bill whitlock

[pucho812]

bill gave a great talk tonight at the local aes chapter meeting.

 

[ruffrecords]

bill gave a great talk tonight at the local aes chapter meeting.

To me he is one of the living greats. I wish I could get to meet him but there is a sizeable pond between us.

Cheers

IAn

 

[pucho812]

To me he is one of the living greats. I wish I could get to meet him but there is a sizeable pond between us.

Cheers

IAn

Yes he was a  delight. He says he can get me a PDF of everything discussed last night. I will share it here.

 

[Recording Engineer]

I’ve seen him talk 3-times. Loved every bit! The last time he stayed long after and discussed the electrical for the ground-up studio I’ve been helping build for the past three year. We got it all correct due to him making everything so crystal-clear and we followed everything he said to the T!

 

[pucho812]

yeah I know what you mean..

rules #1 twisted pairs. live ands neutral should be a twisted pair and run separate from the ground wire.

We chatted afterwards about some of the more interesting things related to ground and other issues.

 

[ruffrecords]

Yes he was a  delight. He says he can get me a PDF of everything discussed last night. I will share it here.

Looking forward to that.,

Cheers

Ian

 

[scott2000]

+1 !

 

[boji]

He says he can get me a PDF of everything discussed last night. I will share it here.

+1 Sweet! Thanks Pucho!

 

[pucho812]

an e-mail from the legend.  8)

PDF will be arriving after the holidays. I did ask him some questions to which he wants to take time to give a proper response.  I am touched that lil ol me would not get the brush off. I am just a Padawon in a world of giants and lucky enough I get to talk to giants now and then.  It's a great way to learn, hang out with people who are smarter then you and nice/kind.  I see a lot of similarities here.  In the meantime, I do have some other bill Whitlock pdf's I will add to the tech documents.

 

[JohnRoberts]

an e-mail from the legend.  8)

PDF will be arriving after the holidays. I did ask him some questions to which he wants to take time to give a proper response.  I am touched that lil ol me would not get the brush off. I am just a Padawon in a world of giants and lucky enough I get to talk to giants now and then.  It's a great way to learn, how out with people who are smarter then you and nice/kind.  I see a lot of similarities here.  In the meantime, I do have some other bill Whitlock pdf's I will add to the tech documents.

Answering your questions forces him to think about and verbalize the explanations clearly, so you get partial credit.

Buy him a beer...

JR

 

[pucho812]

Answering your questions forces him to think about and verbalize the explanations clearly, so you get partial credit.

Buy him a beer...

JR

Jr this was not a partial credit kind of thing. I was seeking his opinion on a couple of issues that often generate a lot answers none of which are based in proven facts. Buying him a beer for his 2 cents on the subjects would be the least I can do, I definitely would go beyond that  as he contributes so much.

 

[john12ax7]

Looking forward to the response

 

[pucho812]

Well for starters I asked him about the following

1. isolation transformers. The big kind that go before the electrical panel for clean power.  I wondered what his thoughts on using them were.  While I have read a lot of whitlock and others and even wired up studios that used them,  I wondered his thoughts on them.  If he has touched on it in the past I have missed it.  While this does not generate many opinions, I want to hear what the source says.

2. I had to ask him about the snake oil that is a power cable.  It's been a solid topic lately among some of the  audio locals, all of them have an opinion so might as well ask the source what is snake oil and not.  While I do have a good idea on #2, I had to ask anyway. The fact he is willing to write a detailed answer in the future is just mind blowing to me.  Who am I  but yet there he is taking his time. That is way cool.  What started this was the following months ago "Pucho you have to come by my mastering suite, I got these new power cables for my amps and they make a difference,  It sounds better"... Me being curious went over there and gave a listen. Maybe it's years of loud rock and roll but there was no difference between expensive cable and regular molded IEC cable. They had the same AWG and by all accounts of my ears, there was no change in that audio from the amp.  I could see it being a tube amp and perhaps there was some sort of induced sag from the power cable but this was  solid state amp.  I feel a little embarrassed on question 2,  but better to be embarrassed for a few minutes and ask then never ask and kick yourself later thinking you should have done so.

 

[Recording Engineer]

Really interested in #2! His talks I’ve heard makes clear #1. This studio I’ve been helping build could have gotten away with a 35kVA transformer, but we went overkill with a 50kVA! We got a less-than 1A excitation current! Yes, the low-costs with it just sitting idle is pretty cool, but much cooler is putting a strat into an amp right on top of the transformer and having hardly any hum; bump the excitation current to 10A and it’s unbearable!

 

[abbey road d enfer]

much cooler is putting a strat into an amp right on top of the transformer and having hardly any hum;

On top of which transformer? The iso xfmr or the amp's?

bump the excitation current to 10A and it’s unbearable!

How do you do that?

 

[Recording Engineer]

The isolation transformer.

First wired the secondary for 240 (across legs) balanced as well as a 120 unbalanced tapped (single leg to ground). Measured about 10A of excitation current. Then compared that to wiring the secondary for 120 (across legs) balanced and got less than 1A.

 

[abbey road d enfer]

The isolation transformer.

  OK, that makes sense.

  First wired the secondary for 240 (across legs) balanced as well as a 120 unbalanced tapped (single leg to ground). Measured about 10A of excitation current. Then compared that to wiring the secondary for 120 (across legs) balanced and got less than 1A.

Secondary, really? Magnetic flux depends on the voltage applied to the primary.
Using a 240V pri for 120V reduces nominal flux by factor 2, but stray flux is reduced by an enormous factor, because operating much further below saturation of iron core.

 

[Recording Engineer]

Really. I do not know why though!

By the way, primary was always 120 unbalanced; not by choice though! Long story there, unless anyone wants to hear it! Could have fixed the mistake, costly, but could have. Decided not to as the saving grace is there’s only 3 other customers (small homes) on the service transformer and it’s right outside the studio, so a very short run.

We used the best wire we could. Don’t remember the model, but it Belden 4-OT stranded. It has extremely-thin strands and high strand count; I used to know exactly, as I counted! Plus, the electric company amazingly says they’ll up the power transformer should we ever have a problem.

 

[Recording Engineer]

By the way, last I spoke with Bill, a couple years ago, if I’m recalling correctly (and I very well may not be), he said he’s not sure how necessary the hoopla and trouble is to have 120 balanced on the secondary; sounded like he needed to do more testing there.

 

[Recording Engineer]

We also tightly-twisted our own electrical cable with overkill 8ga using a vise and drill. Bill said grounds maybe should have been twisted along with them, but again more testing was needed.