As I continue to screw around with power I discovered something interesting that I thought I’d share.
There are four outlets in my office/listening room. It’s a small room, one of the four is an outlet on the front wall that’s on a different circuit. It has a light switch to control one part of the duplex and a mains power on the other. The other outlet on this same wall is about 6 feet away and has all of my 2-CH hanging off of it but it’s not on the same circuit, it’s part of; The other two outlets that are on the rear wall, one is unused other than to charge my phone etc. The other has my work and personal computers and headphone chain.
These three outlets are on one dedicated 20 amp circuit which is a happy coincidence of life and nothing to do with foresight on my part. lol After receiving my Puritan PSM1512 I ditched a total of 7 of the iFi AC purifiers. Simply no longer had a need for them and I could hear that loud and clear. That said, I moved my old conditioner to the TV along with four of the 7 iFi units and swear I can see improvement on my Sony OLED.
Anyway, long story short. I’ve got three of these iFi purifiers left over and on a whim figured I’d plug them into the unused outlets. Nothing connected to them so how can they be having any kind of effect? Talk about being wrong, not a subtle change and I keep wondering how much removing of noise can continue to reveal even though there has been such noticeable improvements since I began to seriously focus on power over the last six months. Unlike power cables which also improved dynamics, this was simply more clarity, more natural, more convincing sound. Nothing jaw dropping, but clearly evident in a system capable of it.
These unused sockets had been introducing noise, whether actively via RFI or passively via EMI, plugging the spare iFi into them was noticeable. I shake my head as the realization is that throwing a ton of money at equipment upgrades can be greatly undermined by an ounce of ignorance.
What a cool experiment – but I think that’s the intended use of the iFi purifier, no?
I got into the Shunyata stuff mostly because they show quantitative demonstrations of noise reduction. While there are several videos online of noise w/ their power cords / conditioners in-line, here is a similar experiment to yours where they plugged in one of their NR cables in a parallel circuit:
Ive read reports online of people stating very similar things to you re unused outlets and plugging conditioners into them having positive results. Im not sure how widely adopted the practice is or how many people actually try it. It’s something that can at first glance seem to be the most snake oil of snack oil.
I must confess that I havent tried anything like that myself as I dont have any conditioning gear lying around to try out.
That’s how they are supposed to work though. They are active devices, they’re on the same circuit (in the end all the circuits in your house are connected together at the breaker), they are nullifying the noise they see by injecting a signal, that injected signal is making it to every other outlet in your house, on the same circuit that’s just a few feet nomex, so it’s not going to be significantly attenuated.
All your doing is the equivalent of of plugging you puritan into a powerstrip with a bunch of the Ifi’s plugged in there is less noise for the puritan to filter.
You can probably hear a difference if you plug enough into the sockets on a different circuit.
Your test is entirely valid, but the explanation for the result is probably specious.
FWIW you would probably get much the same from passive devices because they will have capacitors in them across the power rails, and as a result AC flows through them and their filters are still in the “circuit”.
The only thing an empty receptacle could do to introduce noise is the nomex in the wall acting as an antenna.
I’m saying it’s probably not, what I’m saying is the Ifi AC purifiers are effective even if they aren’t plugged into the same outlet they are still in the “circuit”.
Yeah but that’s the thing they’re injecting the opposite of the noise they see to quiet things down. So is that noise there from upstream as you say, it’s all connected eventually at the panel? Refrigerators, HVAC motors etc, things that run int he background all feeding their “contribution” and some of that makes it downstream. I guess it doesn’t even make a difference, see noise as noise, regardless of where it’s coming from since it’s effect is the same.
It can get a little nuts but in theory then we should plug something to quiet or filter active or passive into every empty socket.
It’s very easy to overthink this, and many aspects of the “hobby”.
At some point you have to accept that nothing will be perfect, that even if an addition changes the sound unless it’s obviously “better” for you, you have no idea if the interaction is a positive one.
I used to get very anal swapping things in and out repeatedly to try and determine which one of something I preferred, but at some point I came to the realization that when decisions were could go either way (and many were) which I’d choose could vary based on the day or just my mood.
My rule is unless it’s definitively “better” it’s not worth it.
I recently borrowed a Calisto USB cable, been meaning to buy one for a while, just never got to it. And while I heard a distinct difference when I put it in my system, I honestly haven’t really missed it after I took it out.
I feel much the same way about cables, tubes, power, isolation, they all matter, but assuming you have a good enough solution in place, and it involves any real expenditure in convenience or money, it has to demonstrate value before I’ll do it.
As an example, I did my initial experiments with optical network isolation, long before I had an optical Rendu, because I could do it for a trivial amount of money and effort, and despite the difference being minor/marginal (which is why I never bothered even discussing it here at the time) with the NS1 I left it in place because I’d already done it. And it left me not worrying about upgrading my network filtering.
Slightly off topic, but it took me seeing/reading a lot of explanations to have any real understanding of the cause of ground noise in equipment, and why certain layouts work better than others.
I already understood physically what it was, but it took reading through why certain topologies worked and the decision processes in designing them to have even a tenuous grasp on how you might go about designing a grounding layout beyond just use a bus bar or a star ground.
