A novel way to massively improve the SQ of computer audio streaming

[Johnseye]

14 hours ago, sandyk said:

 

It's a shame that you guys aren't into DIY. You could transform an existing PSU such as an HDPlex  etc. just by adding a JLH PSU add-on after the appropriate supply rail, at a far less cost .Perhaps around $60 plus the PCB you would need to etch yourself.  Unlike an Ultracap PSU there is also the possibility of fine tuning the sound a little just by changing an electrolytic capacitor or 2 for a different type to suit the direction you wished to go.

i.e. slightly less detailed , or slightly more HF detail. 

 

A bridge I may cross one day.  There are time and confidence factors at the moment.

[tapatrick]

18 hours ago, Johnseye said:

..considering the hassles in wait time, risk, etc, etc...well I've said enough.

If you mean the SR4 - that is misleading. I ordered one and it arrived in a couple of days. It’s a very high quality LPSU. 

[sandyk]

Quote

1 hour ago, tapatrick said:

20 hours ago, Johnseye said:

..considering the hassles in wait time, risk, etc, etc...well I've said enough.

 

If you mean the SR4 - that is misleading. I ordered one and it arrived in a couple of days. It’s a very high quality LPSU.  - Tapatrick

 

 

 It's always best to seek out a local distributor where possible.

However , buying from overseas works well in the vast majority of cases, and may save money, except when the device fails and you have to send it back overseas for repairs, and the weight dictates how long it will take to arrive,(air or sea)  as well as perhaps incurring substantial postage costs.

 Then you have to wait for the item to be repaired and arrive back again. This often means delays of several months without the device.

[Johnseye]

2 hours ago, tapatrick said:

If you mean the SR4 - that is misleading. I ordered one and it arrived in a couple of days. It’s a very high quality LPSU. 

 

You had unusual luck and must be in the UK. Everything I'm reading now is delays even with the SR4. 

[tapatrick]

8 hours ago, Johnseye said:

 

You had unusual luck and must be in the UK. Everything I'm reading now is delays even with the SR4. 

Okay ?I didn’t know that. I was a tad concerned it was getting a a bad rap. 

[seeteeyou]

On 11/6/2017 at 12:52 AM, mozes said:

In this case, does it make sense to consider Pico ITX boards?

 

Someone just started a new thread about Compulab Fitlet2

 

https://www.computeraudiophile.com/forums/topic/38192-fitlet2/

Quote

fitlet2 can work at wide input voltage range of 9V – 36V. It can also be powered by a PoE FACET Card or be powered through a custom FACET card.

 

The barebone with Celeron J3455 costs $161 plus shipping

 

https://fit-iot.com/web/product/fitlet2-j3455-barebone/

https://ark.intel.com/products/95594/Intel-Celeron-Processor-J3455-2M-Cache-up-to-2_3-GHz

 

Here's the best part about adding stuff like tX-USBexp

 

http://www.fit-pc.com/wiki/index.php/Fit-PC_Product_Line:FACET_Cards

http://fit-pc.com/download/facet-cards/documents/facet-cards-design-guide.pdf#page=9

Quote

Fitlet-X SoC provides several PCI Express Root Ports, supporting the PCI Express Base Specification, Revision 2.0. Each Root Port lane supports up to 5 Gbps bandwidth in each direction (10 Gbps concurrent). FACET PCI Express interface consist of 3x PCI Express gen2.0 lanes.

 

[catastrofe]

I believe I have a very high SQ level with my current setup, but I’m always open to trying new configurations if there’s a potential for improvement. Maybe someone can provide input on how I might accomplish some of the changes in this thread.

 

My current system is as follows:

Audio system in living room.  

Cable modem on opposite side of room, attached to Netgear Orbi mesh network router via short Cat 7 cable.  Modem and router on separate electrical circuit from audio equipment. 

Cat 7 cable to FMC on same circuit as modem and router. 

Fiber to FMC at audio equipment, Cat 7 out of FMC to UltraRendu/LPS-1 with negative ground modification.  FMC and audio equipment powered by balanced power transformer. 

Nuc i7 running Roon ROCK in office, connected to mesh network satellite. 

