Clean power is said to be critical to the performance of high-end audio equipment, yet is that so? And check out our newest RU-vid channel / @octaverecordsanddsdst... Octave Records.
I think Paul does a fairly decent job of explaining here. At least he states that it is not as important as many think, but can be important depending on situation. Also, one doesn't need to spend $10k on a PS Audio power unit or any power unit in that range. On the flip side I have never seen power units at Walmart and would not purchase anything from there anyway. I never needed anything like a power conditioner until I moved into this one place that had sketchy power. I went and got a Panamax power conditioner/protector (expensive to me, but not nearly as much as a PS Audio power unit), but it solved a list of problems and saved my gear a couple of times and it is still doing it's job. If one doesn't have measurable sketchy power in their place, then it is not likely things like power conditioners are needed. Always a good idea to have a good surge protector though.
As always with PS Audio stuff it would lovely to have; But Paul's point that it is the verry crests of the voltage peaks being 'Cropped' as your most likely disadvantage caused by using a power conditioner I frankly doubt will be a problem with a{£30] 1000w conditioner with surge protection etc running little more than a hifi system.
Thanks for the explanation on lowering the impedance, as it impacts the sound. Also the rolling off of the sine wave. These two items explain why I got better sound when I replaced my cheap .75 wall socket for an Audiophile Grade (better than Hospital Grade) wall socket. And when I included a linear filter on the power line. That linear filter actively keeps the impedance low at .05 Ohms. The socket, creates far better conductivity to the live power wires in the house. As it turns out, those cheap Home-Depot special power outlets have no copper behind them and the plugs themselves are loose and do not make cold welds against the power plug. Hospital Grade does have some copper behind it, for better and more reliable conductivity and has tighter plugs to make a cold weld against your Positive/Negative/Ground connector.
I once had a situation where l had a power surge that took out a VCR. The power company did a chart on my line for 3 days and found spikes. They discovered over the years that 5 houses were on the same transformer, this by itself back in the early day wasn't to bad but home owners added to their homes. New AC pools new kitchens etc. But didn't tell the power co. This caused overloading. Finally l recieved the power surge and spike. The remedy Give me my own 25kva transformer. Suddenly Clean voltage amperage and more! No more problems and great audio/video! Yippie!
That's what your amps transformer does, it lowers the impedance to a specific setting in Ohms of power coming into the amp. You don't need a high-end clean power component in most major cities when one has a good transformer built into your amp. Every high- end audio company will list the transformers filtered amp impedance in terms of THD (Total Harmonic Distortion). What one really needs is a high quality surge protector. Save your money and invest in four of the most important products of any high- end system. 1) A great recorded musical source 2) A well built amp with a large high quality transformer. 3) A high-quality surge protector. 4) High quality efficient speakers that match the Ohm setting of amp. Then add roughly 20% of total cost of system on cables. Look into companies like Acoustic Zen, and AudioQuest for cables, just my opinion.
There's really simple phenomenons regarding power supply: noise (which is typically rejected by the transformer itself or the input common mode filter or PFC of SMPS), having enough power reserve in the bulk capacitors for transient power requirements of the amplifier and bus pumping. If an amplifier runs out of power, distortion is pretty bad, so there's no magic here.
I'm late on this tutorial. Great topic and my brother (In the 70's Nippon engineer) was passionate about this. He built for me, a solution for the trash that the 'power' companies sell us ( eh showed me the proof). He said Audio/amps/refrigerators etc., are engineered for a correct fuel/power. You are correct on this, I've noticed most audio businesses do not push these benefits. Today my entire home has this benefit. (My 74 Sansui is still pushing it. NO repairs) Thanks brother...
Amen brother .. I constantly tell people that the only way to get true. full , dynamic sound from your refrigerator is to get rid of the trash that the 'power' companies sell us and use a 60hz-60hz rotary phase converter. When you run a fridge off straight wall power you loose all the bass.
Very informative. With a transformer-rectifier-capacitor supply the impedance of the mains really comes into play when the diodes conduct on the peaks to keep the capacitors charged. So you listen to a combination of mains (inc transformer) and capacitor impedance and rectification quality. I have used transformer-rectifier-choke-capacitor supplies to good effect to eliminate the short conduction spikes. I guess without using synchronous rectification which will inevitably demand a move to switch mode supplies, this interaction with the mains will always remain. Switchmode technology has made big advances and one could always use decent amount of capacitors after the SMPS. It is already used succesfully in your power regenerator.
