Shunyata Hydra 8
dunstansim -- Mon, 02/11/2008 - 05:13
I recently bought the Shunyata Hydra 8 with a Taipan power cable [to connect from mains to Hyra] and two Venom power cables [to connect from hydra to source equipment]. As I live in a small town without any dealers in high end Hi Fi, I bought the Shunyata products from overseas without testing on my set up. While the leval of clarity and transparency has improved, I find that the vocals on a lot of my cd's have acquired a metallic gritty edge and the treble has become rather bright in most recordings. It's only in the vocals that I have this problem - instruments sound great. I use primare cd 31 for cd player and primare I30 integrated amp with B & W 805s standmount speakers. Interconnects are crystal cable micro and QED XT 300 speaker cables. Can anyone advice me on what I should do ? Has anyone experienced this problem with the Shunyata products ? Is it due system mismatch ? Would upgrading the 2 Venom power cords I am using now to Python power cords help to smooth out the treble and vocals ? I am at a lost and would welcome any advice. :?
This type of power conditioner can have its own sonic problems. See the on-line description of the Venom filter contained in:
http://www.10audio.com/diy_power_conditioner.htm
The filter elements are polypropylene film suppression capacitors rated for AC line exposure (0.1 µF, type Y2, 250 volts). In my experience with similar capacitors, they have their own self-resonances and can enhance RF noise under some circumstances.
Whether your experience results from suppression capacitor ringing in the Hydra, or removal of AC noise that reveals RF noise problems elsewhere in your system, is the immediate question. Your sonic descriptions could fit with either possibility. The way to tell by listening is to determine whether you get more or less honest detail with the filter device in place.
This is not simple, as a little RF noise results in treble artifacts that seem like enhanced clarity of details and transparency. The honest fine detail contained in the source is suppressed by noise, however. If the Hydra is adding noise, some of the detail will be lost, even if what remains is more prominent. If the Hydra is removing noise, you will hear more fine detail, even if the remaining noise creates more annoying artifacts.
It would help to have a friend with a more revealing system, so that you can determine which recordings have the fine detail that you need. Shirley Horn's CD, _You Won't Forget Me_, is my reference. It has very low noise in the recording, close-mic'd vocals, and excellent instrument passages that cover the audio frequency range down to the plucked acoustic bass.
Thanks Al for your detailed analysis on the problem.
I am a relative novice in this area of Hi Fi but if I understand you correctly. what I am hearing could be caused by either : (1) the suppression capacitor in the Hydra itself; or (ii) the reduction of AC noise by the Hydra which results in an increases the RF noise.
In either case it would appear that the Hydra is causing the metallic edge and grit in the vocals. Short of replacing the Hydra and the power cables with a power conditioner/cables of another make (which I am loathe to do since I just bought it at considerable expense and inconvenience), is there anything else I can do to reduce/eliminate this undesirable side-effect ? I am prepared to spend more to replace the venom power cables with python power cables. From your analysis of the problem, I don't think this will help but I would welcome your views on this "solution" [and also the views of anyone who has any thoughts on this]. Thanks ! :)
No, the second alternative is the possibility that the Hydra is removing some haze and revealing RF noise issues originating elsewhere. These issues were always there, but masked by other noise on the AC line, under this hypothesis.
While changing power cords may help, doing so will not address either of the possible problems. If the Hydra capacitors are ringing, there is no way to fix them short of modifying the device. Since there is a demand for these devices, it would be better to sell it.
I don't have personal experience with the Hydra, so I'm only working from my DIY results. Considering the trouble and money you've already invested in the Hydra, my advice is to determine through listening whether the Hydra is harming the signal, or revealing other sources of harm. If there are other sources, it is possible to determine what they are, and the fixes for them may be inexpensive. However, you have to develop the critical listening skills I described previously to know whether you are making progress. Simply installing expensive parts into an audio system does not guarantee satisfaction.
Thanks for the clarification Al ! What you say sounds like good sensible advice. One last question: since you mentioned that the problem could be caused by RF noise coming from elsewhere in the system, could the problem be due to the interconnects/speaker cables I am using ?
:)
The interconnects, speaker cables, and power cords may all contribute to an RF noise problem. They may act as antennas, both transmitting and receiving, and as resonators.
The antenna issue has to do with the cable geometry. Twisting a pair of wires reduces the effective coupling to other parts of the system and external noise sources. However, there are limits to how tightly the twisting can be done. Other construction methods may have better antenna (external coupling) performance but at the cost of time delay smearing of the signal.
Electrical resonance is caused by the finite transmission speed of signals over wires. A cable is similar to an organ pipe in this regard. The pipe supports a fundamental tone and a harmonic structure by virtue of its length and the speed of sound through the pipe. The ends of the pipe present what electrical engineers call an "impedance change" to the sound waves that travel through the pipe. This causes some of the sound wave energy to be reflected at the ends. At particular frequencies where the reflected energy reinforces the wave energy, the pipe will sound a loud tone.
The speed of sound is the same in all the organ pipes, but the longer pipes sound lower frequency tones because it takes longer for the waves to move from one end of the pipe to the other. The energy that starts the process is the "white noise" from turbulent air at the inlets of the pipes.
Similarly, a little RF noise anywhere in a cable stimulates a strong resonance at particular frequencies determined by the speed of transmission and the length of the cable, as long as the ends are terminated in unmatched impedances and the transmission through the cable has low loss. High purity silver and copper conductors have low resistive loss. Teflon and other high-grade polymers commonly used in exotic cables have low dielectric loss. These costly ingredients combine with the deliberately mismatched impedances at the ends to make the cables behave as excellent RF resonators.
Note that shielding protects the signal from external influences, but may actually make resonance problems worse.
Some cable makers understand this issue and take measures to suppress the resonant behavior. The one that is most successful in my (limited) experience is the magnetic suppression technology invented by Don Palmer and used in Skywire Audio cables. See
http://www.skywireaudio.com/
Don is a friend of mine and I have used some of his techniques in making my own cables and RF noise filters.
The cables are not the whole story. Even with well-damped cables, an audio system can suffer from RF noise conducted over the AC power lines. These days, most non-audio appliances contain small computers and switching power supplies to control them. These things are always on and waiting for the user to push a button. They make RF noise continuously. I've found that filtering them is highly effective, and that the filter does not have to be 'audiophile-grade.' The simplest way to map your house for these noise sources is to unplug them one at a time, and listen for improvement of the symptoms you identified.
Hi Al
Thanks so much for your input. Much appreciated. :D Cheers
I've used the Hydra 8 for 4 years and find it simply removes the veiling from powerline interference to reveal what the rest of the system is doing, good or bad.
When the rest of my system was improved gradually, I hear the music sounding more natural in stages. If the Hydra 8 were adding anything, the harsh artificial quality would remain, logically speaking.
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