 

Since the Nuc is running ROCK and not a standard OS, I don’t believe I can make the network changes suggested in this thread.  I guess I could turn the Nuc into a Windows machine and run Roon Server instead, but it seems Windows doesn’t like the dual IP single subnet scenario. Short of buying a new Mac, any ideas?

 

[austinpop]

Bridging Revisited

 

A few days ago, before my tX-USBultra failed, I had a chance to revisit the original tweak that started this thread - bridging. If you've been following my saga, you know that I recently got a 6 AWG dedicated circuit put in. I'll be posting about that soon. But due to its location in another room, I needed to move my setup, which made the previous bridged configuration inconvenient. So, for a while, I was running this setup:

• router > shunted Netgear GS105 (el cheapo LPS) > sCLK-EX modded switch > Zenith SE > tX-USBultra > Codex

Before you ask - yes, this was with the Zenith SE during its burn-in. So while I didn't get a chance to compare the Zenith SE to my trifecta before my tX-USBultra died, I was able to test the effect of bridging. 

 

When I first tried and adopted bridging about a year ago, it was well before the recent John Swenson findings with regards to switch magnetics (Netgear FS/GS 10x) and the effect of shunting (JSGT). I had actually started to wonder if the SQ benefit we originally heard from bridging was the same SQ benefit now being realized with JSGT. In other words, did the combination of Netgear GS105 with JSGT essentially render the need for bridging moot?

 

To test this, I temporarily ran a 50 foot Cat 6a cable from my bridged W10 box to my setup. I compared the setup above with:

• bridged W10 box > shunted Netgear GS105 (el cheapo LPS) > sCLK-EX modded switch > Zenith SE > tX-USBultra > Codex

From a music perspective, I ran Roon Core on the Zenith SE, with the music files on my NAS.

 

Verdict

 

Bridging still matters! Even with the GS105 and JSGT shunt in place, the effect of going to a bridged machine vs. a router still made an impact. To be honest, I was hoping that JSGT would render bridging irrelevant, but based on my tests, there is still some benefit from bridging.

 

The "why" is still a mystery, but it sounds like @JohnSwenson and @Superdad are looking at this space, and may have some forthcoming products soon.

 

Glossary

 

JSGT == John Swenson Grounding Tweak

[Johnseye]

1 hour ago, austinpop said:

Bridging Revisited

 

A few days ago, before my tX-USBultra failed, I had a chance to revisit the original tweak that started this thread - bridging. If you've been following my saga, you know that I recently got a 6 AWG dedicated circuit put in. I'll be posting about that soon. But due to its location in another room, I needed to move my setup, which made the previous bridged configuration inconvenient. So, for a while, I was running this setup:

• router > shunted Netgear GS105 (el cheapo LPS) > sCLK-EX modded switch > Zenith SE > tX-USBultra > Codex

Before you ask - yes, this was with the Zenith SE during its burn-in. So while I didn't get a chance to compare the Zenith SE to my trifecta before my tX-USBultra died, I was able to test the effect of bridging. 

 

When I first tried and adopted bridging about a year ago, it was well before the recent John Swenson findings with regards to switch magnetics (Netgear FS/GS 10x) and the effect of shunting (JSGT). I had actually started to wonder if the SQ benefit we originally heard from bridging was the same SQ benefit now being realized with JSGT. In other words, did the combination of Netgear GS105 with JSGT essentially render the need for bridging moot?

 

To test this, I temporarily ran a 50 foot Cat 6a cable from my bridged W10 box to my setup. I compared the setup above with:

• bridged W10 box > shunted Netgear GS105 (el cheapo LPS) > sCLK-EX modded switch > Zenith SE > tX-USBultra > Codex

From a music perspective, I ran Roon Core on the Zenith SE, with the music files on my NAS.

 

Verdict

 

Bridging still matters! Even with the GS105 and JSGT shunt in place, the effect of going to a bridged machine vs. a router still made an impact. To be honest, I was hoping that JSGT would render bridging irrelevant, but based on my tests, there is still some benefit from bridging.

 

The "why" is still a mystery, but it sounds like @JohnSwenson and @Superdad are looking at this space, and may have some forthcoming products soon.