What’s the best option for clean power spending less then 1000 dollars. I use isolation Transformer system for cleaning the power to my Hifi system and it makes everything sound better than whiteout it I have two one small 100w isolation transformer that I use for Preamp and cd player and one big isolation transformer 1000w that I only use for small power amp Rotel 960BX 300w in effect and the power amplifier also sound better than whiteout it. I have also tried Isotek the plug shunt filter but my Hifi system sounds much better whit the isolation transformers. Totally isolating and regeneration of the power can be done whit a UPS 3000w system using caps and battery to store power but the UPS uninterrupted power system have to be built for Audio use. One other option is battery power and True sine wave 3000w inverter. It,s going to totally isolate power from the grid but the quality of the power output is going to be down to how good the inverter is to recreate 12v DC power to 230V 50-HZ sine wave power.
*I have a couple of Mr Tice's power blocks, makes a big difference - previous home I had added an isolation transformer on a sub-panel with 12ga wiring to the outlets all together made a HUGE difference*
I have owned a P10 since 2016 - very happy with it - powers a pair of 300 watt tube monoblocks., Listened to it with the Australian distributor, who describes music played through it as "sounding more organic" compared to a voltage correction device (Thor PS-10) which didn't condition the power amplifiers.
Paul - where do you stand on the impact of the new audioquest Niagara series of power conditioners that is cleaning up existing power vs using a ps audio p15 or p20
These units are basically a double conversion topology UPS unit missing the battery backup. Yes they do re-generate clean low distortion AC to spite noisy or distorted input AC power. The question is if typical residential AC power is so bad that these units can make improvements in the reproduced audio. In most cases I don't think so. While some areas of the country do have bad power, the average home is more than good enough for fine audio reproduction. 3% to even 10% distortion on the incoming AC waveform will not compromise any competently designed linear or switch mode power supply, especially a switch mode power supply. The AC is rectified, what difference does some distortion make provided it does not change the RMS value significantly? Distortion on the input AC does not translate to amplifier output distortion. Now that is not being claimed directly but I think it's being assumed by non-technical customers. Another thing to keep in mind here, the Power Plant is still plugged into the so called dirty AC power. While I do believe it does produce a low impedance output, let's ask for how long? The PS Power plant can maintain this low output impedance only as long as it's internal power supply reserves hold up. Now does it hold up long enough to ride through average music transients? We don't know but that can certainly be tested. I would be interesting to run some tests comparing the amplifier DC rails against an audio clip on a quad trace storage scope with and without the PS Power Plant. I expect there will be some difference but then we have to quantify that to the performance of the amplifier circuit.
How would these PS-afficionados respond once they realize that the output stage of the Powerplant is actually eerily similar to a, ever loathed, Class D amp... ;-)
I understand it's easy to dismiss this because it doesn't quite fit your view but you might try giving these newer ideas and concepts a try. I've done my best in the short period of time I have to explain AC flat topping and the importance of refilling the missing energy as well as regulation. One thing to try and remember is that most power amplifiers have unregulated supplies and these are impacted even more by producing a distortion free sine wave. The only reason we measure (and provide an analyzer on the front panel) is to show the effects of clipping the AC waveform which, as I am sure you understand, happens when enough low power factor products on a shared line draw current at the peak of the sine wave. Lastly, this is only like a UPS in a distant way. A double conversion UPS, while functionally the same, is not the same. That's because UPS regenerators are class D amplifiers and they cannot deliver high amounts of peak current. This means that when they try and power low power factor devices they can actually make the power worse, often as high as 10% to 15% in the form of a divot in the sine wave at its peak.
PS Audio UPS's indeed regenerate their power from batteries that are (arguebly) slower to respond to fast changes. However, Class D amps, or frequency inverters which are in essence very similar, generate their power from high storage capacitors, that are very fast to respond and can handle transients perfectly fine. So I don't quite get your point.
Class D amplifier, in the way they are implemented in double conversion regenerators cannot deliver peak current. They do fine when the power factor is 1 (where voltage and current track each other) but when it begins to dip below 0.7 they cannot keep up. If you're really curious you can easily test it. We use a 500 watt variable power factor load and test all sort of devices. Nearly all fail. The problem is these peak currents can often time exceed 60 amps right at the peak of the sine wave. When we design and build a regenerator it has to handle these peaks. To do that requires enormous banks for power supply capacitors and very tough transistors. That's a lot of peak current.
