How would a conditioner like the Dectet compare to the gains of a Power Plant/Regen? Still worth it, and is PSA still kinda the top contender for conditioning as well as regen? I know there are others like Furman, iFi, Triplite, etc., but it seems like the consensus on most conditioners is that there can be negative impact on dynamics and staging.
I have used the bigger Furman units meant for PA (P series, if memory serves correctly). They are quite good at keeping the fuses/breakers in the amps happy since they actively stabilize power.
Those small Racklights and Filter units are nice when you have dirty power but stable voltage (like you would have when running off a generator or with tons of lights on an old buildings outlets…)
I know I harp on about this a lot, but when the grid side influences the output side of a power supply, said power supply is garbage at best and needs proper filtering (and not just a capacitor forest).
Edit:
Some testequipment manufacturers have either grid-simulators or arbitrary-powersupplies.
Chroma specialises in PSU testing, and for that you need both of the devices mentioned above. If anyone of you wants to put their whole house on a Regenerator, they got you covered, if you have coin.
GWInstek makes similar equipment, much lower power rating than Chroma though.
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If your spending that much on a conditioner, I’d just wait an spend the extra on the regenerator, unless you need the models above the P3 where the prices start to get a lot steeper.
FWIW the sale price on a P3 is about $1600, PSAudio had a sale that ran through August for existing customers at that price, you’d struggle to find a used P3 or P5 for that price.
I’ve used various power conditioners, more out of convenience and wanting a surge protector than for any other reason, they can have an impact on dynamics, it’s more obvious IME on 2Ch than headphones, and I like having some protection for the time my generator repair guy sends voltage spikes through my house (this actually happened and only killed my SMSL Su8 FWIW).
I have no specifically tried the PSAudio one, so YMMV.
Interestingly several people including Zach from ZMF and Justin from Amp and Sound have recommended buying the now discontinued Monster power conditioners off ebay, because they like how they sound.
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I’ve used specifically Furman before my P5 on my 2ch. It sucked out a ton of staging and dynamics as you guessed.
It was definitely P5 > direct to wall > Furman.
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Do you know which Furman it was? I have a Furman Elite 15 Pfi at the moment but would eventually like to move to something like the PS Audio P3 for my headphone system. My understanding is that some power conditioners can limit the current output to things like amps, I’m not sure if this is as much of a problem for a headphone system as it is for a speaker system. I have tried connecting my amp direct to the wall but have not noticed much of a change but will have to try it again now that I’ve been using the Furman for a couple of months or so.
Also do the PS Audio Power Plants prevent issues with DC like DC offset? I would assume so given they regenerate the AC.
I’be seen one claim they don’t, but I can’t see how that can be the case, they rectify the incoming AC to DC then generate an AC signal from that. I really don’t see how a DC a offset makes it through that.
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This is where I found that it doesn’t, though he doesn’t explain why. I don’t how reliable the source is but fwiw…
In most cases, however, you’ll be stuck and have to look elsewhere for a solution. Your first instinct may be to add a power conditioner. That won’t work. Even if you have really expensive, top-of-the-line units like Furman power conditioners or complete power regenerators, like those from PS Audio, they won’t make any difference at all with DC offset problems.
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Unless a local substation or transformer is on its way out, there should not be any DC on the powergrid to begin with.
AC-DC-AC as a chain will get rid of any DC component on the powerline since the last step of that chain is creating AC.
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Maybe? Someone would have to actually measure it. The PSA regenerators are very simply amplifiers. They take AC then convert to DC and back to AC. The only difference between them and an “audio” amplifier is that they are limited to only producing 60Hz instead of the entire audio spectrum.
Point being, like for any other amplifier (or other device), physics and the state of technology prevent perfection. So a regenerator will have some DC just like any other amp. How much DC is the proper question to ask. That all comes down to quality of parts and design.
Regarding conditioners, they are essentially chokes (inductors), resistors and, some switches/breakers (which are there to hopefully trip if a surge comes along like from a lightning strike). Chokes resist a change in current - so if your amp wants/needs more current right now for a big dynamic peak, the choke will resist giving it. The resistors (naturally) and all the other parts have a resistance. This also reduces voltage.
Long story short, the common story of amps being robbed of dynamics are a basic fact of physics - no way around it. Because an amplifier is an extension of its PSU. If the PSU isn’t getting what it needs, neither are the voltage and current output stages.