 

Glossary

 

JSGT == John Swenson Grounding Tweak

 

I think every time you introduce a new device with it's capacity to influence the sound by introducing noise you stand the chance of negatively impacting your SQ.

 

Looking forward to hearing the results of your electrical wiring.  My electrician will be finished with my work tomorrow morning.  I've gone with dedicated 20 amp circuits and 10 awg wire.  I've twisted the three wires together with John S's recommendation.  Originally I was going to use pump wire which was twisted at the mfg.  Lowes screwed that order up so I ended up getting my own strands.  Using a drill and a board with holes cut into it for each strand I was able to get a very tight twist.  I've also introduced a Topaz 91001-31 isolation transformer for two channel devices only.  I'm using Walker Audio E-SST contact treatment everywhere possible.  This is essentially paste with silver in it.  Since I'm adding it along with all my other changes I'll never know if it helps.  It' just one of those things that may help so why not.

 

One problem I've had in my theater room is that I share a sub between two channel and multi channel equipment.  The sub is powered so if it's plugged into the 2 channel circuit, it's being powered by a different circuit from the multi channel equipment.  This creates a ground loop and a minor hum when watching movies.  I don't notice it when the movie is on, but when it's not and I stick my head against a speaker I heard it, so I wanted it fixed.  I'll have 2 outlets for the sub and change the power cable depending on whether I'm listening to music or watching a movie.

 

Along with all these new improvements to my power my 9 ft. pool table is being setup tomorrow so it will be a fun filled day.

 

[austinpop]

The Impact of a Dedicated Circuit - My Experience

 

I recently added a dedicated AC circuit. I had been wanting to do this for a while, but was motivated to act after private communication with Roy. He had recently made contact with Jim Weill, the owner and founder of Sound Application, a company that makes some very high-end line conditioners. Roy was blown away by what he heard, as he reported here.

 

Jim also urged Roy to run dedicated circuits using 6 AWG cable that he sources both for its low impedance, and to aid the power factor correction of his conditioners. I don't claim to understand, or to have heard his products. But one of these circuits in Roy's home was run to a room that already had dedicated circuits with Romex 10-2. My interest was piqued when Roy reported to me that this new 6 gauge circuit improved significantly over even his previous 10 gauge dedicated circuit.

 

The final piece of the puzzle clicked into place when I found an electrician who was willing to work with 6 AWG wire. While he chewed my ear off the whole time by expressing profound skepticism about the whole exercise, he was happy to do the work because, as he said, "it's your money." Damn straight!

 

Materials

 

Based on discussions with Jim, I acquired:

1. 6' of his 6AWG cable - see site planning below for why this length
2. his supplied outlet - which he sources from Hubbell to his own specs, and built to accept 6AWG cable
3. a standard Square-D 30amp breaker my electrician picked up from the local electrical supply store.

Jim doesn't recommend anything fancy, with breakers, nor does he recommend the silver paste stuff that Vincent Galbo does here. 

 

Site Planning

 

My house has a 200amp main panel on the side of the house, next to to the electric meter, which drives an 80amp sub panel in my garage, along with my 2 AC units, furnace, and major appliances. The sub panel is pretty heavily populated with circuits already - essentially all the rest of the circuits in the house. 

 

The existing location for my gear would have required about 20' of cable if fed from the subpanel, but with some messy cutting of drywall involved. In discussing the situation with Jim, he strongly recommended running a circuit from the main 200amp panel, but this would have been extremely difficult to my existing location. However, I had an alternate location I could move the gear to, that was literally on the inside wall beneath my main 200amp panel. This ended up requiring all of 5' of cable from panel to outlet!

 

While Jim cautioned that he's found his cable actually sounded best in longer lengths around 15-20', given the location challenges, I stuck with this location. 

 

The supplied cable is actually rated for outdoor and indoor use, but my electrician ran it inside a flexible PVC conduit down from the panel and then straight through the exterior brick into the outlet location. The rest was easy.

 

One final note of prep. Jim recommended cleaning the freshly stripped cable in a bath of isopropyl alcohol. In Roy's install, he actually used an ultrasonic machine to do this. We made do with an old toothbrush.

