Is point to point wiring better than PCB?

[@Terkinstein]

You mentioned that you don't have equipment that can measure the low impedance of the copper bus bars. I work in aviation where we have to measure very low impedance of electrical bonds of fairings to the fuselage and basically every panel and major components have specific requirements when it comes to impedance of the bonding wires. If it is worth it to you maybe purchase an aviation style bonding meter they are portable and durable for line maintenance tasks so I'm sure it would last forever in your wonderful lab. I love your videos please keep 'em coming.

[@ShadowPoet]

This is just more B.S pseudoscience from this channel... blowing smoke up his own a$$ to make it seem like their products are "special" -- they're not.

[@spacemissing]

A poorly designed point-to-point circuit will be horrible --- some old radios pretty much prove that, but a well-designed point-to-point circuit can be a wonderful thing.

[@firewall8039]

Hi Paul - do you think that there is a chance for five (5) channel audio? DVD-A, etc have all failed. What do you think multi-channel audio needs to be viable? Else, in your opinion why is 2 channel favored by PS AUdio? I listen to mostly 2 channel audio, but sometimes 5 channel Neo. Just curious on thoughts!

[@panpan25911]

It was an Austrian engineer called Paul Eisler, not US military nor Nasa who invented pcb 1936 in London.

[@EliasTheHunter]

Billy William Implying that climate change isn’t real or important?

[@andydelle4509]

Why does point to point sound better than a PC board? Somebody please explain in engineering terms. I don't see the copper bar example as relevant. Of course you can't practically build a high current DC power supply on a PC board. But unless we are talking about a kilowatt amplifier, this issue is not relevant. Let's keep the discussion at line level audio signals. The popular voodoo opinion is that the PC board has capacitance and degrades the audio signal. Once again this is some audio magazine reviewer taking RF circuit theory and blindly applying it to baseband audio,. These problems do exist at microwave frequencies and they do in fact make special PC board material for that reason. But at audio frequencies, even video and sub GHZ RF, plain old FR4 is just fine. PC boards if designed properly with ground planes can actually reduce noise even at audio frequencies. So you can easily state that for a phono preamp, a PC board is superior to a point to point wiring job. I think this voodoo comes from the idea that hand wiring is craftsmanship and that long tedious hand work somehow influences the sound. Just more wishful audiophile thinking with no evidence rooted in science and engineering. This is not to say however that point to point sounds bad or any different. For most analog audio circuits, especially power amplifiers, there is no sonic advantage to either construction technique. Cost and mass production is another matter!

[@gfr2023]

"..if designed properly.." this is the key to everything ... you can find out there 4 layers pcb made by makers.. that hit the autoroute button and make no refinement.. or even 2 layers pcb that should be 1 layer just with little effort.. i think there are some forms of "fetichism" in electronics.. so people like a technique for no reason.. for example i like those vintage soviet avionics boards full of big component and laced wires..

[@hugoromeyn4582]

Point to point wiring is reducing the amount of soldering joints in a circuit because (where possible), the component leads are directly soldered together. So you can connect two components by making one joint. At a PCB, you always have to solder a component lead to the PCB, than the signal is going through the trace and then it's going to another soldering joint before it's reaching the next component. Next to that, there is another advantage you can see in older tube equipment where point to point is done properly. The leads are clamped in a way that they already make a good connection. Soldering is done after that, to fix it mechanically and to provide that no oxidation will occur over time. Whether it's PCB or PTP, there is always capacitance between two conductors. Only a good engineer knows how to deal with that. And you are right about RF, that's a very different game compared to audio circuitry.

[@andydelle4509]

@@hugoromeyn4582 All quite true from a reliability standpoint. What I disagree with is the audiophile ideas that different solder brands sound different and that one can "hear" a solder joint. The only way to hear a solder joint is bad a joint that is intermittent. A proper solder joint has no sound. Now I can imagine a case where you have thousands of solder joints in a series and the metallurgy of the solder presents enough resistance to become audible. But that's hardly a practical concern. And that's where these audiophile claims fall apart. They take a purely theoretical situation like that and then assume any solder joint has additional resistance and therefore compromises the audio signal. OK, but at what magnitude compered to the signal level? Immeasurable!

