Balanced Power

[Abtr]

5 hours ago, jabbr said:

There are many advocates for various grounding schemes which insist that there is only one best way. 

 

Yes Brown and Whitlock are great starting points. 

 

I personally use Equi-tech balanced for my audio but also use floating and traditional isolation transformers in various situations.

 

Good design, solid isolation and avoidance of cheap SMPS goes a long way. 

 

Ideally you could try dystems and see which has had the best SQ — I think that many of these debates are system dependent assuming solid components are being used.

 

I use an Airlink balanced mains IT (BPS1502EU) with floating secondary. Of the grounding schemes I tried, the one that sounds best in my (single ended) system involves floating (lifting mains ground) of all audio devices that are connected to the IT (DAC, pre-amp, power-amp and sub), and connecting signal/chassis ground (at the DAC) to the secondary center tap. That's it. Sounds great!

 

I mentioned earlier that I didn't hear an improvement when I tried this before. I don't know what was/went wrong then, but I recently retried and a signal ground connection to the center tap evidently sounds qualitatively better than a fully floating system.

 

Note that 'grounding' all system components' power supplies should also accomplish this but IME always humms; with, or without a (floating) balanced mains IT..

 

[Ralf11]

I'm wondering if a balanced power setup would be better than *just* a good isolation transformer (Topaz)...

[Abtr]

28 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

I'm wondering if a balanced power setup would be better than *just* a good isolation transformer (Topaz)...

Balanced power can largely *cancel* power supply noise which would otherwise affect SQ..

[plissken]

21 hours ago, Abtr said:

Balanced power can largely *cancel* power supply noise which would otherwise affect SQ..

 

It's not for the power supply noise, it' due to the fact that lines can attenuate external noise. By have CMNR on the power line the external noise factors get math'd out via the pairs being 180 out of phase. 

 

Balanced power can not solve issues of a noisy power supply in and of itself. 

[Abtr]

1 hour ago, plissken said:

It's not for the power supply noise, it' due to the fact that lines can attenuate external noise. By have CMNR on the power line the external noise factors get math'd out via the pairs being 180 out of phase. 

 

Balanced power can not solve issues of a noisy power supply in and of itself. 

 

Yes. Any decent power supply will output relatively noise free linear (DC) power. The problem is the common mode regulator noise that is thrown back onto the mains. With regular unbalanced (single phase) mains power, this noise is not attenuated and will affect SQ. With balanced (two phase) power, such CMN will simply cancel itself.