 

Listening Impressions

 

I ran in the circuit by running my vacuum cleaner, a space heater, an iron, and other high current appliances for a few hours. I then moved my equipment over. Since I was already in the burn in for my Zenith SE, SR-4, etc, I just let this burn in happen on this new circuit for a few days.

 

Yesterday, I finally did a controlled listening session, where I held my setup constant, and just varied the circuit it was plugged into. Since my tX-USBultra was on its way to Korea for repair, I ran the following chain:

• router > JSGT Netgear switch > Zenith SE > ISO-Regen > Codex

Switching from a regular 14 gauge shared circuit to my dedicated circuit, it took all of 5 seconds to notice a difference. It was not subtle!

1. There was a palpable increase in bass.
2. There was a palpable increase in dynamism. The music sounded more exciting somehow. It felt like the volume had gone up a couple of notches - or said another way, it felt like I could turn down the volume a couple of notches.
3. The image was bigger
4. The background was blacker
5. Tonally, the sound was smoother and richer.

For the just over $300 I spent for this in parts and labor, this was a massive bang for the buck.

 

Final Thoughts

 

If you've been toying with the idea of putting in dedicated circuit(s) - do it! I have no direct experience to say that you need to use 6AWG cable. For short enough runs, I suspect standard Romex 10-2 would work fine too. I was staggered by the improvement, especially since I have a PS Audio P5 Regenerator already. Even with this in place, the effect of the dedicated circuit was large.

 

Highly recommended.

[austinpop]

2 hours ago, Johnseye said:

 

I think every time you introduce a new device with it's capacity to influence the sound by introducing noise you stand the chance of negatively impacting your SQ.

 

Looking forward to hearing the results of your electrical wiring.  My electrician will be finished with my work tomorrow morning.  I've gone with dedicated 20 amp circuits and 10 awg wire.  I've twisted the three wires together with John S's recommendation.  Originally I was going to use pump wire which was twisted at the mfg.  Lowes screwed that order up so I ended up getting my own strands.  Using a drill and a board with holes cut into it for each strand I was able to get a very tight twist.  I've also introduced a Topaz 91001-31 isolation transformer for two channel devices only.  I'm using Walker Audio E-SST contact treatment everywhere possible.  This is essentially paste with silver in it.  Since I'm adding it along with all my other changes I'll never know if it helps.  It' just one of those things that may help so why not.

 

One problem I've had in my theater room is that I share a sub between two channel and multi channel equipment.  The sub is powered so if it's plugged into the 2 channel circuit, it's being powered by a different circuit from the multi channel equipment.  This creates a ground loop and a minor hum when watching movies.  I don't notice it when the movie is on, but when it's not and I stick my head against a speaker I heard it, so I wanted it fixed.  I'll have 2 outlets for the sub and change the power cable depending on whether I'm listening to music or watching a movie.

 

Along with all these new improvements to my power my 9 ft. pool table is being setup tomorrow so it will be a fun filled day.

 

 

Have fun!

[tedwoods]

1 hour ago, austinpop said:

The Impact of a Dedicated Circuit - My Experience

 

I recently added a dedicated AC circuit. I had been wanting to do this for a while, but was motivated to act after private communication with Roy. He had recently made contact with Jim Weill, the owner and founder of Sound Application, a company that makes some very high-end line conditioners. Roy was blown away by what he heard, as he reported here.

 

Jim also urged Roy to run dedicated circuits using 6 AWG cable that he sources both for its low impedance, and to aid the power factor correction of his conditioners. I don't claim to understand, or to have heard his products. But one of these circuits in Roy's home was run to a room that already had dedicated circuits with Romex 10-2. My interest was piqued when Roy reported to me that this new 6 gauge circuit improved significantly over even his previous 10 gauge dedicated circuit.

 

The final piece of the puzzle clicked into place when I found an electrician who was willing to work with 6 AWG wire. While he chewed my ear off the whole time by expressing profound skepticism about the whole exercise, he was happy to do the work because, as he said, "it's your money." Damn straight!

 

Materials

 

Based on discussions with Jim, I acquired:

1. 6' of his 6AWG cable - see site planning below for why this length
2. his supplied outlet - which he sources from Hubbell to his own specs, and built to accept 6AWG cable
3. a standard Square-D 30amp breaker my electrician picked up from the local electrical supply store.

