the exact primary thought that made me stop considering aries cerat dacs
Oh damn, no surge protection even? Tbh its probabaly out for me then. The power filtration is second to the surge protection for me
I figured this was the right place to ask for some advice. There is a psaudio powerplant premier up on usam right now
To my understanding this is an older model from them, and I guess my main concern is how viable is this compared to their newer offerings? For the price (is this price good?) would this be a good buy for my current system (setup in my profile).
Iāve been thinking about getting a power conditoner or regenerator for a while now but donāt really know what to look for. This price is within my range and I have already been making some upgrades/purchases lately so Iām kind of thinking why not?
If not something like this what would be some other good options for just a solid conditoner instead?
if youāre not in a rush at some point thereās always a P3 that shows up for around $1K or a little over. If you can save a bit more and already looking at PS Audio, itās probably a better deal
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I also remember reading about complaints about those guys crapping out often. It seemed like things got better about the p series
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Okay good to know, I will pass on it.
Im not even entirely sure my setup would benifit from a regenerator anyways. I might just get a really nice conditoner instead and save some money.
Anybody have any experience with audiophile power conditioners?
@Towa Power is important, yes but letās talk about your current power situation first.
House or apartment?
Are the outlets you are using on a dedicated circuit breaker? If not, what other rooms and most importantly do any appliances share power off your hifi outlets?
Lastly is there any noise at all in your background? Is there any hum, buzzing or even light hissing in the background w/ no music playing?
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Iām a huge fan of Shunyata power products. Adding the Denali v2/6000S to my system and their Sigma power cord was as big of a change as a new DAC. It also largely eliminated the SQ variation from daytime to late-night listeningā¦
House, built in the 50ās.
I believe my room is on its own breaker and doesnāt share with any other rooms, I would have to double check to be sure. No appliances as far as I know.
None that is perceptive to me at least.
If I need to do any circuit work, that is relatively easy since my younger brother is a certified electrician and can do all the work for me pro bono 
I would go either way in your situation. The house is older so iām pretty sure you have at best 100 or maybe 150 amp service. Your wires are also 75 yrs old soā¦ Give your brother $1k for parts and his work and have him drop a clean dedicated circuit, fresh off the panel with new wire, 10/3 insulated cable and enough outlets to handle your needs directly to your music room. Heck if itās a small panel have him install a nice new panel and freshen all the connections and new breakers.
Or spend the money on a conditioner or more for an issue you donāt currently have or need to fix. 
BUT still have 75 year old wires, panel, outlets and breakers
Someone smarter than me please feel free to drop in and explain the benefits of one method over the other. I had dedicated 20 amp circuitsand upgraded outlets installed in my home and found the effort worthwhile as far as my music is concerned. Yes i use Furman power conditioners in my smaller rooms upstairs, more for safety than anything else. I also use the audio quality ZEROsurge protectors because we lose power often and i had a whole house GFI installed in my electrical panel 
Curious to see which direction you go. Good luck either way buddy. 
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Taking a look at ground distribution solutions now as another area of benefit that with some gear and basic best practice implementation can have a big impact. I have some gear coming my way and this absolutely gorgeous ground block I had made by @oberon itās a 1/4 high purity copper rod, with a shit ton of artistry applied to it.
It is the most beautiful component in my entire system. Talk about audio bling
Anyway, anything worth doing is worth doing right, so on the way is also a pair of Cardas speaker binding posts which Iāll use to make a chassis ground point for both the preamp and the amp since they donāt have an external grounding point and god forbid I ājustā screw a spade onto a regular old chassis screw. 
Iāve been doing a lot of reading on theory, best practice, active or passive and signal versus chassis grounding and some of the proprietary solutions from both Shunyata and Nordost looking at what theyāre trying to do. Iāve now got the grounding solution from Puritan with their Ground Master offering on the way so looking forward to a lot of tinkering which Iāll document here.
TLDR: DC voltage in the ground, differences in resistance in the ground, general EMI and RFI interference etc can all both find its way into your system but also needs a way out of your system. Grounding solutions no matter which, all try to tackle and equalize the ground resistance with the accepted science that even the most minute differences in resistance can not only cause ground loops but can have noise travel from one component to another as it seeks a lower resistance ground path if available. Both on the signal and the power planes. Interesting stuff, letās see how it works in practice.
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Grounding is complicated, where coupling external grounds can be a win, especially if the components are designed with this in mind (phono pre-amps for example) if your not careful you can introduce new ground problems by tying Chassis ground together.
Though for pieces of equipment with well designed ground paths it should be a win.
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Absolutely, and Iām not going to reinvent the wheel. Iām basically going to tie into the main grounding point of each component which Iāve already scoped out. Both the LTA and the Firstwatt have a central point in the chassis they use as a ground so Iām sticking to that central point.
Nothing is permanent though at first go, and wonāt be unless I hear a worthwhile difference.
What Iāve come across a number of times though is having the preamp be your primary point where you equalize all grounds to since most everything connects to the preamp in the first place. Since itās all modular Iāll be able to try different configs.
iFi makes something similar (AC iPurifier required).
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Iām curious how much you have thus far negated the very light buzz/hiss you had from the initial acquisition & installation of the speakers your noise floor as i remember was pretty low to begin w/ maybe 2-4ā from the transducer w/ the gain maxed.
