Poll Question: Power Conditioning

[mordante]

If you don't live near a industrial location but just in your average suburban area I don't think power conditioners are needed. I just use a Supra.

 

[DigiPete]

You are raising a lot and complex issues, but I'll try to be brief.

 

 

Well, at the risk of seeming somewhat jingoistic, I will say that if the US "lives with a power quality usually only found in poor undeveloped countries." (which I don't believe), then it's only because our infrastructure wasn't completely destroyed by bombs about 70 years ago, and didn't have to be completely rebuilt from scratch in the post-war years. I guess we Americans were so busy helping you Europeans rebuild after the war via the Marshall Plan that we didn't have the time to update our own.

 

Yes, you Americans saved the day when Europe couldn't keep Hitler in check. We do thank you.

Little of the European power grid was actually destroyed during the war and was thus not rebuild.

 

 

But, for my own edification, are you saying that your 50 Hz (?!!) 220 Volt mains grid is so good and so quiet that noise generated by refrigerators, air conditioners, computers, vacuum cleaners, and other appliances doesn't get into your mains supply? Permit me to doubt....

 

The European power grid has quite a few advantages:

 

a) Higher redundancies in both power generation and backbone grid

b) Better long distance interconnection

(Synchronous grid of Continental Europe, supplying +400 million customers in 24 countries with 700 GW of production capacity, largest in the world)

c) Loads are shifted to 3 phase at lower loads in Europe, causing less skewing in the local distribution area.

(Partly caused by under-education of American electricians, leaving most not allowed to install 3 phase)

d) Lack of upkeep and modernisation of the US grid.

 

This results in smaller voltage swings, less wild phase swings, less spikes, less power failures in Europe.

 

I have no data on high frequency noise, but that may possibly be higher in Europe caused by massive use of variable speed drives and switch mode transformers for energy savings.

Hence I use professional studio equipment, designed to always perform without too much fiddling.

Alternatively do add external high freq noise filtering.

 

 

I'm not going to even bring-up that flimsy two-prong mains connector that most mainland European countries use. In fact, the only European country (of which I'm aware) that has a truly adequate mains plug is Great Britain (and that one is overkill for a lot of applications, but better overkill than underkill in this case)

 

With less than half the current and a better designed connector, Europe truly has the upper hand here.

The UK plug and the protection system behind is utterly outdated and should be switched to the quality of mainland Euope.

 

 

The real question

I think the meta question here is why the US generally is so terrible at infrastructure?

 

The one consistently good infrastructure is the Interstate Highway System

Planned and partly funded by the federal government, this is an anomaly in US infrastructure.

 

So would it be advantageous if the power and information structure was taken over and/or standardised/regulated by the US federal government?

 

Shortsighted gains of monopolistic companies does not blend well with infrastructure and supporting society with good service.

Not in the US and not anywhere. Time to be realistic and find the courage to change.

[wgscott]

 

 

 

The real question

I think the meta question here is why the US generally is so terrible at infrastructure?

 

The US model of free-enterprize: subsidize R&D, privatize profits, no re-investment in infrastructure or the educational system.

 

The one consistently good infrastructure is the Interstate Highway System

Planned and partly funded by the federal government, this is an anomaly in US infrastructure.

 

It was originally designed and implemented for rapid domestic military mobilizations. It is also a massive public subsidy to the trucking industry, and one reason our railroad infrastructure is almost non-existant. It is now falling apart. Remember that bridge in Minneapolis?

 

So would it be advantageous if the power and information structure was taken over and/or standardised/regulated by the US federal government?

 

Yes. The grid is a major threat to national security (in the real sense of the words, which have almost no meaning).

 

Shortsighted gains of monopolistic companies does not blend well with infrastructure and supporting society with good service. Not in the US and not anywhere. Time to be realistic and find the courage to change.

 

Commie! Say you love Jesus or I'll pull the trigger.

[PewterTA]

To the PSAudio P10 THD (in vs. out). My THD coming into my P10 is 3.2, my friend and I tested this without the P10 in the mix and got the same thing... after the P10, it's consistent with .2 to .3.

 

So I think that's a nice difference. For me, the P10's reading on the incoming was spot on to what the line is giving me.

[gmgraves]

 

Our infrastructure was destroyed by the same short-sightedness that dismantled the California public school system.

 

How long have you lived in California? Long enough to remember the Enron/brown-outs?

 

Yeah, I remember them, I never experienced one here in Silicon Valley, but I do remember them. And I don't know what you could have done "short-sightedness-wise" that could have dealt with WWII in any other manner than the way it was dealt with. Your point is?

