Hifi sounds better in Europe?

Tony_J

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They lost me at no fuse in a plug .. if you have a new consumer box with RCDs (or use an rcd device) at your risk you can try a large bolt to fill the fuse holder.

You will need at least three, one copper, one silver and one gold and then let your ears decide which is the best sounding. If something shorts on the house circuit or there is a massive electrical surge perhaps you can pray that your amp has fuse protection built in (lots do). This means for the experiment to be meaningful all internal fuses in the equipment need to be hard wired too (again three types of wire; copper, silver and gold).

If you do not have an RCD fuse box of course the limitations are still there with the fuse wire in the distribution box. If you do have RCDs perhaps the suppliers will then start making them with precious metals (as that is bound to make them sound better according to the proponents of gold and silver wires and fuses)

Or if you remain in your senses you will leave well alone and stay safe and not worry that a fuse might be having any detrimental affect on the amplifier or other pieces of electrical equipment ..

Perhaps Wammers who have changed from a fuse box to an RCD one can report on changes to sound quality by taking one fuse out of the chain (it made bugger all difference to my system).

I must be getting very old to have even read the original posting let alone comment on it
Interesting recent experience of one difference between an old-style fuse box and a new RCD-based consumer unit.

When our consortium bought the pub 5 miles from here, we had a rubbish BT broadband connection and no WiFi coverage to speak of, so as a temporary measure while we figured out how to wire it up properly, I installed a couple of TP-Link powerline kits and we replaced BT with Starlink. All worker just fine for a few months, despite the fact that the powerline devices were connected to at least two, possibly 3, separate ring mains. Then we had the main old-style fuse box ripped out and replaced with one fitted with RCBOs - individual breakers, each with its own residual current trip, for each circuit. Immediately the reliability of the powerline kit went through the floor, sometimes working at low speeds, sometimes failing if particular appliances such as the washing machine were running at the time. As all of our point of sale kit relies on the powerline kit to provide a data connection, the only solution was to install a proper hard wired Ethernet backbone net with WiFi access points.

Nothing to do with SQ of course, but could be of interest to anyone planning to use powerline kit to avoid having to lay Ethernet cables - if you have a modern consumer unit and you need the powerline kit to span multiple circuits it may give you problems.
 
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dave

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They lost me at no fuse in a plug .. if you have a new consumer box with RCDs (or use an rcd device) at your risk you can try a large bolt to fill the fuse holder.
Snip from a longer tongue in cheek post, but an RCD -residual current device is not a fuse alternative, and won't stop things catching fire, just to be clear :)
 
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JohnyT

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Snip from a longer tongue in cheek post, but an RCD -residual current device is not a fuse alternative, and won't stop things catching fire, just to be clear :)
A fuse wont necessarily stop things catching fire too though. I have seen a couple charred cables plus a good number chewed by animals. All still had their fuses intact
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In the last 25 years working with radio, satellite and computers plus my old ham radio hobby and now hifi I really cant think of a time when we needed to change a fuse. Faults, overheating and all other manor of mishaps, some other mechanism has usually kicked in or fizzled out.

Any way referring back to my OP and some of the responses. Have we concluded that the mains in Europe is not giving them an unfair advantage regarding sound quality and the chap I overheard has been misinformed?
 

uzzy

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Snip from a longer tongue in cheek post, but an RCD -residual current device is not a fuse alternative, and won't stop things catching fire, just to be clear :)
I know - I was just having a nice little rant rather than just saying this is bollox :geek:
 
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Lawrence001

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My dealer in Portugal made sure that I understood how to electrically test which way round to plug in the cables to sockets because of sound difference.
Never thought about it, being 2 pin can you put a plug in either way round?
 

Lawrence001

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New thread, does Hifi sound better at the bottom of a hill than the top? A niche sub genre of the cable debate.

Alternatively we should place the sources at the top of the rack and the pre/power below in that order. But they should all be higher than the speaker inputs.

Maybe put power sockets near the ceiling?

Also does having tweeters above the speaker sockets degrade the sound?
 

DomT

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Never thought about it, being 2 pin can you put a plug in either way round?
Yea so you connect the cable in the mains socket and then check for where positive is on the other end of the cable. Positive needs to be on the right hand side. Simple to do.
 

tuga

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Did Brexit take us out of Europe?
My dealer in Portugal made sure that I understood how to electrically test which way round to plug in the cables to sockets because of sound difference.
I use a VdH polarity checker for that purpose. A multimeter would have been better but I bought a cheap one...
 

DomT

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Did Brexit take us out of Europe?

I use a VdH polarity checker for that purpose. A multimeter would have been better but I bought a cheap one...
I also bought a polarity checker from LeRoy Merlin as recommended by my dealer. It cost 2€. Works fine. Been using it today.
 
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