There are certain things that need a lot of foundation to be in place before they reveal their potential. Network improvements in general are that way. You’d probably have seen more of an impact to the fiber switch had it come in conjunction with the opticalRendu. There is a lot to be gained by simple best practice even if the only real benefit is to not undermine improvements elsewhere.
Knowing what I know today, I probably would have started with power as my foundational upgrades instead of higher end cables. And that’s the other thing, different doesn’t mean better and we can’t try everything. We just have to live with what we’ve got, or ceaselessly chase for what we don’t have for fear of missing out.
About the ground, the only thing I did notice improvement on was grounding the opticalRendu and the Alpha USB to the Mojo Illuminati LPS that powers them. No improvement whatsover with any of the other ground configs I played with.
Kind of makes sense as those two components had no direct connection to ground as they’re both DC powered. Everything else is grounded (more than well enough apparently) through their respective AC cables.
But I agree. Contentment is worth a lot in terms of enjoyment (and money saved).
Going after foundational building blocks has been a lot of fun for me. Even if the sonic value is debatable, the learning and experience putting it all together was worth the cost. I know so much more about AC power distribution, DC power supplies, home networking (and optical networking), digital audio transmission, and even mechanical isolation than I did when I started into HiFi.
It kinda brings me back to idea that for me the journey is really what HiFi is all about. I love my current destination (it’s got great scenery), and I’ll probably camp out here for a while. But eventually it’ll be time to move to a new camp site and try something new. And see what I learn along the way.
I wouldnt expect it to have an effect on an otherwise unused outlet thought. That is interesting. I wonder it is picking up something and a blocking cover or plugs would work the same. Or is the electricity now going through that circuit and it does its thing.
Think of it this way.
Every outlet in the house is connected together, and if it’s on the same circuit, it’s no different than running a short extension cable of a power strip in to the same outlet.
Your not cleaning up the noise from the devices connected to that outlet, but rather all the noise visible at the point where the device is connected.
Yes…
And the same would likely be true of many passive devices.
If they are in parallel with the device using the power (the iFi certainly is) the only difference where it’s plugged in matters is how close it is to the device in question in terms of wiring. If it’s on a different circuit, it will probably have greatly reduced effect. on the same circuit, it’ll be much the same as plugging it into a spare outlet on a power strip.
The reason doing things like running a dedicated circuit makes any difference at all, is that in most cases the house ground is the lowest potential ground point, so ground noise introduced in a circuit for the most part bleeds to ground at the breaker, instead on making it onto another circuit. Same reasons star grounds work.
Ok, lots of reading and various statements in the past few posts. My question is; If I have a sole dedicated 20 amp circuit from my fuse box feeding a sole dedicated 2 gang duplex outlet and I want to make sure I have minimized any external noise to this sole dedicated line do I need to go all the way into the fuse panel to make further isolation up grades there somehow and if so what? OR is there something else, ie a power conditioner of high quality make and manufacture that is basically the one upgrade that can be made to this circuit?
At the breaker panel, the electricity enters your house, and everything runs back to there, so it’s all connected, your also technically also connected to all your neighbors, and a lot of power quality relies on the fact there are lots of things generating back EMF, so they all mostly just cancel out. Otherwise you’d know every time your neighbors fridge turned on.
As I said there is still value to a dedicated line, it’s tied directly to a shared ground, and there is nothing between it and the audio device, so your starting with less things contributing noise. But it’s not a panacea especially if the electricity entering your house isn’t great to start with.
All you can really do if you already have a dedicated circuit is a power conditioner of some kind.
How much difference it will make will depend on how good you power is to start with, and there is a very good chance it’s quality varies throughout the day probably being best in the early AM.
I would seriously look into the Puritan Groud Master. it would be a cinch for you to install, it’s cheap and you can put it outside near your main system. Basically requires you to bury a new copper rod that you provide into the earth and then run the Ground Master ground to that.
Absolutely agree.
Sadly, even beyond the house, to all the adjacent homes and their electrical noises, thus the proverbial “my system sounds amazing late at night.”
Difficult part is predicting the end result of the noise and its impact on the music. For the lucky ones, they don’t hear a big difference w/ or w/o these tweaks, and maybe they have a pretty clean circuit!
I then moved the old surge protector out of the shelf and underneath for a little. This removes the pc, tv, chromecast, and router off the same strip as the audio stuff. If the seller ever gets back to me, I should have a Zero Surge 8R15W-I on the way for that stuff.
It is late and ive been sick so i am done for the night but maybe tomorrow ill give it a spin. I am also putting a temp reader in that drawer to make sure it is not suffocating.
Cabling is a bit of a mess but i am leaving it until the new cables come in. At that point ill pull everything out and fancy it up again. Right now I am using my dinky generics but that probably will give me the best idea of what the Ansuz does vs the cables themselves.
That said, I moved my old conditioner to the TV along with four of the 7 iFi units and swear I can see improvement on my Sony OLED.
agree. Contentment is worth a lot in terms of enjoyment (and money saved).
OR is there something else, ie a power conditioner of high quality make and manufacture that is basically the one upgrade that can be made to this circuit? 