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Thatās right, you do that. To be honest the system Iāve got outside of the DAC, the digital upstream and the speakers is entirely new since. New preamp and amp, speaker cables and a substantially beefed up power delivery portion of the chain. Iāll try that as part of my twiddling around with the ground.
Iāve got a bunch of the AC iPurifiers, so thatās kind of the route Iām taking to establish a baseline except Iām making my own custom cables. The iFi thing is more for eliminating ground loops. What Iām trying to do is use the same concept to improve the entire ground plane.
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Spent the day working on my ground wires. Should have all of the component by next weekend so trying to get as much done ahead of time. Iāll be documenting everything here just to share process or ideas.
The wiring is all Kimber Kable speaker cable that I disassembled and braided again into individual custom lengths. The most fun cable to make was the BNC as Iām grounding the Berkeley USB Alpha via the unused BNC connector. Best external ground since Iām not using the standard PS inside so itās a good workaround. Of course I had to use green sleeving so I ordered extra long cotton shoelaces. Cheap and worked great!
Still waiting on the Cardas internal hookup wire and speaker binding posts. I should have the Puritan conditioner and ground master this coming week hopefully.
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From my previous ipurifiers question came many doubts, you seem very knowledgeable in this topic so I kindly request your help
Again this is for understanding of chain building.
I glanced the whole thread and I see a lot of PP3 and puritane recommendations, those seem awesome but also seem a bit high for the overall price of my chain unless used at incredible offer.
I currently use the furman Pl8-plusC
Furman doesnt specify in the manual the difference between bank A (3 outlets in the left) and bank B (5 outlets in the right) but its most likely the bank A is isolated from the bank B, so id have to keep that in mind if I were to use the ac ipurifiers hypothetically.
As you can see the furman uses its own attached power cable to connect to the wall which might not be ideal.
Currently I connect the exogal stack, ddc, pre and 1 headphone amp (5 total) and they are very far away from peaking 15ampere or anywhere near 1000 watts. I feel like my system sounds very clean to be honest.
ā¦
Seeing the cost of the puritan and the PP3 it seems like to much of a jump, either is there any good solution in the middle, or should I just keep this is as until my system levels up considerably.
Heres an example of a possible upgrade I found, but if you know more in the mid fi please do share, I dont know conditioners.
The panamax m5300pm ($540) and m5400pm ($670) its the same product but with a voltage regulator. They dont scream audio conditioner, they use TV image and videogame in their advertisement which rubs me a bit wrong.
If I understand correctly the regulator is a bad idea for a conditioner so the m5300pm would be the better choice.
The features that are upgraded from my current furman:
-highest ac noise elimination offered by panamax
-1 more power outlet
-I get to connect my own power cable from the conditioner to the wall, which would be upgraded
-5 individual Isolated banks, 1 bank is for high current.
So what do you guys think about this product or other conditioners in the mid fi range? Are there any that are worth it? This one already seems a lot better that the one Ive got by those very simple features.
Another example:
Furman also sells the p1800pfr ($770)
which is the exact same furman conditioner shown above with the exact same features plus 2 new ones:
-the measurement of the ac noise filtering is WAY better than the previous one, furmans graphs show how this filter is at least twice as good.
-the p1800pfr has a feature where it stores a peak 45ampere to release in case of a super high load, sounds weird tbh.
-still has power cable attached to conditioner.
Thanks for any info any of you can provide, this is merely for information, not trying to upgrade right this moment.
I missed your question to apologies for the late response.
Most certainly the case since bank A is for high current draw as indicated. Iād go with one of the iFi AC purifier in each bank at least and one at the wall where you plug the Pi8-plusC in. would be best practice.
That said, I came to share my experience after living for a bit with the Puritan PSM1512 (anyone that can live with only six outlets instead of twelve, can save a bunch). Iām really loving what the Puritan system has done for my chain. Using it with the Ground Master and the Ultimate Power cable options. Itās been an across the board improvement from my previous power setup and I didnāt think that I was going to gain as much as I did. It surprised me. Given that when I tried the P3 it felt antiseptic by comparison. This was just more dynamic, more power, controlled power/grip particularly on the sub bass with a noticeable amount of extension. Detail is even more evident but thereās a relaxed nature to presentation. Everything sound more natural, more convincing.
Iām happy to call it quits on the power section of the chain after seeing the impact of the Puritan. An interesting observation however is that the more tweaking Iāve done towards the end, the more itās been obvious to me what those tweaks have done to the chain. Itās as if its exponentially easier to notice things with the amount of resolution and dark background Iāve incrementally gained over the course of this year once I began to focus on power delivery.
Quickly running out of things to āupgradeā really.
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Thanks for the detailed answer
I checked what the furman/panamax (cheap, easily accesible) upgrades have to offer and I found their top of the line to be the exact same product I already have but with more filters and a questionable way of regulating
The ifi filters seem a lot better in quality, and the regulators seem bad
When I have more money to invest on power Ill look into better quality brands like puritan and ill start with 3 ifi ipurifiers, 1 for each outlet bank
I found out 2 things
- My voltage outlet measurement is suddenly changing between 110-130, I thought hiccups (rare on my most stable chain) were all windows or drivers related but may also be on this
Do I need a regulator?
- Power delivery is more important than I initially anticipated. AC and DC changes in the system change the sound, as do power cables even though the $250 each I got from morrow audio were dissapointing compared to their interconnects, the shielding and ends they use dont seem good for power cable purpouses or maybe something else is neglecting them (same sound as random pc cable)