PS Audio There's something seriously wrong with the design, when an household appliance's power factor dips below 0.7 Anyway, in the mills where I work as an electrical engineer, we power motors of several 100's of kilowatts in a similar way, to how a Class D amps functions. These motors do not cringe and when in normal operating mode, they usually don't fall below a power factor of 0.85. It's all a matter of size. When the converter can't keep up... it's too small... Replace it with a bigger one.
Over the years, I experimented with an array of power conditioners, filters, ups/battery backups, surge protectors, isolation transformers, etc. One problem that none of the power conditioning units I tried could fix was mechanical noise from the power transformers in all of my audio gear. These noises came and went. (My wife had a hairdryer that was a huge cause of this problem.) I finally tried a PS Audio Humbuster. Poof! The noises were gone, never to return.
Snake oil. Spend the extra money on a better pair of speakers or power amp or both. No power conditioner/regenerator can help a power amp with lousy power supply circuits inside the amp. If it is your house, pull a heavy cable from the breaker box to just power the system, that will do a lot more good and a whole lot cheaper.
I am getting random popping coming from my def tech 6080 towers even with everything turned off but the towers plugged in the wall. could the built-in amps have issues? bought in 2009.
I bought a $60.00 power conditioner to use with the PS. Sprout and B&W 602's. And WOW!!!! I love my Sprout even more. I can't afford the expensive gear gut I hear the difference already. It's not my imagination , it's real.
Fun story on this subject. One computer installation I saw in an industrial location that was experiencing extremely bad mains power. So they used a crazy device that is both simple and muscular. So, three parts of it. First a motor, and a big one. Lets say something like a motor that runs a pump for a swimming pool. Second a generator. You turn the shaft on the generator at 60rpm and it generates 115vac. It’s gonna be big generator. Connect the motor to the generator with a shaft. OK so far? Power up the motor and the generator generates your now isolated 115vac @ 60hz. Ok so far? Now mount a balanced 200lb flywheel on the shaft that connects the motor to the generator. So there you have it, isolated clean power. Make sure you house this monster in a cabinet that none of your kids can get into.
They didn't have the flywheel, but that was how they generated "clean" power on a couple research ships I worked. A motor driven by the ship's generators drove a generator that fed the "clean" (computer, instrument) power distribution. Kept the cycling of motors on hydraulic systems or slight out of "tune" running of the ship's gens or switching generators from glitching the electronics. Clean utility power is dependent upon your utility, where you are on the sub-station distribution, recent load additions, etc.
Paul P. Well, my point is correct. If you assume that my indirect point is that clean power often isn’t a relevant issue for most consumers and sold as snake oil a bit too much, you are right. Modern consumer electronics has build-in mains filters and power supplies intended to keep mains noise away from amp circuits. If your amp doesn’t have Vcc ripple or other noise measurable originating from the mains noise, you are fine. Electric noise is 100% measurable.
7:41 Kind of rhetorical question, does it matters if the AC power going into the power regulator comes from the golden 'audio grade' power cable that costs $600 or regular power cable that costs $10?
I no longer worry about clean power supply to my system ever since capturing a Pikachu who does the excellent job as long as I feed him well and go out for a regular walk :D
I always doubted this until I heard a DAC sound better with external power supply. Suddenly, as a novice audiophile, I can see why clean power makes a difference.
Seeing as every amplifier on the market runs on DC internally and has a fairly decent filtering circuit after rectification (filter caps, coil chokes/inductors, hell even internodal resistors), I posit that the design of the power supply is the important factor here - NOT the AC mains itself. As long as the AC is reasonably low noise, which it almost always is unless you have something else on that circuit misbehaving (cheap crappy computer power supplies, for example, often can throw tons of noise back into the mains lines), it doesn't matter. As far as voltage sag - that's not a problem, unless you have a wildly under-spec power supply, or for some inexplicable reason you're using vacuum tube rectifiers.
I would say that the average American home that had a pretty good stereo system would also have things plugged-in on various circuits that create noise in both the power and electromagnetic realms.
The amplifier and its power supply are closed loop systems with large overheads when properly designed. I don't see how anything further down the line makes much difference, although optical input or attention to the preamp environment will reduce conducted power line noise.