[@hugoromeyn4582]

​@@andydelle4509 I was a real skeptic for many years about high end audio. I Knew the differences between a mediocre amplifier and a better one, I was able to hear the differences and that made perfectly sense to me. Until 16 years ago. I was starting to work for a company (not audio related) and I had a colleague over there that was far more into audio, he is a real DIY audiophile. We started to discuss about things like audio cables and small changes in amplifier circuitry. He told me about how swapping the polarity of a power plug could make a difference in the sound of an amplifier. My first thought was "this guy is crazy". I Had, and still not have, any clue why that can make a difference. But that it makes a difference, I discovered that when I was back home and did what he said. The sound of my system was completely different after the swap. Lows were gone, details were gone. It sounded just flat and harsh. Swapping the polarity again, and everything was back to normal. For me, that was the "WTF" moment. After that, I've played a lot with different DIY cables (AC power, interconnects, speaker cables) and I can tell you. There is a hell of a difference and I still can't explain it physically nor mathematically. And that's very frustrating. I've build an FM broadcast transmitter, 10 Watts RF output, for a local radio station last year with a 10 amp SMPS. Lot's of overhead in the power supply current, but the transmitter sounded dull, not dynamic at all and with a lack of base. On an amplifier, I immediately know what's going wrong. A power supply that's not capable of handling fast and fluctuating current draw. But with an FM transmitter, the current isn't fluctuating. I decided to design a new power supply for the transmitter. An old school 3 amp toroidal transformer, rectifier, filtering, stabilization and proper RF decoupling. And it sounded so much better! Theoretically, the SMPS should be better due to the many amps of overhead, but it makes the transmitter sounds really bad. Practically, the old school power supply is a hell of a lot better, it sounds fantastic. And I can't explain why. But I was not the only one who was noticing the difference. The owner, not an audiophile, noticed it too. I'm convinced that there's something in audio and electronics that we still do not understand. Just like we still don't understand any aspect of RF radiation. But I do have respect for both "camps". The theoretical engineers saying: 'Rubbish! Snake Oil!' And the Audiophiles, enjoying their music systems with tiny (not) expensive tweaks ;)

[@Fluterra]

Wrong. There is a large benefit of point to point. Think about the size and length difference of those thin PCB traces vs proper wiring. Watch the video again.

[@johnwave2827]

Paul: You definitely don't want to stick your finger in here 5:46 Also Paul: But, in here (almost touches it)

[@vcp93]

Hey Paul, how's the studio going? I'm really excited to see (or hear) what comes out of that venture. Cheers! 😁🎶

[@markfischer3626]

I have seen excellent and horrible examples of both. Each has its advantages and disadvantages. Point to point wiring is labor intensive, less consistent, usually less compact, but easier to repair. Printed circuit boards at their best are consistent, their manufacture can be automated but are often difficult to repair so many times the entire boards are replaced. PCBs offer a modularity point to point usually doesnt. For example there are often expansion slots in computer motherboards for various later add ons. There are strict military specifications for both types. There are even military specifications for an acceptable soldered connection. I've seen problems where a video card became loose from a motherboard due to vibrations more than once.

[@westelaudio943]

Tubes on a PCB is horrible. Not because of sound quality myths, but because of cold solder joints. It worked more or less ok with the old leaded solder, but it doesn't work properly at all with modern RoHS rubbish.

[@cbcdesign001]

Why not use leaded solder for the tubes? As long as its used in limited quantities there is no reason why a small amount of leaded solder cannot be used on a modern pcb in critical applications, the directives allow for that.

[@westelaudio943]

@@cbcdesign001 Because then they would have to solder the tube sockets separately by hand instead of just putting the whole thing in the pot soldering machine. That would cost the companies extra money so they don't bother. Also, in the "olden days" all traces where completely covered with eutectic solder so that helped with heat dissipation too I think, but today they cover the traces with green ot blueish paint between the joints to keep the solder from even getting there, because they wanna cheap out on that too.

