Jim J,
OK bud…it doesn’t happen very often, but you have the distinguished honor of managing to piss me off. You’ve never reared your head around here before and the first time you do, you come out of the gate with a negative slant and a pseudo-challenge. Obviously you don’t know me, my design principles, or anything about the foundation of all SP Tech products – which I design. If you did, you would have known better. Either that or you like to make trouble and would have done so just to get some attention.
Well, you got my attention now. I was going to leave things as they were, but with the following statement:
I don't think any of them have to resort to using vague and controversial scientific papers, perpetual motion, unexplained science, and UFOs to sell their product. The products sell themselves because of their merits.
I think I need to correct your thinking. Remove or delete your post? Nah…we don’t do that here unless you are demeaning or profane. What I will do is *DELETE* your argument and its erroneous logic though.
…so I know the owners of a few small "upstart" companies like the ones here in the Circles.
Is that supposed to be a reference to some level of professional credentials? If you want credentials, I’ll give you a few. (Friends, I hate doing the following. Boasting is not my typical modus operandi).
Before I started SP Tech I worked for 9 years in the engineering department, for the Techron Division of Crown International. We built audio amplifiers with such high levels of power that they were used in the medical MRI industry (Mostly by General Electric). 40,000-watt amplifiers were the standard size we were manufacturing.
On the first prototype switching power converter that I worked on, I refined the gate drive (IGBTs) circuitry of a 60,000 KVA, 5kHz H-Bridge power converter. When the early prototypes failed they would short out and blow up like a shotgun going off. When that happened, the current was so high that it couldn’t be measured. The magnetic field it produced in the 3-phase 208V power lines was so strong that it would snap the wires against the inside walls of the conduit so hard the walls throughout the lab would shake. The first time it happened I counted 15 people from throughout the engineering wing that piled in the lab to see if we were all right.
We discovered that the 5KHz transformer was saturating due to core “flux walking,” thus causing a dead short circuit on the output of the H-Bridge. The top 3 engineers developed a method of sensing core saturation…but it didn’t work. I developed an implementation that did work and it saved the project.
After that, we moved on to an 8-phase, 2 MHz tracking power converter (we called it the “polyphase buck”) with the same KVA as the previous unit. By then I was the lead technician and worked directly under the head of R&D – Mr. Gerald Stanley:
http://www.prosoundweb.com/install/commentary/kc/crn/gi.phpHe’s the guy that started the entire solid-state power amp revolution by developing the Crown DC 300 – the first high power SS amp in the world.
Anyway…not only was I responsible for helping to make the thing work, but I also had to train all of the production and service technicians. Before I left I had also developed a mechanical modification that decreased construction time, increased throughput and made serviceability possible, such that it saved the company something to the tune of $2M/year. The upshot is that I’ve worked in some of the highest power, state-of-the-art electronics in the world…right here in the cornfields of Indiana.
I could go on but it would be superfluous and purely egotistic. Is there any doubt left in your mind that I have a solid scientific background? I suspect that there are only a handful of designers out there and particularly here on AC… that have more experience in hard-core engineering than I do. The bottom line is that EVERYTHING I design is based on the “first principles of science” – they always have been and always will be.
Read the reviews. Do you think some overly zealous hack with a couple of hair-brained ideas based on pseudo-science could pull designs out of his ass that perform like SP Tech products do? Get a clue. In fact, I was so staunchly entrenched in the “science club” that I wouldn’t even consider the effects of cables and such as being anything more than the result of over-active imaginations. If you had bothered to read my other posts first, you would have known this.
So…for yours and everybody’s information…R.A. Smith Ltd. Cables will be based on solid, quantifiable scientific principles. They will exhibit low inductance, capacitance, and resistance. Also, they will address and optimize input and output termination impedance issues. At such a point in time as I am able to do the testing and documentation, I will provide all relevant performance data and specifications.
The uniqueness of their construction in no way detracts or undermines basic engineering principles or commonly accepted methods of solid cable construction techniques. At best, my construction methods will be an adjunct to and improvement on these basic principles, thereby offering an increased level of performance. At worst, they will still be excellent cables by anybody’s standard – even the most die-hard “science club” member’s. In any case, they will “sell themselves” as I have already clearly stated that I have no scientific evidence whatsoever that the “enhanced” component of my construction method will work, or that the physics it is based on has any bearing in established scientific fact.
Finally, I recognize that there are legitimate errors in Hawksford’s paper and that his approach falls short in several ways. I see it as more of a “what if” rather than a “what is.” I will say that I do suspect that buried within his ideas lay a potential nugget or two of truth – even if his methods and development leave much to be desired.
In the end, if there is any truth in my personal visualizations of any as yet “unknown” physics involved, then my cables, having addressed them, should receive favorable acceptance. Even if I am totally wrong the same should still be true as they will be built on scientifically accepted principles - regardless. In the end, all I care about is whether or not folks like them well enough to purchase them – superfluous debates of alternative physics “be damned.” I’m not out to “prove” anything to anybody. I’m not out to swindle anyone either, hence…my disclaimer – I can’t “prove” a thing other than that which is measurable. You can be sure though, that their measurable aspects will be considered excellent by “first science principles.” I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Now little JJ, go start a fight somewhere else.
-Bob