I heard someone say you can get bad power if you use a surge suppressor strip. And suggested to plug it directly into the wall. But here in Florida would be disaster with all the storms.
At my old home there were power lines and equipment would get electrical damage constantly. The infrastructure looked dated and repairs were only made during catastrophic failures. After moving to a newer neighborhood with underground utilities I haven't had an issue. I use power conditioning on my main equipment now regardless. Some places have better power than others. If there's all kinds of noise in the lines, your asking for trouble.
I have a tube guitar amp, the question is if i am better with just a extension of 230V with surge protection on my 16A eletricity socket on the wall or a APC UPS with 1400VA and 700w 230V with a pseudo sinewave? Or both? The tube amp only have 25w, and consumes 100/115w in full power. I will connect a Line6 HX Stomp and a CryBaby wah pedals in the FX Loop circuit in the amp. I live on Europe, Portugal to be precise. My house have 30+ years, should i check my circuit breaker for better ground? I have a circuit breaker that the only thing it controls is the suply of energy to that 16A eletricity socket. In the future i will buy a Furman but meanwhile i just want to know what is the best choise in my case. Thanks in advance. I know 0 about eletricity. I will loose dynamics with the UPS? More than with just the extension?
yup eddie van halen used a variac to get his sound from his guitar amps. voltage systems are used all the time for guitar amps at shows. so do recording studios
Paul, I want to thank you for the information on "clean power." You were talking about how these AC Conditioning devices effect the higher frequencies. I've always had my amp (Parasound A51) connected to my $3000 AC conditioner (not from PS Audio), assuming the sound was better, and never questioned it again. But watching your video, I thought, "I'm going to plug the amp directly into the wall without the AC Conditioning." I'm here to say, "it sounds better!" Much better. Ugh ($3000?). The higher frequencies are where i notice the most difference, more pronounced, more extended, and everything seems more airy and refined. I was surprised. What have I been doing all this time?
Paul you comments actually made a lot of sense, but a couple of questions How do you lower the impedance on the output relative to whats going in?, since Pin must equal power out?; is it the case you store large amounts of energy in order to do this for short amounts of time?, will the output from your inverter stage be out of phase with the incoming mains to further improve as per the points you mentioned?. Glad I watched this, changed my opinion.
Suzy Siviter I hope its ok if I reply. The mains regenerator has bulk capacitance (buffer) that stores enough energy to maintain a steady output voltage and frequency within the designed load capacity and input tolerance. The output waveform is re generated precisely and independently from the incoming supply.
I am a recording engineer with a very keen ear for frequencies, I can hear difference when mixing between .1 db and 0.2 db, to me it's possible to hear that, so I am not going to say I am like the rest of people. BUT I am not chasing perfection of sound signal, but recently I have encountered something that I cannot forego, I started having constant clipping sound in my speakers. I thought it was the amount of buffer from my recording equipment, even when listening to RU-vid or playing games. Then I started getting clicks and pops when AC unit came on much more severely, and I realized that clean power is an issue for me. I recently bought Voltage Regulator from Furman and will do further testing. I understand some chase some glorious "Holy Grail" of sound like Detective Monk, and usually never find it. Me on the other hand, I try to have an easy listening experience without clicks, pops, or buzzing in my speakers, that gets really painful when you are tired or pissed off about life, and you got this gnat in your ear going BZZZZ *CLICK-CLICK-CLICK-CLICK-CLICK* Some don't even hear it, so why would it bother them?
Hi, We use a cheap generator to power our music gear. Guitar amps, P.A etc. Could the power it produces be damaging our equipment? Do we need to put a power conditioner or surge protector or something between the generator and our gear?
I am hearing from some audiophiles that by using power conditioners, you are loosing dynamics from your system. Which is why I ditched mine for the wall plug.
A power conditioner on the AC side should have NO EFFECT on the dynamics of your audio signal. The ONLY reason a power conditioner might be desired is if your local power is subject to frequent brownouts or dips. Otherwise the amplifier itself should have a well designed power supply and have no requirement for a conditioner at all.