Jim doesn't recommend anything fancy, with breakers, nor does he recommend the silver paste stuff that Vincent Galbo does here. 

 

Site Planning

 

My house has a 200amp main panel on the side of the house, next to to the electric meter, which drives an 80amp sub panel in my garage, along with my 2 AC units, furnace, and major appliances. The sub panel is pretty heavily populated with circuits already - essentially all the rest of the circuits in the house. 

 

The existing location for my gear would have required about 20' of cable if fed from the subpanel, but with some messy cutting of drywall involved. In discussing the situation with Jim, he strongly recommended running a circuit from the main 200amp panel, but this would have been extremely difficult to my existing location. However, I had an alternate location I could move the gear to, that was literally on the inside wall beneath my main 200amp panel. This ended up requiring all of 5' of cable from panel to outlet!

 

While Jim cautioned that he's found his cable actually sounded best in longer lengths around 15-20', given the location challenges, I stuck with this location. 

 

The supplied cable is actually rated for outdoor and indoor use, but my electrician ran it inside a flexible PVC conduit down from the panel and then straight through the exterior brick into the outlet location. The rest was easy.

 

One final note of prep. Jim recommended cleaning the freshly stripped cable in a bath of isopropyl alcohol. In Roy's install, he actually used an ultrasonic machine to do this. We made do with an old toothbrush.

 

Listening Impressions

 

I ran in the circuit by running my vacuum cleaner, a space heater, an iron, and other high current appliances for a few hours. I then moved my equipment over. Since I was already in the burn in for my Zenith SE, SR-4, etc, I just let this burn in happen on this new circuit for a few days.

 

Yesterday, I finally did a controlled listening session, where I held my setup constant, and just varied the circuit it was plugged into. Since my tX-USBultra was on its way to Korea for repair, I ran the following chain:

• router > JSGT Netgear switch > Zenith SE > ISO-Regen > Codex

Switching from a regular 14 gauge shared circuit to my dedicated circuit, it took all of 5 seconds to notice a difference. It was not subtle!

1. There was a palpable increase in bass.
2. There was a palpable increase in dynamism. The music sounded more exciting somehow. It felt like the volume had gone up a couple of notches - or said another way, it felt like I could turn down the volume a couple of notches.
3. The image was bigger
4. The background was blacker
5. Tonally, the sound was smoother and richer.

For the just over $300 I spent for this in parts and labor, this was a massive bang for the buck.

 

Final Thoughts

 

If you've been toying with the idea of putting in dedicated circuit(s) - do it! I have no direct experience to say that you need to use 6AWG cable. For short enough runs, I suspect standard Romex 10-2 would work fine too. I was staggered by the improvement, especially since I have a PS Audio P5 Regenerator already. Even with this in place, the effect of the dedicated circuit was large.

 

Highly recommended.

I've had a similar experience when I re-wired my  (audio) living - room last year .

I've used this: http://www.gigawatt.eu/produkt/in-wall-cable-gigawatt-lc-y-3x4-mk3/  along with their circuit breaker and wall receptacle and have been very happy with the results.

Very economical too, since the main panel is situated on the adjoining wall...

[Superdad]

@austinpop

So Rajiv, I guess you got to speak with Jim Weil on the phone.  Is he not the fastest talker ever?  Of course I don't me that in a negative way--he truly speaks almost as fast as an auctioneer!

I've known Jim for over 20 years.  He used to buy MusiCaps from me for his power boxes.  He and his wife Connie visited us up here in Yosemite a decade ago.  It's funny that as fast as he speaks, he is also a Tai Chi master.

He is very into polishing thick copper--bus bars and wiring.

 

Glad to hear that you and @Johnseye have had dedicated AC lines run.  That's the first thing I've done in every house I've ever lived in (at least as an adult: Wanted to do it in my mom's apartment as a teen in the late 1970s, but she already thought I was crazy--dimming my room lights with a VARIAC to avoid filament ring and line interference). 

 

Have a great weekend all.  An announcement from us is forth coming in the next couple of days.

 

--Alex C.

