couple million $ and a big room to stage a bank of batteries and a Uninterruptable Power Supply with good regulation system - and a cooling plant to keep it operating.

In your audio equipment, the 110 ~ 220v ac supply is rectified back to dc anyway. Consumer and professional amps, pre's, effects, your computers - all run internally on dc. The internal ac/dc power supply is designed to tolerate variations in supply voltage (but is not so good at handling poor current regulation).

So, if your existing IEC power cord already has corrosion, broken, partially broken conductors, or any other form of high-resistance joint - you may be challenging your device's power supply to keep the 9/15/48v rails stable IF the fault is sufficient to impede current flow. You wouldn't be able to miss this - the sparks or the fire should obviate itself pretty quick... A new $2 cord will fix this nicely and you can take the other $298 and party.

[Edwards]

Originally Posted by Elk

Oyaide products are hideously expensive in the states. Are they similarly expensive in Japan?

Oyaide is ridiculously expensive here too. The cables start at about the equivalent of $200 a pop and go on up from there. The power tabs are about the same. However, Japanese are used to paying tons of money for silly stuff. -_-

I happily buy most of my stuff off eBay (US) and Yahoo (Japan) auctions.

[Edwards]

Originally Posted by Sean240

total crap.

Gold is supposedly justifiable where you want a connection that wont oxidize like copper will. Lots of elements/metals conduct electricity better than copper, but copper is the best compromise for cost/conductivity/strength/availability/malleability.

If a standard IEC cable cost $2 and lasted only one year before exhibiting some corrosion, and your $300 cable lasted your lifetime, wouldn't you still be better off tossing dodgy corroded IEC cables out and replacing them? (Unless you have another 151 years to live I guess)

As for hearing any difference... c'mon. Your electric utility company is hard pressed to keep their transmission voltage within 10% during any 24 hour day. As people move around a city (changing regional loads), turn on and off lights (time of day), electric heaters (seasonal) etc. etc. the phase reactance of those loads drastically changes the phase of the supply (inductive and capacitive reactance - i.e. the flow of current lags voltage or leads it). Transmission interruptions, brownouts, squirrels and wildlife shorting lines, rain fade... In summary - what comes out the wall is NOT stable in the first place. Unless you have a couple million $ and a big room to stage a bank of batteries and a Uninterruptable Power Supply with good regulation system - and a cooling plant to keep it operating.

In your audio equipment, the 110 ~ 220v ac supply is rectified back to dc anyway. Consumer and professional amps, pre's, effects, your computers - all run internally on dc. The internal ac/dc power supply is designed to tolerate variations in supply voltage (but is not so good at handling poor current regulation).

So, if your existing IEC power cord already has corrosion, broken, partially broken conductors, or any other form of high-resistance joint - you may be challenging your device's power supply to keep the 9/15/48v rails stable IF the fault is sufficient to impede current flow. You wouldn't be able to miss this - the sparks or the fire should obviate itself pretty quick... A new $2 cord will fix this nicely and you can take the other $298 and party.

Thanks to Ethan and Sean and everyone else who put the issue into perspective for me. Yeah, I was almost roped in by slick marketing... They were even giving me BS like since Japan only has 100V power, lowest voltage in the world, that it is the worst power supply to record audio with. WTF, ne? (On the other hand electricity is very stable. Never had a black/brown out my whole time living here.)

So it looks like I'll settle for a Tascam/TEAC power distributor, simply for the convenience of having everything on one cable.

[theblue1]

Originally Posted by Edwards

Edwards from Toukyo, here. Not many of us Japanese sluts I think.

So all the rage in Japan lately has been the use of high-end multi-outlet power taps and cables. Everyone seems to be using them. I see them popping up in studios everywhere, mostly made by Oyaide: OYAIDE ELEC,co,.ltd.

Their rational seems to be because they are made of OFC or PCOCCA with plugs made with Gold or Rhodium contacts, that they pass electricity faster and pairing certain cables with certain gear (mainly people are using them for computers and audio interfaces, sometimes preamps) that the performance is more stable and brings out different characteristics.

Even simply plugging in an Oyaide multitap into the wall then plugging computer, interface, and monitors into it has been said to produce increased center of sound picture and clarity. Everything seems centered on providing clean, stable power.

As I said EVERYONE here seems to be falling for this. Really respected musicians and engineers alike. Is this mass insanity or is something really happening here? There are many companies making high end power taps and cables, but the Oyaide products seem to be what has caught on.

I ask because my setup has reached the point where I want to invest in some power distributors or taps purely or convenience (outgrew my setup).

Should I jump in and try an Oyaide power multi-tap and cable?
Or should I get a Furman-style power distributor (Tascam makes a good model sold only in Japan). I'm not ready for a full-fledged conditioner, so don't suggest it please.

The audiophile victimization industry has got a lot of mileage out of the basic human trait of cognitive bias, which can lead people to incorrect interpretations of their own experience and presumed preference.

Behavioral scientists have found -- and recent brain scan studies have given sometimes dramatic support to the idea -- that humans allow a number of non-objective modes of thinking to color what they believe are uncolored perceptions. Humans want to believe in what they've previously believed. Uncertainty produces elevated anxiety in most people (backed by brain scan studies) and the human drive is to come to a conclusion, any conclusion -- and it is much more comforting if that conclusion is consistent with prior beliefs and belief frameworks.

IOW, most humans do not like their personal paradigms shifted.


Problems with the interference of personal belief and perceptual cognition pushed the scientists who specialize in the study of perception, beginning more than 100 years ago, to realize that simple blind testing was not enough.

In simple blind audio testing, the subject does not know what he's listening to, but the test giver does. Over and over, it was found that the test giver could contaminate the findings by giving subtle, typically unconscious cues about the source material. Eventually, the practice of double blind perceptual testing was established as absolutely necessary in much perceptual testing.

By keeping the test giver and taker in the dark over which of two sounds was which, more reliable, less biased results could be derived.

[Jim Williams]

Try them and report back your findings. Otherwise it's just more speculation.
One thing that I have learned is not to comment on the sonics of something I've never heard. Listen first, then comment. Not the other way around.

Jim Williams
Audio Upgrades

[TurboJets]

IMO as long as you have some kind of power conditioner you're helping yourself - Furman products are awesome.

Mogami cables work for me, yes I hear a difference between Mogami and lower-end cable assemblies from people like Hosa, ProCo, Rat Shack, etc. and Mogami/Canare/REDCO...seem to be good enough for some of the high-end studio's I've been in ($million +). Those same studio's though have invested in careful power supply chains feeding into the building during construction and also have high-end power conditioners feeding their racks.