Hi Paul, I appreciate your wise advices and I find your way to tell very affordable to all of us. After this brief introduction I want to say something. What I'm going to write along these lines don't pretend to be taken seriously because even I or me, sorry for my grammar althought it's not the subject of the matter here, well, the truth is that after 30 years of being actively, read:expending money, I'm not sure of anything related to the truth of the hi-end as I imagined when I was a novice full of illusion but empty of currency. During those years, I could detect if I had cleaned the contacts or not, if my toslink fiver optic had been cleaned with alcohol or gel to wash dishes, I compulsively changed the polarity of the power plug and noticed differences but, Which one was better? It depended, even from my mood... I could go on and on and I'm so sure this same thing happens to a lot of audiophiliacs, sorry Steve Guttenberg for borrow...ing? Your catchy adjective ha ja ha, when one begin to behave like this, better check it out with a pro or stay away from some time of your beloved equipment, after a while, you will again start to enjoy the sound of your rig and the minute differences once were amazing, now are meaningless. The real character of the sound system won't change by some 'trivial' actions one could try so if the sound in not to your likes, give it to a friend, he will be eternally grateful without ever suspicing you gave the leftovers 😂...etc...etc.
I'm no expert on the subject but this really makes little sense to me. I highly doubt that in a blind test one would ear the difference when using regular power and "clean power". I bet that the placebo effect and the sense of ownership of very expensive gear will make one think that the sound is better. If by any means a piece of equipment "messes" with the signal I would say it would be for the worse and not for the better.
Power conditioners absolutely make a sonic difference. The difference will not necessarily slap you in the face. But while listening with clean power, you will unexpectedly find yourself in "the zone". The real reality check will be after you have been listening with clean power for a while. Then, remove your power conditioner, and your music will lose its magic. It will sound more two dimensional and congested. Please note that: 1) no power conditioner, at any price, will make a difference on a $99 stereo purchased from Walmart. You need to have a good stereo, proper speaker placement, etc, in order to reap the benefits of clean power. 2) not all power conditioners help. Some will make your music sound worse. I have listened to products from Shunyata Research and Audioquest. Both make a beautiful improvement, with no downside. I would give Audioquest the edge. PS Audio's power products might also be very good. I never auditioned them. Cheers!
I dont know, I was sceptical, but after listening to Paul; the points do at least make sense from an electronic engineering perspective; but only on equipment that uses switch mode power supplies, it wont really improve a standard linear supply; because linears have large capacitor values with lots of stored energy anyway.
Any expensive equipment you buy makes you hear the difference, trust me!... You can clearly hear your SO yelling at you for wasting money on pointless crap!
The transformers don't make the sound signal coming at the amplifiers output, the amplifier modules do that work... The power supply reservoir capacitors have the greatest role to play by smoothing out voltage variations and noise from the power supply... Voltage variations in the power supply are usually induced by the amplifier itself as it tries to draw highly complex currents from the power supply. (Music is not a simple sine tone but a VERY COMPLEX combination of them). This is the main reason I prefer having huge capacitance values in the power supply, usually by combining many smaller caps rather than 2 humongous cans. I believe what clean power does is eliminate EMI that usually finds it's way to the amplifier output (clicks, pops and buzzing and sometimes hissing noises).
I disagree. After hearing the Isotek Aquarius in Oslo HiFi Center on some KEF floor standing speakers and a Rotel integrated amplifier i could really hear a significant difference. Especially in the bass area. I switched back and forth between ordinary cables and Isotek's own power cables and the Aquarius. The result was the same every time. Better sound without losning any dynamics. My brother was there also and he just nodded his head and said the same.
Sir, what if we use switch mode power supply to an amplifier? I've seen lot of home audio system manufacturers like sony, jbl and Harman kardon systems use much better smps units nowadays
in car audio there is a belief that the cleaner the power going in (as in as little voltage drop as possible...) the cleaner the power going out. to a degree it kind of depends on the audio that youre running. lol home audio may not be as bothered by "dirty" power as much as some others. but i do know that dirty power can in some cases cause audio failures. 🙄 having an amp fail is never fun. ive had a couple fail. one was because of very crap power source.
I guess most people doubt this because they dont notice it and it really depends on how clean the power is that your using. I think a power supply on DAC makes sense - also optical digital audio (toslink) seems better than USB. Do I notice it? - I dont think so! Will I buy a good power strip with build in surge protection and power conditioner? -Yes! I think so. Its fundamental!?
masive difference can be heard using a serious headphone. What I miss in this video is turning around the plug which is also a huge difference. Maybe this is because in the US there is only one way to connect the plug in the wall outlet? In Europe you can put in the plug two ways. One way the plus is on the plus the other way around it is not which results in minor results. Now as I come to think of it if you use the power device current is converted into DC so probably then there is no difference anymore
Well, I guess that by using a 40kW on-line UPS for my house I probably get a rather low line impedance. Probably not as good as using such an UPS or a power regenerator just for the audio stuff, but better than what's coming from the city.