[Superdad]

17 minutes ago, tedwoods said:

I've used this: http://www.gigawatt.eu/produkt/in-wall-cable-gigawatt-lc-y-3x4-mk3/  along with their circuit breaker and wall receptacle and have been very happy with the results.

 

Hi Ted,

I've long had my eye on Carlng hydraulic-magnetic breakers, so it was interesting just now to see that Gigawatt offers customized Carlings.  I wonder what their optimizations are and if they sell them here in the states for a reasonable price ($80 or less?).

Thanks,

--Alex C.

[One and a half]

Dedicated lines keep the noisy appliances away from audio equipment purely by distance. Further away the better, so longer the dedicated line the better, serious conducted noise has no strength over a long distance, it's a classic increase the distance and the energy reduces by the square.

 

Keep in mind that audio components make a lot of AC noise themselves! As for 6AWG wiring, close to 16mm, and self power factor correcting, I need to think about that one. A larger cable has less resistance, but increased capacitance, but compared to what. It's possible the 6AWG is shielded or has a coat of armour to increase capacitance. There's no data on Jim Weil's site, other than propaganda, another topic I suppose.

 

I did find this of interest on this page.

 

"Misconception #3: There is up to a hundred feet of wire in the walls, so the last 6 feet of power cord can't possibly make any difference.
Answer: “The power cord is not the last 6 feet, it is the first 6 feet from the perspective of the component. As stated in #1 the local current and electromagnetic effects directly affect the sonic performance of the component.”

 

[tedwoods]

28 minutes ago, Superdad said:

 

Hi Ted,

I've long had my eye on Carlng hydraulic-magnetic breakers, so it was interesting just now to see that Gigawatt offers customized Carlings.  I wonder what their optimizations are and if they sell them here in the states for a reasonable price ($80 or less?).

Thanks,

--Alex C.

To be honest, I don't know what the optimizations over the standard Carlings are...

I got mine directly from Poland: https://avcorp.pl/product-eng-1769-GigaWatt-G-C20A-Installation-Circuit-Breaker-mono-phase.html

 

 

[BigAlMc]

2 hours ago, Superdad said:

Have a great weekend all.  An announcement from us is forth coming in the next couple of days.

Right back at ya Alex! Looking forward to the announcement. 

 

Cheers, 

Alan 

[WuNgUn]

6 hours ago, austinpop said:

The Impact of a Dedicated Circuit - My Experience

 

I recently added a dedicated AC circuit. I had been wanting to do this for a while, but was motivated to act after private communication with Roy. He had recently made contact with Jim Weill, the owner and founder of Sound Application, a company that makes some very high-end line conditioners. Roy was blown away by what he heard, as he reported here.

 

Jim also urged Roy to run dedicated circuits using 6 AWG cable that he sources both for its low impedance, and to aid the power factor correction of his conditioners. I don't claim to understand, or to have heard his products. But one of these circuits in Roy's home was run to a room that already had dedicated circuits with Romex 10-2. My interest was piqued when Roy reported to me that this new 6 gauge circuit improved significantly over even his previous 10 gauge dedicated circuit.

 

The final piece of the puzzle clicked into place when I found an electrician who was willing to work with 6 AWG wire. While he chewed my ear off the whole time by expressing profound skepticism about the whole exercise, he was happy to do the work because, as he said, "it's your money." Damn straight!

 

Materials

 

Based on discussions with Jim, I acquired:

1. 6' of his 6AWG cable - see site planning below for why this length
2. his supplied outlet - which he sources from Hubbell to his own specs, and built to accept 6AWG cable
3. a standard Square-D 30amp breaker my electrician picked up from the local electrical supply store.

Jim doesn't recommend anything fancy, with breakers, nor does he recommend the silver paste stuff that Vincent Galbo does here. 

 

Site Planning

 

My house has a 200amp main panel on the side of the house, next to to the electric meter, which drives an 80amp sub panel in my garage, along with my 2 AC units, furnace, and major appliances. The sub panel is pretty heavily populated with circuits already - essentially all the rest of the circuits in the house. 