[@ArnoldVroomans]

A thriller by Paul, just imagine the plot...death by neodymium magnets...electrocution by planar...killed by infra sub...torture with low-fi...

[@richardf7885]

A great question and a great answer . I have known DIYers to where practical use " no wire " only the component leads are used to make the circuit. However this is clearly not practical in many circumstances. If a PCB must be used the layout is as important and will affect the sound just as much as wire choice !

[@sickjohnson]

Can't wait for the next speaker update Paul...hope you guys are making some big breakthroughs and good progress!

[@CoquiAudio]

in my opinion, if you have a simple tube amplifier you can mix both a nice PCB, but for a solid state a PCB is a way to go and is less complicated also PCB will have the info of the components R1, C2, D1, etc point to point still be using and still really good an will last many years I like both 😊

[@garfieldsmith332]

At 4:03, does the employee in the back ground get a bonus for an on screen appearance in this video. :-)

[@brotakul]

If point to point wiring would objectionably sound better than PCBs, than top-notch, very expensive gear would all use it exclusively and so better justify their price tag. But when a +$6000 amp (e.g.: McIntosh MC275) uses PCBs while a less than $500 Chinese amp (e.g.: Reisong A10/A12) uses PTP... it is (hopefully) clearly :D ... not something that is critical from a sonic standpoint. Sure, PTP looks very cool! Really, I personally dig it. And I'd like to admire that level of workmanship and attention to detail. What audiophile wouldn't? :D Sure, PTP should be easier to repair, especially at home by enthusiasts. Sure, PTP solder joints should in theory be stronger, more reliable. On the other hand, a complete PTP is a nightmare in manufacturing, takes A LOT more production time, requires more expensive and skilled operators, generates more repair and possible RMAs, when compared to using PCBs. There might even be so-called "performance" differences (SQ related), as with everything in life - at least in theory - but I believe they are insignificant, otherwise, again, everyone would do it, especially the big expensive brands. If PTP would be "detectably" better, I wouldn't expect any >$2000 gear use PCBs in simple circuitry in analog domain, like tube amps for example. And still, this is not the case. If there would be any way for HiFi brands to justify bumping up the prices, they would certainly do it. If they don't, then there's obviously something questionable about the "proposed theory" that even they don't buy it :D Now, Paul is often put in a difficult situation, to give an honest and correct answer on one hand, and on the other hand to protect his company and not bash the industry. And this is not only related to the situation in hand. I feel for him, I wouldn't want to be in his shoes trying to answer some uncomfortable questions. But still, I feel like he does a great job, with enough diplomacy, even if the answer still let's you hanging... I guess that's a life-long experience with countless customers challenging your very passion on a daily basis :) Cheers Paul, God bless you!

[@L.Scott_Music]

I've been hearing from some boutique guitar amplifier builders that they have discovered PCBs can be made to be very close to the quality of point to point. The PCB only needs a nice thick copper traces (cheap PCBs are terrible) and of course you still use the same components.

[@r423sdex]

Is the copper in a circuit board directional, and would it be better if it was cryogenic treated. ;-)

[@noahtheviking1]

point to point tube guitar amps are dreamy.

[@ninethirtyone4264]

What is the technical definition of dreamy?

[@HooksBill]

@@ninethirtyone4264 Some things don't need scientific explanation. Our ears tell us. In a blind test, for example, you may not always be able to distinguish between the two. But given familiarity of a particular amp over time, a before and after test yields improved tone with point to point in nearly every case.