May be a dumb question: why not use a battery based generator like ecoflow? I am not listening to music all day, at least not at that level. So I am ok with the batteries only lasting a few hours. How good needs the inverter in such a solution to be to get „clean“ power? i still have the influence between the different music components. Is earthing a problem?
Yes, exactly.. A properly engineered power supply is built for standard, regular AC without any need for external appliances (except protection from lightning, etc). This power plant is supposed to address voltage drop issues in a residence. But the proper way to address an AC voltage drop issue is proper wiring design. Between the receptacle and service panel verify that a conductor is installed that is properly size for the load. It's really that simple..
@Dave Micolichek no, I never said that. The proper size wiring is to reduce any type of voltage drop from the audio equipment. The other concerns are addressed by a properly designed power supply. These power conditioners are nothing but snake oil. The only benefit they truly have is the grouping of power receptacles, which helps to eliminate ground loops in unbalanced gear.
I strongly agree with Paul, power plants are awesome! I invented a device that is used at the input and output of any Power conditioner, patent pending... This one is a game changer, no snake oil... "Device adds energy / synergy characteristics to electronic audio and video devices, which result in a richer sound, with less noise and improved dynamics & timbre. In regards to video, there is an improvement with contrast levels and richer color enhancements, and overall cleaner images." Stay tuned fellow audiophiles... Currently searching for a company to license from me, once this hits the shelves, it will cause controversy among the audiophile community. All cable manufactures will hate me, we're talking about a solid 10-20% quality improvement, not psychoacoustics...
The impedance of an audio power supply is largely defined by the storage capacitance. Large capacitor banks have high peak currents and large transformers have a better regulation factor and is less likely to sarurate. As the caps are charged with a 100Hz waveform, if the current drawn is inbetween the recharge timespan, the capacitors are directly affecting the sound. Having a choke input power supply works amazingly well it utilizes the full waveform. Powering sensitive gain stages from a regulated and fixed over audio band impedance supply, most of the issues of varying supply voltages and mains impedances can be overcome. In my point of view having an amplifer supplying another is a very costly, clumsy and inefficient means of improving a system. If we could raise the 50Hz to say 60Hz or maybe say 75Hz then yes then it makes sense to have a regenerator. This will allow more frequent but smaller sized charging pulses. Because the charging pulses are smaller, the noise generated by the rectifer diodes should also be less. The rippple on the capacitors will be smaller and that will definitely result in a more sturdy and clean supply.
Hi Paul. Since I am retired and on a fixed income (and have a modest, but adequate system), I can't afford expensive power conditioners. However, I noticed a big improvement after I added one of your "Noise Harvesters".
All i needed was a oversurge protector it worked fine, but when i bought a ups wow it was like night and day, so try it out yourself, it æ does not need to be an expensive investment at all btw.. try it out yourself and find out whats best for your house
clean power can is important as noise could cause malfunctions like for example could interfere with the stereo detection circuitry for the fm tuner causing the indicator to come on falsely (this is a problem on tv when they are broadcasting a sports event the crowd noise can falsely trigger the sap channel partially muting the rest of the signal. it can also cause for example the stereo to turn off if the power button is one of them soft switches that triggers a transistorized latching system. there is one place you can hear the difference as today's digital electric utility meters phoning home to report the power usage there is a interference that shows up as a square wave buzzing noise you can see the interference as flickering of the cheap led lights that are simply a resistor capacitor dropper and a diode to convert to dc and no filtering capacitor.
I recently put two AC filters in series, daysy chained, and believed or not, the improvement was staggering, really hi-end, and all for less than 100 euros. I'm not saying that one can do this and expect a miracle but if all the parameters are being improved, acoustics, stands and rack included, we can reach places never dreamed possible within a constrained budget. After tuning one's equipment, then, can we forget about formats, sources and meaningless disquisitions and be carried away by the music.
