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ESP MusicCord

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#21
cybersnyder said:
Jimmy, if you want to try it, I'll send it to you for a test spin. It was a curiosity thing for me. Honestly, I'm not sure if it's more that this cable is awesome or regular cables really suck.
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Rich, ordinarily I would thank you and politely turn down the offer since I would feel bad and be out $50 if something happened to it. But in this case, I'm inclined to take you up on it if you don't mind. If you ultimately choose not to, that's cool too, but I'll go ahead and PM you my address and say thank you because I've been dying to get my hands on one!
 
#22
Epidrake said:
You are absolutely correct that cables sound different. My wife can tell the difference, shouldn't a musician. All you people who swear there is no difference need to really try it for yourselves.
I can't believe the rude comments.
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yes, some were uncalled for, but look, you can't blame anyone for being skeptical when the company offers no actual proof.
 
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#24
Epidrake said:
cybersnyder, you don't have to justify yourself to anyone.
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That's true. You also can't blame well educated TB members from raising a reg flag to any less-informed, right? I don't think anybody has been particularly rude yet either.

Cybersnyder doesn't really owe anybody any proof, justification or data. But ESP MusicCord does. And what do you know? They aren't offering any either!


In the interest of full disclosure, Epidrake, do you have any business or related interest in ESP MusicCord that we should know about? Fair & easy yes/no question! :)
 
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#25
JimmyM said:
Rich, ordinarily I would thank you and politely turn down the offer since I would feel bad and be out $50 if something happened to it. But in this case, I'm inclined to take you up on it if you don't mind. If you ultimately choose not to, that's cool too, but I'll go ahead and PM you my address and say thank you because I've been dying to get my hands on one!
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Actually, they're $150. When I said $50, that was for a mythical, non-existent cable that would be better than the existing cables just not as robust as the MusicCord. Don't worry, if anything happened to it in transit I 100% trust you and I know it was the post office. But I don't think you can hurt this cable.
 
#26
cybersnyder said:
First off, I don't have audio recording gear. My iPhone won't do any justice to any audio source. Secondly, I don't care enough to convince you. Lastly, there are "power chords" root and fifth and "power cords" copper that conducts electricity. Surely we can agree on that.
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If you didn't care enough to convince us, then why did you make a thread here specifically telling us that it makes a difference? I'd be really keen to hear a sound demo, I'm not saying I think it's impossible for there to be a difference, I just can't see how it would work.

I personally think that (assuming your dollars are US) you'd be better off spending $150 on better instrument cables, if you want to improve your sound. The funny thing is that there are people here who will argue that even high-end instrument cables aren't worth the money because there's no difference in sound, so we're probably talking about that top 5% of sound quality that people spend fortunes on to attain. Not really my territory TBH.

That all said, I would LOVE for standard power cables to be longer by default so that I don't always have to use extension leads at rehearsals and gigs. I would be willing to pay for that if I didn't already have a good, cheap extension lead.

Epidrake said:
FWIW, the ESP power cord also has serious radio frequency ferrite filters built into it to clean up the really dirty AC power noise
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IMO that would only reduce the noise produced by the amp, not affect the actual sound quality. Worth a little extra dosh though, but not US$150.
 
#28
I'd actually say that you'd be better off just buying a better multi-board (and by "better", I mean one that just has decent surge protection in it) and some good instrument cables, rather than get this thing. Amp noise is best reduced by getting an amp that simply doesn't have a noise issue IMO; beyond that you're just wasting your money (address your noise from the amp's input jack back to your pickups). When it comes to power, surge protection is the most crucial thing to address but beyond that, I dunno, maybe spend the extra money just paying your power bill?
 
#29
Epidrake said:
FWIW, the ESP power cord also has serious radio frequency ferrite filters built into it to clean up the really dirty AC power noise
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Reality Check: amps don't run off AC. They run off DC. Incoming AC is transformed, rectified and filtered. Line noise is filtered by that process. If amp manufacturers thought there was any benefit in special power cords, and for that matter even full blown power conditioners, they'd recommend them. Not one amp manufacturer does. Those that mention them at all recommend against them.
 