[@ninethirtyone4264]

@@HooksBill Ahhh of course...the toan. Simply wrong. There is nothing other than a sprinkle of fairy dust that could possibly make one approach yield different sound characteristics than the other. Wiring an amp is not as easy as just throwing a bunch of components in a chassis and depending on what you connect them with will get you a "better" sound. There are a lot of strict rules that you have to follow otherwise you will just get hum, oscillation noise and it will sound like trash. This means that the hookup doesn't change much witht change to wiring topology, and in fact if you really wanted you could make it exactly the same, and the only difference between one amp and the other would be that one has solid wires between the components and the other has solid copper sheets. This has no effect on the sound whatsoever, only difference is the noise figure improves on the PCB variant because a lot of connections are shielded with the ground pour, actually I know one delusional group of people that claim that different type of material makes their gear sound better and they get laughed at for buying $3k power cables, please don't be that guy . Now, I actually tried this out in practice, having the prototype of my amp design PTP and the final version on PCB, and after finishing both units there was no difference in *toan* whatsoever and that's how it should be. In a properly built amp the component values should be the only thing that dictates how it sounds, never the wiring method used.

[@brandonburr4900]

Paul, Thanks for the video and shout out to nelson pass. He is one of the most selfless designers in the diy audio community along with loads of other folks way smarter than me and even sometimes Wayne (Nelsons right hand designer..aka wizards assistant😀). Wayne has a really good diy class a headphone amp kit called the whammy that can also be made into really good preamp. I will make both with all the parts I have coolected. Heard it pairs well with Nelsons amp camp 1.6 amps as well. You would be great just like Nelson if you ever did decide to teach diy😀 writing your autobiography must have given you the writing bug😀 or perhaps you always had it? I'm sure you would be great at that as well. Hollywood may come knocking to make it into a movie😀

[@4G12]

A well designed PCB utterly destroys point to point wiring. All those stray EM noises from so many long wires dangling around won't improve anything.

[@carlosoliveira-rc2xt]

Ive looked inside a point to point preamp that was made by a local designer. It belongs to a friend of mine and looked like a crow's nest inside. In fact one electronic repairman refused to work on it.

[@johnyang799]

Measurements back it up.

[@yestoES355]

Point to point when it comes to guitar amps will always sound better to my ears at least. Some boutique makers that use high quality thick PCB boards like tone king, Mesa, etc will sound equally as good.

[@swinde]

On tube amps military style point to point is best. The old McIntosh and Marantz units used this method. Open terminal point to point is OK but not as professional looking. Also there is nothing wrong with PC boards. I do not think either affects the sound.

[@johnsweda2999]

I've got a question for you Paul no technician has ever over the years given me an answer to it. Why do in some circuit boards they gold plate the whole board instead of silver ? Silver would be better and cheaper so I can't understand why they don't use it over gold? what is 13% better conductivity than gold for free electrons, plus the cost would be cheaper to use over gold. So why don't they use silver. You don't have to have silver tarnishing these days plus it's under a mask anyway so there's not an issue. I would appreciate it Paul if you could give me an answer to this if you know why. And terminals should be silver-plated not gold. your busbar would benefit from being silver-plated you could use less copper, you should silverplate all your boards then you would be just as good and better as point-to-point wiring better in a way because you can make the circuitry have better skin effect. Now there's an upgrade for you.

[@johnyang799]

Because gold don't oxidize. Simple.

[@johnyang799]

If any connection terminal is oxidized the resistance will likely 10 fold or even non conductive.

[@BijBijTCG]

@@johnyang799 i heard silver gives you more high, and gold more lows.

[@johnsweda2999]

@@johnyang799 I did state that there's not an issue with silver oxidizing, on a circuit board or even on a terminal not if they mix it, And the oxidisation doesn't cause resistance

[@johnsweda2999]

@@johnyang799 I did say they can make silver to not oxidize and even if it does oxidize oxidisation on silver doesn't cause resistance

[@58Tommy]

With PCB's you can match impedace, electrical line length and design them for any current spike. You can't do that with point to point.

[@chrisvinicombe9947]

Good question today

[@StillRenderFilm]

Let's do point to point DAC with BGA chip.

[@shawnhudson3735]

You could do it on that power regenerator, but it would need to be the size of a refrigerator plus it would cost 5-10 times as much, so yes ultimately not practical. Thanks for the info. otherwise Paul.

[@christianholmstedt8770]

Only if the PCB design is bad. /thread

[@PebblesChan]

Hand wired Surface Mount point to point wiring - I’d like to see that!