It's very naive to think a audio brand can sell very expensive components that doesn't work and get away with it, or make a profit on it. Customers , and critical audiophiles in particular, aren't fools.
Not for nothing, but audiophiles buy into a lot of woo woo nonsense. Things like different USB cables sounding different from one another (they don't, digital audio doesn't work that way), cables at line level or speaker level sounding different (they don't, they're both high enough voltage and low enough impedance that any capacitive effects don't matter at audio frequencies)... or my personal favorite, cable elevators, because a cable being on stilts somehow changes the tone.
Very strange you can't hear any difference between cables ( interconnects or speaker cables) I guess you don't want to hear differences, because it's not in the book.
Clean Power is not that important as long the Power Supply inside your equipment have a good design and a good filtering and ripple clean up. You have to notice that digital equipment also creates noise by itself The individual transistors inside the chips create noise every time then turn on and off. The end product your amplifier needs is DC and as long your DC is constant and voltage is maintain steady and ripple free I think you are home. The end game in an amplifier circuit is the DC from it's own PS.
I wonder if studying circuitry of neve preamps has any overlap.. well, they’re not tube but do tube amps for home audio have input/ output transformers?
Paul P. I rather doubt a "HUGE" difference. Maybe some difference and most of that placebo. And a "difference" doesn't automatically mean an improvement. If I would have heard or seen an improvement I would have kept the conditioner in the system. My system as is, is about as clean as it gets when listening to music. Much more to be said of a quality XO in a speaker system than connecting to some line conditioner.
Paul P the differences are always small, a little more depth, a little wider, better seperation, tighter bass, etc, but not huge. And in Milton's case no difference at all. It all depends on perception and the rest of the equipment. I dont notice the difference on my home stereo, medium to high end system, but on my stage piano I do notice the difference very easily, but that came with a small wall adapter, but I was glad that I could notice it, since the wall supply is $4.- and the power transformer, filtered, stabilized costed $400.-
If the power supply in an electronic product designed to operate from a domestic mains supply needs another piece of kit to function properly in the presence of some noise, the power supply is not fit for purpose. Normal levels of noise a user could reasonably expect to see on the mains should be rejected by the PSU's input filters without difficulty. There is a valid argument for protecting equipment against transient surges and brown-outs and how much somebody wants to spend to achieve that is up to them.
I agree. Besides which all modern appliances which can create interference are fitted with filters anyway. This is entirely routine in both The US and The EU.
The actual voltage and currents that drive the devices come finally out of a big cap? Wouldn't be easy to measure the effect? Everything's to be there at Paul's place, why not look and measure?
Let's first create a problem so that we can then be seen to be creating a solution to the initial problem that need not be a problem at all then everyone will think we're so clever and believe everything we tell them.
Clean power only matters to low voltage. Adequate capacitors and regulators on the primary and secondary on a power supply as well as metal covers to filter noise is good enough. Also, using LEDs with decoupling is very important as well. Diodes by themselves are very noisy, just drive by a traffic light with LEDs and listen to an am radio station. The buzz is obvious
are you saying that it does not matter at all for amplifiers and cd players and if so why? My integrated Naim XS2 for example is 70 watts/ch, it draws about 16 VA - 350VA [~ 16-140 watts]. My cd player draws 30 VA.
The power signal is probably the most important aspect of audio reproduction. Whatever source you are using, it is the incoming power signal that acts as the carrier signal in the modulation process. Just like AM radio (Amplitude Modulation), there is a carrier signal whose amplitude is controlled to represent another factor, in the case of AM Radio, the amplitude of a particular radio wave is modulated to represent frequency. In standard audio reproduction, it is the incoming power signal that gets modulated by varying its voltage to produce the final output signal. This means that however clean your incoming power signal is, your recording can only ever be as clean as the incoming power, because it is the incoming power that gets modulated to produce your final result. The power signal is your carrier signal in the modulation process. The better quality the carrier signal, the better the result.
So, the 60HZ AC power signal coming through your wall, you say it's not a "signal"? What is it, then? You're being pedantic. It is a signal. But even disregarding that sticking point (which you are wrong about), it still acts as the carrier signal in the modulation process. Perhaps you should read about modulation a little before being a pedant.
Very important point you make, how one component can affect another. Low output impedance of power regenerator (stiff source) will help reduce cross contamination and eliminate DC that could potentially saturate transformers. Shared mains filters can sometimes make matters worse.
