What do Bybees actually DO?

Rob Babcock · « **on:** 26 Feb 2004, 01:12 am »

I've heard the claims about how they improve the sound, and I'm not disputing it. Just curious what they actually do, electrically speaking. Are they like chokes? RFI filters? I just realized I have no idea about the theory behind them.

bubba966 · « **Reply #1 on:** 26 Feb 2004, 05:13 am »

Go to http://www.bybeetech.com for a little info on what they're doing...

Rob Babcock · « **Reply #2 on:** 26 Feb 2004, 06:13 am »

Thanks, Brian.

bubba966 · « **Reply #3 on:** 26 Feb 2004, 06:50 am »

Quote from: Rob Babcock

Thanks, Brian.

So did that answer anything for 'ya?

Rob Babcock · « **Reply #4 on:** 26 Feb 2004, 07:56 am »

I'm not sure yet. I read quite a bit of it, but I got Voyager yesterday and I've been watching that most of the nite. I gotta work early so I probably won't get it all read for a couple days.

WerTicus · « **Reply #5 on:** 27 Feb 2004, 12:57 am »

MY THEORY is they have slight capacitance and therefore will roll off the ultra sonic frequencies....

vmps speakers use a small cap in series with the whole speaker to roll off everything about 50khz or something up and its supposed to make it a lot clearer.

i imagine they are just a relativly high quality capacitor marketed with some bullshit about being an almost light speed conductor... heck it might be a 50 dollar capacitor with no incutance or something and is worth the money!

I am not willing to buy one to test though.

However today im gettting a rather 'not cheap' true RMS inductace and capacitance multimetre so if anyone wants me to borrow their bybee i shall happliy test it for them. I am in western aust. Actually does anyone have the readings for a bybee on here?! SOMEONE must have measured them by now for 'everything' and try to clue in how to DIY them!

Carlman · « **Reply #6 on:** 27 Feb 2004, 02:45 am »

Please don't measure them. That would take away the limitless arguability of them. Bybee's have long been a topic of debate... what do they do, do they make a difference, etc... I like watching people argue over something they're pretty sure they thought they might have heard... it's easy to argue when you don't know the facts. So, taking away this fun would be abysmal.

Besides, if I read the patent/copyright/etc. documentation correctly accurately documenting results could get you arrested.

I don't think Jack wants the secret to get out.

bob82274 · « **Reply #7 on:** 27 Feb 2004, 03:53 am »

Ok now this has made me curious in the past and now that I have some info I am very curious as to what these things actually are. Any EEs contributions would be very helpful... I?m only half way there so take my observations with a grain of salt (or with some grain alcohol, your choice

).

WerTicus's Theory: A slight capacitance. I like this one due to its simplicity. However, on the website it says that the filter causes no phase shifts... well since a capacitor inherently causes a phase shift that rules this out. Or we have false advertising. I doubt this though.

Looked up some stuff on the phonons that are mentioned... a good technical read for those who are interested (though the use of both i's and j' in the equations with out definitions is messing with me... EEs will understand):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonon

Ok moving on...

It says that it can remove the impedance mismatches between the transformer and the diode bridge. I assume this to mean that once power has gone through the transformer you place a Bybee in the path to the full wave rectifier. If so then we can move on... otherwise we are stuck in the mud here. Now about the impedance mismatches, two things can occur depending on the theory that you look at. You could treat this connection as a lossless transmission line and what happens is that you get reflected waves back from the diodes. I don't think this is the problem as the frequencies of the signals are too low. But what can happen is that you will have a power due to the impedance mismatch. If they are not matched correctly then you will have the voltage and current out of phase. This I believe gives you the power formula:

P = V*I*cos(theta)

I'm curious as to how this thing gets these two back into phase.

Finally it claims that it removes the ringing observed at the leading edge of the square waves. It also claims that this is what is to blame for the 'harshness of digital audio'. I have a couple of issues with this statement. First does it completely remove that ringing or does it just reduce it. In looking at some work done with sampling rates most noise here isn't due to this but instead the frequency of the sampling rate (is it large enough?) and also the reconstruction circuit (AKA the DAC).

Again this is all speculative and I would appreciate any sort of feed back on this. Also I have access to very nice oscilloscopes, multimeters, and power supplies. If someone is willing to loan one I am more than willing to do tests here in the US.

Sa-dono · « **Reply #8 on:** 27 Feb 2004, 04:55 am »

Quote from: bob82274

Also I have access to very nice oscilloscopes, multimeters, and power supplies. If someone is willing to loan one I am more than willing to do tests here in the US.

Go here, and request a demo. I would be curious to find out what they actually do, based on measurements.

WerTicus · « **Reply #9 on:** 27 Feb 2004, 06:36 am »

hrmmm i find it hard to believe that with all the people that rave on about them no one has measured them at all... if your worried about being sued pm me the measurements and i will post them!

DVV · « **Reply #10 on:** 27 Feb 2004, 07:28 am »

Quote from: WerTicus

hrmmm i find it hard to believe that with all the people that rave on about them no one has measured them at all... if your worried about being sued pm me the measurements and i will post them!

