Power Line Conditioners! Yay, or nay?

[scott fitlin]

I have been experimenting with certain front end components plugged into a power line conditioner, with varying results! On one hand it seems like with the pre amp and xovers plugged into it, the system is somewhat cleaner, with a slightly cleaner delineation between musical notes. On the other hand, when these components are plugged directly into the wall, the dynamic force seems stronger!

Whats your opinions on these type of devices, who uses which ones, and what, if at all, do you like or dislike about them?

Im on the fence, cant make up my mind, so how bout a little of others experiences!

[PSS AUDIO]

This is very difficult to answer and explain.

I honestly always doubt that an AC cord can change something.

Same for audio wires and speaker wires too.

I tested several wires and I came at the following conclusion: One must use good quality wires, not so called high end and very expensive ones.

All those wires and solution are in fact something trying to correct an error while conceiving an item.

All wires are not neutral and they modify the tonality of an audio system, if you have a lack of high you can find wires taking off low and mids.

If you have a real good amplifier, pre amplifier, xover you will look for a neutral wire (its more difficult to find than a wire enhancing the high).

About the AC cord, one again they try to correct an error in the power supply!

I’ve tried some and the only one improving something is the one for the CD drive as the power supply is quite simple and not at the level of the drive itself (TEAC P2)!

Otherwise, a good AC cord will just do the job!

[scott fitlin]

Im talking about a Power Line conditioner, its a device about the size of a preamp, and Im playing around with one!

And I have mixed feelings about its effects on the sound!

As I said before, a few things seem to be somewhat cleaner, and a few things also seem to be lacking by having my preamp, and crossover plugged into it!

[Oldmics]

Hi Scott

Although I use these devices mostly for the lamp illumination and edison service distribution features,I could understand why it might be sonically usefull in your particular situation.

These conditioners are mostly hi voltage surge protectors.They also have some radio frequency interference filtering capacitys within.Those cars of yours can be pretty good source of wild voltage swings along with the R.F generated from the brush contacts,motors,etc.I am sure that most of the extranious noise generated from these sources have been tamed by your diligent methods.

By adding some additional isolation (power conditioning) to the low voltage signal processing equipment,it would be plausable that a sonic difference could be detected throughout all of the frequency ranges.

Since these gizmos are fairly inexpensive I would say leave it in.

Now as for your perceptions of the changes to the dynamics of the system-I say drag out the measurement tools and find out what the differences are.

Best regards

Oldmics

[scott fitlin]

I have had no more problems with the AC since Con Ed replaced three massive transformers on my block two years ago!

I also had a company that specializes in power quality evaluation down here, and the electric is clean, and stable! Even with the Bumper cars running! We ran all 36 cars while the power guy was here, and he couldnt see anything on his power analyzer with the cars going! This really surprised me as I would definitely have agreed that all the DC motors going would cause noise and harmonics generated onto the AC lines. My rectifier packs have their own seperate DC ground located far away from everything else, and electrically the packs are well isolated from all other AC power! When my Dad built this place they did it right! BTW, my voltage stays at a pretty consistent 120-123! Very rarely does it drop below 120v, and that is only on an extremely hot day, when Con Ed cuts back!

I have been playing with two devices, one, the Furman which i have for the lights, and the voltage meter, and another more expensive unit, Richard Grey,s Power Company, and I just am trying it to see if there are any sonic benefits to useing them!

I do hear subtle differences, but Im out to lunch as to whether or not I like what they do!

[jtgyn]

G'Day Scott,
There are several types of power conditioners. Some are basically constant voltage transformers, these units I would doubt be of any use unless your line voltage suffers massive fluctuations. Another type are classed as ultra isolation transformers. (Usually two transformers in each unit) these units would be of use if you have a lot of noise on the mains supply. (or line fluctuations)

Other than that I doubt they would change much in the audio path. The conditioners may effect the grounding between units connected to the conditioner and those not connected. (The safety ground should be the same but a lot of Hi-Fi gear is double insulated.)

Just my 2.2c worth

Regards Scott

[Ian Mackenzie]

I have heard some so called Hi end power cords and conditioners.

Unfortunately, this is an area where the slick lurking salesman will play on customer with "the illusion of better sound" just because he say it works usually with nothing more than hype and false claims of how much better it will sound when you buy this item.

Some appear to alter the sound on "some" audio equipment with varying results. At the Melbourne Audio club we tested dozens of such devices.The best had properly engineered filters or traps designed to filter known mains noise and distortions that do effect the operation of audio equipment. The plug and cord brigade changed the sound in some cases but never made it better!

There is usually a well founded reasons for this, not magic.

Often less than optimum design in mass market electronics, particularly CD players and preamps that use linear i.cs benefit from line conditioners due to attenuation of RFI and other mains noise that cause problems at HF frequencies that effets the operation of the opamps in some cases.

The more expensive audio equipment has better power supplies that do filter out such problems. In fact its the mains born noise that often upsets the fancy regulators in audio equipment that are not guarded against mains RFI emmissions. (1)

Most power plug conditioners only attenuate in the Mega hertz region and those design specifically for audio attenuate over a much broader band starting in the sub 100 Khertz region.

This can improve the overload margin of some audio electronics and help suppress cross contamination from cd players and Pc's which can create hash on the mains.