[gmgraves]

You are raising a lot and complex issues, but I'll try to be brief.

 

The real question

I think the meta question here is why the US generally is so terrible at infrastructure?

 

Because it is all done privately by the lowest cost bidder.

 

The one consistently good infrastructure is the Interstate Highway System

Planned and partly funded by the federal government, this is an anomaly in US infrastructure.

 

WRT the German Autobahn vs the US Interstate system. Eisenhower saw the worth of the German Autobahns after WWII and wanted a system like it for the USA. When he finally got to build it, the German heavy duty road bed (more than 500 mm thick) became the inadequate US road bed (about half the depth of the German). Result? The US Interstate system is subject to ice heaving, weight damage, and general disintegration. The German system is still in great shape because it was designed and built right in the first place.

 

So would it be advantageous if the power and information structure was taken over and/or standardised/regulated by the US federal government?

 

Not the recent US governments. Maybe the US Government as it was constituted as late as the early 1960's, but not today. To see what poor management that the US Government is generally capable of delivering, keep your eye on "Obamacare" as it slowly implodes over the next few years!

 

Shortsighted gains of monopolistic companies does not blend well with infrastructure and supporting society with good service. Not in the US and not anywhere. Time to be realistic and find the courage to change.

 

Depends on the government. A well designed set of government standards can result in private enterprise doing a good job (US Dept. of Transportation safety and CAFE rules is a rare example of good government control), but it requires close oversight. The US government generally isn't good at that, especially at long term projects that tend to span multiple administrations (for instance, we couldn't even change over to the metric system because it took commitments from more than one US administration. It started.... then stalled.

 

A personal observation here: My dad worked his entire life for the Virginia Electric and Power Company. I can't say about now (haven't live there in more than 45 years), but when I was growing up (in a small town outside the DC Beltway), we almost never lost electric service. When we did, it was because of a bad hurricane or a bad ice storm. Even so, I have seen electric lines pulled literally down to the ground with a thick coat of heavy ice with no power outage. OTOH, here in Silicon Valley, the home of the world's high-tech, we lose power several times a year and have done so at every location that I have ever lived in this area. Confronted with a very benign climate (probably among the best in the world), Pacific Gas and Electric has designed an infrastructure for carrying electricity on the cheap. We don't have heavy ice to contend with, and rarely, strong winds, so they built light with all electrical utilities above ground. The result? We lose power at least four times a year. Once I asked a PG&E guy about this. His answer? "It's cheaper to keep fixing broken power facilities than it is to replace them with a more robust infrastructure." Basically, the state Public Utilities Commission would have to mandate the electric companies in this state to replace their infrastructure with a better one. If they did, nobody would be able to afford the electricity.

 

As far as our government paying the bill, it's too busy spending all of it's money (and that of it's citizens) on armaments so that we can be "the world's police force". A job that we aren't very good at (anymore - if we were ever), and for which we are not appreciated by either our allies or our enemies. Go figure.

[gmgraves]

If you don't live near a industrial location but just in your average suburban area I don't think power conditioners are needed. I just use a Supra.

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]14101[/ATTACH]

 

 

Oh no? Connect an oscilloscope across your mains outlet. I'll wager that you would be surprised and alarmed by what you see there!

[wgscott]

Your point is?

 

The one you keep missing.

[GregWormald]

I've just added an IsoTek Polaris and Premier cable to my system.

 

Better, deeper, clearer bass, and tidier sound all around. It's easy to hear the difference. Works on both digital (computer based) and analog. This is despite the metres of extension cords between the Polaris and the active speakers with on-board amps.

 

I first heard this combo at a get-together of a stereo club and we were all able to hear the difference even though the owner (who brought it along) said it was much more subtle than the obvious improvement in his system.

 

I have it on home trial for another 10 days, but I doubt it will be going back.

 

Greg

[Harpy]

An old Rotel RLC-900 Power Conditioner.

[mordante]

Oh no? Connect an oscilloscope across your mains outlet. I'll wager that you would be surprised and alarmed by what you see there!

 

The question is whether or not some fluctuations will actually have any influence on the sound quality. I remain skeptical. The PS-audio perfect wave 3/5/10 cost so much that I believe you can better spend the money on speakers/DACS etc.

[gmgraves]

The one you keep missing.

 

 

If I'm missing it, it's only because it hasn't been very articulated.

[wgscott]

If I'm missing it, it's only because it hasn't been very articulated.

 

Perhaps you meant to say

If I'm missing it, it's only because it hasn't been very well articulated.

[wgscott]

I've just added an IsoTek Polaris

 

<--- Her name was Polaris. (R.I.P.)