 

The existing location for my gear would have required about 20' of cable if fed from the subpanel, but with some messy cutting of drywall involved. In discussing the situation with Jim, he strongly recommended running a circuit from the main 200amp panel, but this would have been extremely difficult to my existing location. However, I had an alternate location I could move the gear to, that was literally on the inside wall beneath my main 200amp panel. This ended up requiring all of 5' of cable from panel to outlet!

 

While Jim cautioned that he's found his cable actually sounded best in longer lengths around 15-20', given the location challenges, I stuck with this location. 

 

The supplied cable is actually rated for outdoor and indoor use, but my electrician ran it inside a flexible PVC conduit down from the panel and then straight through the exterior brick into the outlet location. The rest was easy.

 

One final note of prep. Jim recommended cleaning the freshly stripped cable in a bath of isopropyl alcohol. In Roy's install, he actually used an ultrasonic machine to do this. We made do with an old toothbrush.

 

Listening Impressions

 

I ran in the circuit by running my vacuum cleaner, a space heater, an iron, and other high current appliances for a few hours. I then moved my equipment over. Since I was already in the burn in for my Zenith SE, SR-4, etc, I just let this burn in happen on this new circuit for a few days.

 

Yesterday, I finally did a controlled listening session, where I held my setup constant, and just varied the circuit it was plugged into. Since my tX-USBultra was on its way to Korea for repair, I ran the following chain:

• router > JSGT Netgear switch > Zenith SE > ISO-Regen > Codex

Switching from a regular 14 gauge shared circuit to my dedicated circuit, it took all of 5 seconds to notice a difference. It was not subtle!

1. There was a palpable increase in bass.
2. There was a palpable increase in dynamism. The music sounded more exciting somehow. It felt like the volume had gone up a couple of notches - or said another way, it felt like I could turn down the volume a couple of notches.
3. The image was bigger
4. The background was blacker
5. Tonally, the sound was smoother and richer.

For the just over $300 I spent for this in parts and labor, this was a massive bang for the buck.

 

Final Thoughts

 

If you've been toying with the idea of putting in dedicated circuit(s) - do it! I have no direct experience to say that you need to use 6AWG cable. For short enough runs, I suspect standard Romex 10-2 would work fine too. I was staggered by the improvement, especially since I have a PS Audio P5 Regenerator already. Even with this in place, the effect of the dedicated circuit was large.

 

Highly recommended.

I would love to see how he attached 6AWG wire to a receptacle meant for 14AWG...? He must of created 14AWG tails inside the electrical box...

[austinpop]

6 hours ago, Superdad said:

@austinpop

So Rajiv, I guess you got to speak with Jim Weil on the phone.  Is he not the fastest talker ever?  Of course I don't me that in a negative way--he truly speaks almost as fast as an auctioneer!

I've known Jim for over 20 years.  He used to buy MusiCaps from me for his power boxes.  He and his wife Connie visited us up here in Yosemite a decade ago.  It's funny that as fast as he speaks, he is also a Tai Chi master.

He is very into polishing thick copper--bus bars and wiring.

 

Glad to hear that you and @Johnseye have had dedicated AC lines run.  That's the first thing I've done in every house I've ever lived in (at least as an adult: Wanted to do it in my mom's apartment as a teen in the late 1970s, but she already thought I was crazy--dimming my room lights with a VARIAC to avoid filament ring and line interference). 

 

Have a great weekend all.  An announcement from us is forth coming in the next couple of days.

 

--Alex C.

 

 yeah he’s an interesting guy all right! I didn’t realize you knew him so well. Have you used any of his products?

 

Looking forward to the big announcement(s).

[austinpop]

1 hour ago, WuNgUn said:

I would love to see how he attached 6AWG wire to a receptacle meant for 14AWG...? He must of created 14AWG tails inside the electrical box...

 

In hindsight, I wish I had taken pictures.

 

I don’t remember the outlet looking wonky in any way. If I were to guess, I’d say the Hot and Neutral terminals had longer screws to accommodate the thicker gauge. The conductors are stranded, so my electrician was able to separate the strands into 2 sections and wrap around the shaft of the screw, under the plate. It took a bit of patience to get every strand in place.

 

i do remember the ground screw was shorter, so per Jim’s advice, we cut some strands off the conductor to fit.

 

Other than that it seemed fairly routine.

