Introduction

For many years now, we at Vertex have been busying away developing and applying technologies borne out of the defence world. Our acoustic absorption techniques and EMI/RFI filtering processes have produced a range of products that we are very proud of. However, more importantly than the individual products, we have also developed a very comprehensive strategy, or methodology if you like, that deals with the application of Vertex products in an intelligent, system-wide way. We call it the Systematic Approach.

But as we developed our products and strategies, we became increasingly aware that our, or indeed, anybody else's inability to measure the dramatic improvements we were delivering was becoming a serious problem. This deficiency leads to all sorts of difficulties of course, from the obvious ones of 'snake oil' accusations, long up-hill battles to convince those who want to believe, nervousness from the press and new dealers and so on. At a deeper level, the ability to improve our understanding for further research and product development could clearly bring massive benefits. And finally, of course, there's the question of why, oh why, do we all seem stuck in a massive void between the current techniques being used to measure our pieces of hi-fi, and the reality of what we hear? 

 An Alternative Battle Plan - Turning to Defence Again

Now as we have said, Vertex has a strong link with the defence industry - we have a sister company which works on many UK MoD-based research and acquisition projects. About 18 months ago we were fortunate enough to work on a collaborative project of significant technical difficulty, and one of the other participants was a company of signal processing and analysis experts called Acuity. These guys were working in the core of some of the most complex 'number crunching' projects going!

So we approached them and described our dilemma with Vertex AQ and the hi-fi business, and asked them if they could help shed some new light on the matter. They agreed to take a look at least (but were probably thinking we were nuts), so we sent them some gear. We described in detail what we thought was happening to the output of something like a CD player when you put a Kinabalu under it say, and left them to it for a few weeks. 

Well imagine our surprise and delight when a few weeks later we had a call from Acuity saying 'yep, we had to use some lateral thinking based on sonar algorithm processes, but we can clearly see there are time domain changes to the output of the CD player with and without the Vertex gear'.

Time for Collaboration

Another important element to this story was our work with Roy Gregory, then editor of Hi>Fi+. At the Heathrow and Rocky Mountain shows last September/October (2008), we supported Roy in some very successful demonstrations using Vertex and other good system infrastructure equipment. And during that time, conversation often came back round to the thorny issue of measurement. Well, subsequently, Roy moved on to become VP Marketing for Nordost, but because we had now begun to build up a good joint understanding of the many systematic issues in hi-fi, there suddenly seemed to be an opportunity of ironic synergy. Two 'cable' companies, supposedly competitors, working together on a joint research project - never been heard of before, we thought, so lets do it.

So, humor aside, we now have a formal 3-way collaboration between Vertex AQ, Nordost and Acuity. We have a robust project management structure agreed between the parties and we are rigorously exploring the issues of hi-fi performance and measurement. But we should be clear here, whilst Vertex and Nordost are directing the programme, the testing and analysis work is the domain of Acuity. Indeed, at a technical level we have set up a clear air gap between the 2 hi-fi companies and Acuity, plus the Acuity staff are applying the highest level of scrutiny to the work, just as they would if they were delivering information to the Uk MoD.

Some Early Output 

One of the early tasks for Acuity was to try and see what real signal output differences might be evident using a reputable mid-priced CD player with some Vertex and Nordost equipment going in and out of the equation. We knew Acuity had identified some difference already, but could we start to gain anything meaningful from the information? Well its early days yet but it seems we can.

One of the tests uses a piece of real music, rather than sine wave test signals - which already we have found do not load up the system sufficiently to truly reveal the effects that are occurring. So acuity played a sample of complex music through the player, first with it just sat on its own on the bench with standard leads, and then with the player on a Super Kinabalu and wired up with a Roraima mains lead and a Solfonn interconnect.

The graphs shown below are only a brief example of all the graphs that have already been produced. The full case studies, with all the exact detail from each of the major measurement activities, will be displayed on the Acuity website very soon. But what these graphs do show is the reduction in the amount of error between a 'Vertexed' and 'non-Vertexed' player.

This first graph is showing you a time domain representation of a real piece of music - this is the waveform as is reconstructed by the CD player from each of the digital samples, and turned into an analogue output. It is obviously only one channel, and although the scale is difficult to see, the signal is going from typically plus and minus 40 dB. Therefore the CD player's output level at this point in the piece of music is about half the player's maximum output capability. When the testing is carried out, with and without the different bits of supporting equipment, it is nearly impossible to see any differences directly, therefore there is not much point in reproducing them all here. However, when you subtract the graphs from each other, you can then clearly see the resultant difference.

In this second graph we have reproduced the difference, or error graph, between the original track and the output of our CD player when it is just sat on the test bench and connected with ordinary leads. Again the scale is not easy to see but the amplitude of this error is actually about 8 percent of the amplitude of the music signal (the scale of the error graphs has been expanded so that you can see the graph easily).