[gmgraves]

Perhaps you meant to say

 

 

Perhaps I did.

[One and a half]

The question is whether or not some fluctuations will actually have any influence on the sound quality. I remain skeptical. The PS-audio perfect wave 3/5/10 cost so much that I believe you can better spend the money on speakers/DACS etc.

 

Voltage fluctuations have little effect on SQ since largish caps can replenish the load quite well for linear supplies anyway.

 

The issue with AC mains is the noise that is conducted whenever a light switch goes on in your home, and the unwanted odd frequencies that are manufactured when AC passes through a diode.

The odd harmonics multiply, and being higher than 50/60Hz, they are easily coupled via a transformers parasitic capacitance and enter the amplifier circuit. Unless these are removed, this noise finds an easier path back to the source, usually via single ended interconnects to other equipment along the way.

 

The PWD devices create anti odd harmonics, thus the distortion due to the harmonics are nullified.

[atxkyle]

On 8/7/2014 at 1:45 PM, tranz said:

Affordable and Effective

 

Instead of creating a new thread I thought I would post here. In my search, and having tried a ridiculous amount of power filters and conditioners, many which do not pass a simple noise sniffer test I was pleasantly surprised by two affordable, no-nonsense filters that actually work:

 

1. Furman AC-215a at $120 with 2 outlets

 

2. APC C-2 at $60 with 2 outlets

 

Both pass the noise sniffer test with flying colours, and the APC even quiets down the outlet that is next to where it is plugged into the wall. In addition they are flat and small, which helps with placement in e.g. the router cabinet. They function better than some multi-1000$ ones I have tried!

 

I am keeping these...

+1 for Furman AC-215a as effective and a good value ($129 on Amazon). 

 

I had all the digital side of my system isolated using Uptone LPS 1 / 1.2 supplies, but I was curious how AC power might be affecting my integrated amp sound quality.

 

Just purchased one of those Furman AC-215a's, did some a/b testing and heard noticeably improved imaging, detail and bass precision.  Very nice improvement per dollar. 

[Ralf11]

so, you just plugged in the integrated amp and nothing else?

 

(while having the DAC, etc. already isolated with the Uptone gear)

[atxkyle]

4 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

so, you just plugged in the integrated amp and nothing else?

 

(while having the DAC, etc. already isolated with the Uptone gear)

Yep, that was the initial test.  

 

Since then I’ve moved the strip feeding all the Digital side back and forth between the wall and the Furman-not detecting much difference there (which makes sense considering the function of the UpTone gear).

[Ralf11]

Thanks - are you in a house (R-1 zoning) or an apt.?

[AudioDoctor]

@wgscott may have already suggested this, he put me onto it I think, but this is all you need.

 

https://zerosurge.com/plug-in-products-solutions/

 

Furthermore, How dare you suggest Bill that we get Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Construction Crews rebuilding our Schumer Highways and PelosiParkways after the mess they (actually the other side) made of ObamaCare, aka, the Affordable Care Act.  Which, by the way, if you ask people if they are for the Affordable care act they say yes, if you ask those same people if they are for Obamacare they say no...

[sockpit]

Topaz IT.  Simple.  Cheap.  

[Paul R]

I don't think very much has changed in five years or so, but my opinion has shifted a little.

 

Put a decent little inverting UPS in place.

 

That would be one that takes in wall power and uses it to charge the batteries, and then takes power from the batteries and feeds your devices from that. In most UPS systems, you get far cleaner power since you gear is never actually connected to the mains. Almost all decent UPS's these days put out a clean sine wave as well. 

 

Add an inexpensive power strip that isolates each plug; it can be fed from the UPS, and the result is power that is about as clean as it gets. At least from the $200-$250 range.  If you are powering monster amps, that price would go up of course. But not dramatically,  you don't need to buy for expensive runtimes. Buy for clean power. It doesn't matter if it runs for five minutes instead of 50 during a power outage, not really.

 

P.S. - Some folks have reported that their systems sounded a little "dull" when put the music on a UPS. I do not hear that, but have never measured the outputs. I expect the outputs, UPS or Mains, to be very close, but I do not know that. I do prefer the sound when the system is filtered through the UPS. 

[Emm]

I had tried in the past many products from power conditioners, online ups, power regenerator, parallel and in series filters, all with doubtful results either on terms of noise or negatively affecting  the amplifier’s quality.

The only product which delivers exactly what is promising is Torus Avr.

[atxkyle]

4 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

Thanks - are you in a house (R-1 zoning) or an apt.?

House, but clearly I’ve got some noisy mains ...