Shunyata measurement system: power cord measurements video

I know that the whole subject of power cords can be, to say the least, controversial. I don't want to open up that subject as a "can of worms', especially if the can has been opened here in another forum or thread, because I've seen how contentious those can become, and I don't want that to happen for this thread.

I'll just say that I was very skeptical about aftermarket power cords until I bought two Shunyata Copperhead power cords in 2010 for the price of one ($250), did some "controlled" experiments, and came away "gob-smacked" with the improvements they made. Suffice it to say that I now have a complete Shunyata power cord loom and Hydra Triton distributor in my main system and this power distribution system has brought significant enhancements to the performance, but more importantly, the enjoyment of my C-J component-based loudspeaker system. I'll leave any further discussion about the merits of this class of products at that.

Anyway, on to measurements, which is why we're here. One of the reasons I like Shunyata's products is they are researched and designed by a brilliant scientist, Caelin Gabriel. Gabriel spent the first 20 years of his career as a "signals intelligence data processing engineer" for the NSA, so he's got an impressive professional scientific and engineering resume and serious "street cred" as far as I'm concerned. I've actually read his patents on the use of rochelle salts as a noise filtering methodology, and so I know the guy is capable of very deep technical understanding of how to maximize signal and minimize noise. After all, that's what he did for a living at the NSA for 20 years.

One of the thing I like about Shunyata is that Caelin has developed a repeatible and reproducible measurment system for demonstrating the benefits of power cords and different power cord designs. One of these measurement methods is termed Dynamic Transient Current Delivery, or DTCD. Caelin designed an entire metrology system to measure DTCD. As a Design for Six Sigma Black Belt who teaches scientists and engineers statistically valid Measurement Systems Analysis (aka MSA), this appeals to me.

Anyhoo, if you're interested, check out this introductory video from Shunyata about how and why an aftermarket power cord can make a (big, IMHO) difference to audio component performance.

 

Here is another video with Caelin explaining some of the key principle behind DTCD.....the first 3:45 of this video is the same as the first one, so skip ahead to view the reamaining discussion behind the development of DTCD...and it's measurement methodology.

 

I'll give these guys that at least it's not snake oil.
As far as relevance of power cables there are a few super obvious reasons why the quality of power cord (as simple wire, not some funky low pass filtering pos) should not matter much in a system, from technical pov:

• Line impedance upstream of the power cord is often similar or even worse than what the power cord will add, unless it's some really crappy power cord. Well made chinesium power cord is fine, there is plenty to choose from in AWG scale, certified and bla-bla-bla for 5$. The cord that those guys picked for show looks to be about 1m, given the current loss the wire then is like 21 awg, that is barely double of cat5 conductivity. This would be dangerous to use with say kettle. Btw, I have done these same tests myself, also calibrated those test devices in the past.

• Wires inside audio electronics and even primary of the device's transformer up to sane power levels have much higher impedance than line or any decent power cord. Unless one is dealing with some serious kW amplifiers.
• Everything regarding power line is 2x more demanding for Muricans. Here in 230 V realm we can get away with half as thick power cable.

People still hear differences in power cords. I really don't. No matter high-endness of gear or cable.
It's more sane to invest into isolation transformer and to get your household power lines checked out by an electrician with the device featured in that video.
Probably also cheaper ;P
Heck, I say it's more sane to install your own dedicated audio power substation than stress about some freakish audio grade power cables. I bet on my Scotch collection that I would hear a difference, haha.

 

A couple other sources:

• Electrical system guide: http://www.moremusic.nl/shunyata/manuals/Shunyata_electric_system_guide.pdf.
• Technology guide: http://shunyata.com/technology-guide/. There used to be a DTCD article, but my bookmarked link is dead now.

By the way, if anyone is interested in upgrading their power outlets, here are the best 15A I found for a reasonable price: https://www.stayonline.com/detail.aspx?id=8993. These are the 15A version of Hubbell's 20A 5362 which is used in many power conditioners (including Shunyata's). Shunyata has a few tweaks made to the 5362 at the factory, cryo's them, then sells them as the SR-Z1. Issue in the United States is that unless you have a 20A line running to the outlet, you can't use a 20A outlet and comply with electrical code. Hence the 5262 recommendation above. I had a local electrician replace my crappy outlets with those and recommend them.

 

As I mentioned above, I'm not going to debate of the pros or cons of power cords. This post was to show folks who may be interested, of a company that has gone to the lengths and efforts, based on a level of scientific understanding and theory, to develop a system of metrology that demonstrates the important parameters in cable design and how they might be measured in a meaningful way. That's why I placed this post in the measuresments forum than the cables forum.

 

I used to have the DTCD article around as a PDF; I'll see if I can find it. Here are some images from that article that show the ability of different cords to deliver instantaneous current. I should point out that the "standard black cable" referenced is the ubiquitous 14 AWG15 amp IEC cables that are sold with the vast majority of components, and is the cable that Caelin used in the first video (not 21 AWG). You can also see here that the max current that can be delivered by the standard black 14 AWG OEM cable is about 50% of baseline (as also demonstrated in the first video).

 

This seems like it would be more suitable for the discussion subforum rather than measurements? You're not really posting measurements and subjective impressions of the product, you're merely posting information about the product to spark discussion around it and why power cables subjectively make a difference for you (such as the quoted text below).

 

Depends on what the "operational definition" is for what specific topics the forum can and cannot cover. I don't want to get into a whole theoretical discussion about measurement systems analysis (though I will if folks think it necessary). But for any set of measurements to have practical, real-world meaning, they have to be based on a stasticially valid Measurement System Analysis that can demonstrate that the measurement system being used to produce measurement data can reproducibly, repeatibly, precisely and accurately detect differences in signal to noise. This is why a statistically valid MSA based on ANOVA is really necessary before folks go around posting measurements as if they were "the truth" (by truth, I mean accuracy, which statistically is defined as "bias relative to a standard"). I provided some initial personal subjective impressions in my first post just to provide folks with some context of what informed my thinking about this subject, but the point of this thread is to depict a system of metrology that was developed that is useful for taking measurements impacting power cable design. These videos I posted depict data as does the graph I posted above. Maybe the better place for this thread would be in the Measurements Systems and Standards forum; I'm happy to have the moderators move it there if they feel it's worthwhile.