#30
Rich is going to send it to me to let me try it, and for that I thank him very much and will make sure he's not without it for long. I am still very skeptical, but I will try it and try to be as objective as possible.
 
#32
JimmyM said:
Rich is going to send it to me to let me try it, and for that I thank him very much and will make sure he's not without it for long. I am still very skeptical, but I will try it and try to be as objective as possible.
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The only objective test that's valid is double blind. You can't know which cord is being used, nor can the person doing the switching of cords.
 
#34
billfitzmaurice said:
Reality Check: amps don't run off AC. They run off DC. Incoming AC is transformed, rectified and filtered. Line noise is filtered by that process. If amp manufacturers thought there was any benefit in special power cords, and for that matter even full blown power conditioners, they'd recommend them. Not one amp manufacturer does. Those that mention them at all recommend against them.
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This is exactly the sort of thing I was talking about before; if the validity of this technology was proved by scientific evidence, don't you think amp manufacturers would use it?

I just have one question though. In my country we do use AC power, and my amp is class-D with voltage switching (currently set to 230 volts accordingly). Does that mean that my amp receives AC power from the wall and converts it to DC, or just runs on AC power?

cybersnyder said:
I'm definitely not trying to convince you, just sharing my experience.
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Fair enough, my apologies if I sounded rude.
 
#35
billfitzmaurice said:
The only objective test that's valid is double blind. You can't know which cord is being used, nor can the person doing the switching of cords.
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Alright, so any ideas how I accomplish that? Just wrap the cords in thick brown paper? Also, I'm assuming the real test is to do a switch several times and see how reliable I am at picking out the ESP? How many times would be considered enough for my opinion to be reliable?

Hey, iffen I'm gonna do this, I want to do it right!
 
#36
Ideally, you have a mechanism that'd switch which cable is providing the power, and have it all in a black box so no one knows, there's just a switch to flip. Then you have a person flip the switch while you listen. The person that hooks up the switch can't be the one to throw it, and the one throwing it can't be the one "observing".
 
#39
JimmyM said:
Alright, so any ideas how I accomplish that? Just wrap the cords in thick brown paper? Also, I'm assuming the real test is to do a switch several times and see how reliable I am at picking out the ESP? How many times would be considered enough for my opinion to be reliable?

Hey, iffen I'm gonna do this, I want to do it right!
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A true double blind test is a pain to set up and takes pro researchers weeks. Even when you set up a proper model, I've seen researchers take literally a stack of analysis saying "no" and a sliver of a few sheets of paper that say there could be a small difference and they publish on that small difference because that was what they wanted.

The biggest difficulty with the power cords is that amps usually have a warm up period so you're comparing the sound now versus the sound in the past, a long term memory. A high end recording would eliminate that delay and let you compare short term memory versus short term memory. I completely agree that I could be "misremembering" the way it sounded versus the way it really sounded. But I didn't know which cord was being used and I heard a difference each time. Not enough for a scientific study, not enough data points to prove it to the world, but this was just for me to see if I hear a difference. I did. Worst case, I bought an expensive, extremely well built cable that was waaaaay cheaper than a Fodera and everyone knows that you can't hear the difference in a mix between it and an SX. ;-)
 
#40
Ray Salamon said:
Ideally, you have a mechanism that'd switch which cable is providing the power, and have it all in a black box so no one knows, there's just a switch to flip. Then you have a person flip the switch while you listen. The person that hooks up the switch can't be the one to throw it, and the one throwing it can't be the one "observing".
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The downside is that cause the amp to restart and usually there's a delay while it warms up. I think high end recording is the only way to go and probably using a recorded track for the input because you can change up plucking, finger position, etc which will change the sound.
 
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