Then there are power factor correction problems and Dc on the mains created by air conditions, dimmer racks and other industrial equipment that upset the operation of toroidal transformers.

This requires specialised mains conditioners such as balanced isolation transformers and Dc blocking circuits that use large series mains rated non polarised capacitors and other specialised devices to stabalise and condition the mains supply.

Randy Sloan, Ben Duncan and others have written and documented much about audio power conditoning.

(1) Walt Jung AAE 1995 Vol 1-4 High Performance Regulators.


Ian Mackenzie

[PSS AUDIO]

Originally posted by Ian Mackenzie
I have heard some so called Hi end power cords and conditioners. ...
Ian Mackenzie

This is dam true!

I've tested several plugs and other items too, what I can say:

I've got "better" results with AC socket with surge protection, something quite basic for computer protection, costing about 20$.

I never thought that just changing something in the AC wiring would change the face of the moon, unless you re-wire all the house, street, city and country... For world re-wiring, this is under construction, come back later on!

Good qualities AC cord and plugs will improve something, but spending billions on esoteric plugs wire and other stuff is useless.

They will only modify the sound results for apparatus with a bad power supply design.

Do trust my experience, what ever audio stuff you are working on, spend good money in their transformers, bridge capacitors, this will change a lot and this is almost half of the quality (branded component will not always offer you what they claim, try small unknown manufacturer and you will be surprised: I trusted BC COMPONENTS offered high quality capacitors, believe me, they are quite junk - for my use).

[Alex Lancaster]

Luckily for You guys in the USA and Western Europe, the elec service is a lot better than here; I have been involved for many years on this problem and here is what I find:

Check the mains with an oscilloscope, You will find funny stuff like:

Your neighbor turns on the blender, a brush type motor, and You will see all kinds of waveforms, as Yuri stated, if the power supply of Your components is very good, no problem, if it isn´t, even fluorescent lights will affect it.

Surge protectors usually are MOVs, Metal Oxide Varistors, about $.02 USD wholesale, and will protect from a spike caused by lightning, but if they are "clamping" often, will mke a lot of electrical noise, I do use a lot of them.

Voltage regenerators, where You turn AC to DC and back to AC, are the best, but good ones are very expensive.

Switching regulators, which give a "modified sqare wave" are horrible.

Ferroresonant regulators usually provide a complex composite sine wave, so, not that good either.

Since the nominal mains voltage here is 127V AC, but I get about 132V, I use autotransformers to get it to about 117V.

I just made a choke of about 150 turns of 12 ga. wire on a 1" transformer core, with a 80 microF 600V cap in paralell, which looks good on the ´scope, reducing signals above 120Hz, after all, it is just like a speaker low pass xover, but I cannot hear any difference.

"Snake Oil" cables are for dummies that like to get robbed.

Alex.

[Chas]

Hi Scott, many years ago, just for kicks (and way before the PS Audio device was introduced) I built my own AC regenerator, with basically an old BGW amp, driven by a low distortion oscillator (Heath). The amp drove a large Hammond transformer using the low voltage secondary (25V, if I remember) as the primary.

It had limited VA capability, so I never tried it out with my power amps (this doesn't seem to be a good idea to me), so I used used it to feed power to my preamp and CD player.

It really did improve the sound - but it certainly wasn't earth shattering. When you see the prices for the PS Audio regenerators, it's hard to justify the improvements.

[johnaec]

Originally posted by PSS AUDIO
This is dam true!

I've tested several plugs and other items too, what I can say:

I've got "better" results with AC socket with surge protection, something quite basic for computer protection, costing about 20$.

Damn! And here I was ready to sell off a set of my L65s to pick up these: http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/pshow...number=181-030

Don't you think they're worth it?? :shock:

John

[PSS AUDIO]

Originally posted by johnaec
Damn! And here I was ready to sell off a set of my L65s to pick up these: http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/pshow...number=181-030

Don't you think they're worth it?? :shock:

John

John,

It reminds me a problem I faced with an audiophile shop testing my amps.

The amplifier never sounded great and we double-checked every thing! We used a pure silver cord set to joint a CD player to the amplifier.

Tired of searching, I came one day with a cord set I had for 10$, nice looking, but 10$. A ready-made cable, plug and play.

It worked well and better than this pure silver wire!

[scott fitlin]

I gotta agree! I, too, have had expensive wires, and they changed things, BUT, not for the better! never found a cable or power cord made of Hyper copper, or Silver, or whatever that I find improves, rather they degrade!

I think theres alot of sales Mucky muck going on.

Oh and Johnaec, those wattgate plugs, I wouldnt spend that much on them! But I DID look at them!

[johnaec]

Originally posted by scott fitlin
Oh and Johnaec, those wattgate plugs, I wouldnt spend that much on them! But I DID look at them!

Don't worry! I just ran over to the local drugstore and picked up GE versions for $2.95. My ears are probably too used to hear any difference anyway...

John

[speakerdave]

Well, I dunno. I never would have purchased expensive cables, but I got a pair of Cardas interconnects with my power amp and they are definitely better than the generics that came with my CD player (a very good one). So, where is the line between return on money and ridiculous hopefulness? And what are the physical parameters each side of that line?