[@johnyang799]

It's possible but absolutely no benefits.

[@juliaset751]

So the question then becomes: should the copper traces be super pure copper? What about the copper thickness, what about the material the boards are made of.

[@johnyang799]

Pure copper or not in that distance don't matter. Thickness and width limits the current. 1mm 1oz for 1A basically. 3-6mm 2oz is more suitable for power amp application.

[@andydelle4509]

In audio circuits it's simple ohm's law. The copper trace must not drop too much voltage for the circuit requirements. When we get into RF, skin effect comes into play and that then has to be considered in PC board trace geometry.

[@fabiena1787]

You look really happy, like you are sitting on top of the Maslow pyramid (not the slightest touch of irony, here).

[@ac81017]

ha ha famous quote from MR Scott (Star Trek) If you don´t have the time, you make the time :-)

[@2ChannelAudio]

Thanks... :)

[@kostisk8914]

Cool vid but u didn’t actually say why it sounds better.

[@tsamplifiers6493]

No. Wrong again Paul. Orientation interaction effects were not considered. Nelson is also a degreed design EE.

[@atishaysingh5114]

Paul you are not alone... 04:03... 🤫🤫😱😱😱

[@avgeek1024]

My dreams is point to point amp

[@jlsagely6892]

Thank you for caring about climate change. You’re not just a smart man, you’re a good man.

[@carlosoliveira-rc2xt]

Climate change. SMH

[@EliasTheHunter]

carlos oliveira So it doesn’t exist or isn’t important? Curious what makes you so ignorant.

[@FooBar89]

the big coppers bus bars 6:18 have nothing to do with impedance, it's just resistance, if you drive a lot of current, you need low resistance; and sure you can measure it, run as much current as you need and measure the the voltage with any of the multimeters you have laying around, it will in the hundreds of micro ohms or a few milliohms; it actually concerns me that you didn't measure, that means the product you are manufacturing might have a problem! what if those bars don't have enough current carrying capacity, warm up and catch a fire?

[@johnyang799]

You know that resistance is part of impedance right? Also 1mm 1oz roughly carrys 1A. A copper bar will likely carry 100A or even more.

[@FooBar89]

John Yang it's not relevant to the problem, resistance is, even if you got AC; there's no likely, it either is or there isn't, "likely" isn't science or engineering

[@amdenis]

Just give up the family- plenty of time then!

[@wally6193]

I agree 100% that point to point sounds better, been there done that.

[@MadawaskaObservatory]

why would it sound better

[@johnyang799]

No it won't.

[@MadawaskaObservatory]

@@johnyang799 I agree John, there is no technical reason why a point-to-point would sound better. Indeed there are technical reasons it would sound worse.

[@lynnpoole7830]

Some high end gear still have point to point but not many at all.

[@johnyang799]

There should be non. Because point to point is worse.

[@daveduffy2823]

Yes, better, but why?

[@FooBar89]

it is not better, see my comments above

[@johnyang799]

Measurements showed PCB will always be better if designed properly.

[@FooBar89]

John Yang for what? if in audio applications then yes generally speaking, for most things yes, but in some cases no

[@ryanray6215]

" Climate Change " lol What a Joke :-)

[@EliasTheHunter]

I hope you’re right, but believe you’re wrong.

[@ShadowPoet]

No science, no substance, no explanations as to why... typical nonsensical B.S from PS Audio as usual.

[@usandthemx]

Climate change - LMAO Funny, you don't look like a sheep

[@EliasTheHunter]

Are you kidding? What makes you think it isn’t real?

[@number1pappy]

Damn paul,i had alot of respect for you and dadgummit I just liked you!!...but this morning I watched this video and you let it out that you are writing a book about "global warming"! Sigh...........just so I can continue to enjoy and watch your thoughtful and educating videos I'm going to pretend that you dont believe humans had anything to do with global warming and it's just what it is. It's just the earth going thru a natural change as it's done periodically since the beginning of time! As if your belief is anything else I just dont know if I can honestly respect you as a intelligent person. Sorry Paul!