Well i know he’s definitely not in the building on the roundabout at the bottom right
why?
NASA is burning the cables
Sept. 19, 2018
NASA Goes to Great Lengths to Get Mars Entry, Descent and Landing Measurements
MEDLI2 Cable Harness Preparation
Engineers and technicians at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, are hard at work assembling components for the Mars Entry, Descent, and Landing Instrumentation 2 (MEDLI2) which will collect data during the Mars 2020 mission’s entry through the Red Planet’s atmosphere.
These flight cable harnesses are 30-foot-long groups of electrical wires that will transmit signals for some MEDLI2 sensors. It takes about eight weeks to build and test all of the harnesses. Once complete, they will ship to Lockheed Martin for integration onto the Mars 2020 heat shield.
MEDLI2 will measure pressure, temperature, heat flux and radiation on the capsule that encloses the Mars 2020 rover during Mars atmospheric entry. The data collected will extend the groundbreaking entry data collected by the first MEDLI instrument suite flown aboard the Mars Science Laboratory mission in 2012 and will improve designs of entry systems for future robotic and human missions to Mars, Venus, Titan and the gas giants.
NASA stress testing or ore-stressing is not burn-in in the audio sense though indeed It illustrates some of the factors that can be real:
Cables, whether electrical or mechanical, in space flight can subjected high and low extremes of temperature. In a location not exposed to the sub’s light and without any source of heat they could get down to -150C or colder, while if exposed directly to the sun, or behind a panel so exposed, they could reach 120C or more. The changes in temperature mean changes in cable length through expansion or contraction, and associated stresses within the metal, especially if under physical tension.
If insulated electrical cable the choice of insulator is critical, to avoid over softening at high temperature of brittleness at low, while the coefficient of thermal expansion can be very different from that if the wire, causing the insulation either to shorten too much at low temps or become too long and buckle at high temps (e.g. with a 399 degree range, copper wire would expansion./contraction by 5mm per metre, PTFE insulation would expand/contract around 10 times that, about 50mm per metre!) it is therefore vital that these changes are allowed for and accommodated in design, and where appropriate components are prestressed.
Hifi burn in is rather different, as instead of approaching 300C range, mains cables might have a few degrees speaker cables a few millidegrees or maybe up to a few degrees maximum if running continuously at full volume, and interconnects a few micro degrees. Meanwhile a domestic living room may vary by a few degrees I’ve a day, maybe a big more during weather extremes.
it was a joke of course IB🤣. NASA has nothing to do with hifi… It was just my following on the NASA reference i used.
You got me on that! Though I would expect NASA to have to stress test and/or pre-stress all their cables.
however Nasa seems to be interested by audio cables, as in this article
i don’t know how it’s in the UK, but in France, the common reference to a high scientific research center in the world is Nasa. Even if it’s a space research center, it’s however a reference for common people like me .
We have also the CNRS in France. But it has not the same prestige.
I can’t say no-one in UK does, however I haven’t come across use of ‘NASA’ as a generic term for a top scientific research centre : to me NASA simply and specifically means the North American Space Agency.
it’s the language barrier and difficulty to adapt the specific humor.
same here in Sweden … except when it comes to sports gadgets or sportswear when I do remember NASA being referred to quite often.
The right side of that image shows true dedication, whereas the left side needs a proper good sort out.
FR, I am so impressed with your wit and cutting sarcasm. Your humour is getting more British by the day.
Respect!
I am much more relaxed about my cables in my Hifi system, thanks👍
thanks a lot Nigel.
NASA? A bunch of cowboys, CERN is where it’s at.
As in Cerne Abbas…
Especially if you want an extension job.
(But actually size doesn’t matter!)
At what price do you get basic good sound quality, i think it starts at £600 for the seperates and all the way upwards but defo not cheap.
A realistic sounding system starts at around 2k brand new inc cables and plugs, and thats sound.
Video is a different matter.
Who would pay this money anyway?
A drug dealer, lottery winner, footballer or rock star?
There’s no way a cable costing a £1000 euro will improve the SQ by that price, it just can’t and won’t. It’ll defo do something but not everything which is what you should expect when buying such a cable.
At that price it should also come with a high class hooker as well.
I guess it’s all relative to the user and his priorities.
Some of the most worthwhile improvements are to be found for free or very little money such as grounding, using dried kiln sand in stand pillars and, spikes, then isolated, using unswitched sockets and speaker positioning, also using hard-wood large blocks and sorbothane can work wonders sometimes.
Always ground your power cables with the shield and i use both ends for this other people don’t.
Blue tack comes in handy too sometimes as i put it under my speakers when sitting on the top plate.
There’s a myriad of things that work you just have to find out about them and try see if it works for you.
Once you do all these simple things you discover improving SQ needn’t cost an arm and a leg and you will no doubt appreciate the upgrades a lot more.
I entered the tour de france competition and if i win it i might buy myself an expensive cable for £300.
Sounds fair doesn’t it.