truckfighters;213892 Wrote: > power line correct phase: > > Orientation of mains plug: > The correct polarization of mains is important for reasons of audio > clarity and stability. > > for the folks who never heard of that, I found this nice article: > http://www.audaud.com/audaud/JUL01/EQUIP/equip3JUL01.html >
NO!! The article suggests disconnecting the protective earth connection from your equipment to make measurements or to improve sound quality. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO DO THIS FOR ANY REASON. IF YOUR EQUIPMENT HAS AN EARTH CONNECTION IT'S BECAUSE IT'S REQUIRED FOR SAFE OPERATION. TOUCH THE UNEARTHED BOX, AND THE FIRST YOU'LL KNOW OF A FAULT SOMEWHERE IN YOUR SYSTEM COULD BE A FATAL ELECTRIC SHOCK. (After all, you wouldn't go round replacing all your fuses with nails to 'improve the power supply', would you? You would? Darwinian evolution in action. Go right ahead). But, suppose for a moment that you were actually dumb enough to make the measurement anyway, or that your equipment is designed such that the earth connection isn't needed. What are you actually measuring? With the case disconnected, either by double-insulation from the mains or because some idiot has removed the earth connection, it's essentially floating. Maybe it's connected to the analogue ground which is shared with the rest of your system, but not necessarily. It may also pick up a voltage by capacitive and/or electromagnetic coupling from the power supply, but in this case the impedance will be extremely high, and only a rather expensive meter will pick it up. So, what you're measuring is the potential between this undefined point, and earth at some other point. Meaningless - but audiophiles like to find something they can measure and then come up with a rule for what it should be. It's not impossible for reversing the live & neutral to make a difference to the sound, though. In the UK at least (and presumably elsewhere), the neutral wire is kept around earth potential while the live oscillates either side of it. So, if inside your equipment there's a live wire nearer some sensitive audio signal than the neutral, there will be a greater degree of interference introduced. Swapping live & neutral effectively moves the noise source further away, which can indeed help. You can't tell whether this is the case by making meaningless measurements of the voltage on the outside of the box, though. And the idea of trying to 'match' these voltages across components is just... well, rubbish too. So, if you have reversible mains plugs, by all means swap them around and pick whichever way you like the sound of. Just don't electrocute yourself by doing something silly, OK? ;-) -- AndyC_772 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ AndyC_772's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=10472 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=36626 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