[charlesphoto]

I had two twenty amp dedicated runs done years ago. Only used 12g Romex though - I feel like such a loser! Used Porter Port Cryo’d outlets. Made a nice change for sure though my gear at the time wasn’t as good as now. Doubt I’ll ever have the cable rerun with something better though. Far too many other things to fix around here! 

[KingRex]

6 hours ago, tedwoods said:

To be honest, I don't know what the optimizations over the standard Carlings are...

I got mine directly from Poland: https://avcorp.pl/product-eng-1769-GigaWatt-G-C20A-Installation-Circuit-Breaker-mono-phase.html

 

 

That is a din rail mounted breaker.  I dont know where you live, but in the USA, that would require an external box fed from a CB in the main panel.  Would like to know how it is installed and how it sounds.  Thanks 

[KingRex]

7 hours ago, One and a half said:

Dedicated lines keep the noisy appliances away from audio equipment purely by distance. Further away the better, so longer the dedicated line the better, serious conducted noise has no strength over a long distance, it's a classic increase the distance and the energy reduces by the square.

 

Keep in mind that audio components make a lot of AC noise themselves! As for 6AWG wiring, close to 16mm, and self power factor correcting, I need to think about that one. A larger cable has less resistance, but increased capacitance, but compared to what. It's possible the 6AWG is shielded or has a coat of armour to increase capacitance. There's no data on Jim Weil's site, other than propaganda, another topic I suppose.

 

I did find this of interest on this page.

 

"Misconception #3: There is up to a hundred feet of wire in the walls, so the last 6 feet of power cord can't possibly make any difference.
Answer: “The power cord is not the last 6 feet, it is the first 6 feet from the perspective of the component. As stated in #1 the local current and electromagnetic effects directly affect the sonic performance of the component.”

 

I found the article by Shunyata interesting.  Lots of trial and error.  So many people want to beat an idea with theory.  I don't have the electrical engineering background to go there.  More importantly, I trust my ears. If it sounds good, it worked.  

[KingRex]

12 hours ago, Johnseye said:

 

I think every time you introduce a new device with it's capacity to influence the sound by introducing noise you stand the chance of negatively impacting your SQ.

 

Looking forward to hearing the results of your electrical wiring.  My electrician will be finished with my work tomorrow morning.  I've gone with dedicated 20 amp circuits and 10 awg wire.  I've twisted the three wires together with John S's recommendation.  Originally I was going to use pump wire which was twisted at the mfg.  Lowes screwed that order up so I ended up getting my own strands.  Using a drill and a board with holes cut into it for each strand I was able to get a very tight twist.  I've also introduced a Topaz 91001-31 isolation transformer for two channel devices only.  I'm using Walker Audio E-SST contact treatment everywhere possible.  This is essentially paste with silver in it.  Since I'm adding it along with all my other changes I'll never know if it helps.  It' just one of those things that may help so why not.

 

One problem I've had in my theater room is that I share a sub between two channel and multi channel equipment.  The sub is powered so if it's plugged into the 2 channel circuit, it's being powered by a different circuit from the multi channel equipment.  This creates a ground loop and a minor hum when watching movies.  I don't notice it when the movie is on, but when it's not and I stick my head against a speaker I heard it, so I wanted it fixed.  I'll have 2 outlets for the sub and change the power cable depending on whether I'm listening to music or watching a movie.

 

Along with all these new improvements to my power my 9 ft. pool table is being setup tomorrow so it will be a fun filled day.

 

How did the install go.  Did you use NMB and twist it, or loose conductor twisted and pulled in a pipe.  How did it sound.  I bet surprising good.   Happy for you.  

[Speedskater]

4 hours ago, WuNgUn said:

I would love to see how he attached 6AWG wire to a receptacle meant for 14AWG...? He must of created 14AWG tails inside the electrical box...

Yep! Almost all US 15 & 20A receptacles are listed for 10AWG to 12/14AWG wire, so a pig-tail is needed. But pig-tails are standard operating procedure.

Also note that the Safety Ground wire needs to be as large as the Hot & Neutral.

While over-sized power wires are good, 6AWG might be over the top.

On the other hand, you could run a 6AWG feeder to the music room and a small breaker box.