It will be interesting to read what you have found out. Their site is a mixture of physics, electronics and I think some very fancy marketing.

What puzzles me about this product is its near universal nature. All my life I have opposed universal devices and especially machines, preferring specilized but quality items instead. True, my way is definitely more expensive, but it will yield better quality results.

Another thing is that so far I have not come across any emphatic statement regarding what they do - it's mostly "I think", "I believe", that sort of thing. Nothing really specific, just sweeping and vague statements of observed/heard benefits. This always makes me suspicious.

On the other hand, I prefer to wait and see some actual data before calling anyone a snake oil peddler. It's easy to accuse, but much harder to prove.

Cheers,
DVV

bob82274 · « **Reply #11 on:** 27 Feb 2004, 07:41 am »

Quote from: DVV

On the other hand, I prefer to wait and see some actual data before calling anyone a snake oil peddler. It's easy to accuse, but much harder to prove.

One of the truths that I hold myself to. If I do end up doing this then I have to make sure that it is just the Bybee filter that I am measureing. I would hate to post results that are skewed because of faulty measurements or equipment.

eico1 · « **Reply #12 on:** 27 Feb 2004, 02:47 pm »

The dc resistance is published as very low, that leaves out measuring any significant capacitance. In the broadcast industry series inducter is used on all i/o to supress rfi in the am band, like a 3.9uH inducter. The Q of the part is important, I have the part number of one determined to work well in this application at work.

For the price of the Bybee, it would be silly not to at least try this part for a dollar and see if there was a similiar effect.

steve

WerTicus · « **Reply #13 on:** 28 Feb 2004, 03:21 am »

yeah try it

GreatMudge · « **Reply #14 on:** 4 Mar 2004, 01:38 pm »

Sorry if this lapses into physics speak too much, but on a quick reread of the subject, it would appear that conduction by Cooper pairs rather than single electrons would give a higher impedance for a faster rate of change in the EMF of the signal, analogous to an inductor, but without the phase shift between voltage and current.

That's not to say that the Bybee actually does that, as this behaviour is very temperature dependant.

Andrikos · « **Reply #15 on:** 4 Mar 2004, 05:02 pm »

DVV said:
"On the other hand, I prefer to wait and see some actual data before calling anyone a snake oil peddler."

Well, I'd say I'm quite the opposite.
Unless I see data and proof, it's snake oil.
My work is EXTREMELY data dependent and I will not listen to anybody explaining themselves by hand-waving, using hearsay or " the way we used to do it in the good old days"...

All this crap drives me up the wall...

Off my soap box, back to my statistics...

nathanm · « **Reply #16 on:** 4 Mar 2004, 06:45 pm »

I thought these things were a classified, top secret government military experiment, right? I wouldn't measure them if I were you, black helicopters will probably start flying over your house and you'll notice strange unmarked vans across the street. Suddenly there's no more WerTicus posts and nobody has seen him in weeks. Hmmm...

Why do you think they call them Bybees in the first place? Cause you're supposed to BUY them that's why. Stop asking silly questions and get out your credit card dammit. The more the merrier.

Quote from: bob...

If I do end up doing this then I have to make sure that it is just the Bybee filter that I am measureing. I would hate to post results that are skewed because of faulty measurements or equipment.

That's why you should plug your test equipment into a Bybee-fortified power cords and test probes! You have Bybee'd your test probes, right?

Andrikos · « **Reply #17 on:** 4 Mar 2004, 07:21 pm »

Hmmm,
I thought they were called Bybees because once you opened them up to see what's inside, the black helicopters overhead come and get you and you say "BYE BYE" to the world as you knew it...

OBF · « **Reply #18 on:** 4 Mar 2004, 09:26 pm »

I don't think you can search far enough back (I didn't find it), but there was a long discussion on the Madisound DIY forum where some of the resident physicists and speaker design gurus took Danny R. up on his kind offer to try Bybees for free (Danny wasn't really promoting them, just letting people listen for themselves), and I think all buy maybe one person said they couldn't tell any difference. They soldered them directly to the terminals, on the speaker wires, + and -, etc.....

One of the physics people, John K., also tested them and found them electrically inert, i.e. they didn't seem to be .01 resistors or anything like that. He also seemed to find the claims of cooper pairs and electron tunneling to be marketing inconsistent with real theory, and pointed out that 1/f noise can be generated and measured, but Bybee doesn't seem interested in publishing the 1/f absorption data for his filters.

At any rate, I don't think there will ever be conclusive answers, like many products some people will hear changes and others won't, but Dennis Murphy's post on the subject is funny:

http://www.madisound.com/cgi-bin/discuss.cgi?read=292585

WerTicus · « **Reply #19 on:** 5 Mar 2004, 01:32 am »

yeah that is pretty funny ... maybe the bybee is a placebo

To test that theory i have bought a bag of lollies and i invite anyone here to come over with a bybee so we can do an a/b on them!

What do Bybees actually *DO*?

What do Bybees actually DO?