A regenerator can not create more power (everything is limited by what comes out of the wall). What it does is, regenerate a reasonably perfect 60Hz sine wave. The 60Hz coming out of your wall may already be reasonably perfect or it may not.
Ultimately it comes down to trying these power devices and seeing if things improve or not. I wouldn’t bother with conditioners because they only have downsides unless they’re blocking DC out of the wall. But if you have DC coming out of the wall, you have bigger fish to fry and should be calling your power company.
Lastly, UPSs. They’re notoriously shitty for the quality of power they put out. Unless you want to spend home buying type money on serious industrial units. They’re fine for what they were designed for - keeping a computer running during a power outage but computers have vastly different power needs and are fine with a UPS.
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I’ve been asking about DC because I have transformer hum coming from most of my audio components. It’s not super audible unless I get close to my gear and put my ear up to it. I asked about this first to Denafrips who make my dac and they suggested turning appliances off in my house and perhaps trying something like a dc blocking device, the one they recommended was made by audio lab.
Just been reading more about power in an audio system to see if I can get rid of some of this hum. It doesn’t affect the music but I would like to lessen it if possible. Is there any affordable way to measure dc offset or figure out if that’s definitely the issue?
Sorry if I’m going off topic here just seemed relevant to the current conversation.
The safest way is to call an electrician. If you want to do it yourself, I would do some googling - there is plenty of info out there. I prefer to not give advice on this topic since there are lethal voltages involved.
If there is something else in the house causing your issues, then that’s pretty simple to figure out. Unplug everything. And I mean everything. Start plugging and turning things back on one by one and seeing which is the culprit. If you’re lucky, there will be one big offender. But because nothing in life is simple, it will likely be multiple devices each adding a tiny bit to contribute to the whole.
I’ve tried an Emotiva CMX-2 on a Crack that had humming issues and while it helped a little, it didn’t remove the hum completely. Ultimately I decided that I’m just going to buy amps with quality overbuilt power supplies from now on and not worry about what’s coming out of the wall.
Not to crap on Bottlehead - the Crack PSU is fine for the price. But it’s not the best in absolute terms.
Oh, one more thing, if you haven’t already and it’s not impossible, you can move your system to a different room/outlet and see if that makes a difference. That’ll at least give you a clue as to what/where the culprit may be.
If it’s a DC Offset it’s probably in the <100mV range, the easiest way to do it is to turn everything off except one circuit at the breaker, then unplug everything on the circuit except what you testing.
My understanding is the most common culprit is LED lighting, and associated Dimmers.
Pretty much, I’ve tried a reasonable amount of conditioners, and while some aspects may have improved, overall it generally wasn’t a positive change the majority of the time at least for my house/setup, things just sounded better out of the wall. I have heard systems generally improve with a nice conditioner but really only in places where power is most definitely shitty like a system in an apartment in a city or an area with a lot of manufacturing or some other rural areas with very poor infrastructure. But honestly for most people unless it’s a pretty obvious problem power is bad, generally straight out of the wall tends to be the better option but ymmv
Still think that adding the ps stuff has generally improved my setups in most aspects though, so far that’s been the only thing I’ve tried that’s been overall positive changes rather than negative. It has become a live saver though at my desk, especially when I had way too many things there, really helped prevent a lot of ground loops/interference problems lol
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I cringe when I see those LED colored mood light towers that people plug into the same outlet their amp is plugged into.
The best single investment one can do is a dedicated power from the fuse panel that you used only for audio.
I got lucky with my new place as the lights are on one circuit and the outlets are on another circuit. Thankfully new construction especially in mid and high rise building has to be to code which today includes a lot of common sense that’s primarily for safety but also helps to deliver clean power.
IMO Dedicated line is the best way to go if you can. > Then a PS re-generator. > Then stright to the wall. > Then a conditioner but YMWV with those.
I personally like to plug only low current draw items into a conditioner since I believe a lot of the impact to the sound comes from the restricted flow.
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Everything, well half your house technically is still all connected together at the panel, then your connected to everyone else in the street from there.
I bought one of the PSAudio filters designed to isolate the ground from your cable line that I still haven’t gotten around to trying.
Yes and no. I’ll paraphrase a comment from SBAF because it’s so apt - it’s like being in a pool. Yes, all the water is connected but there’s a pretty big difference between someone peeing next to you vs peeing in the other end of the pool.
So the further you are from the noisy stuff, the less effect it has. It’s one of the reasons I suggested trying a different room/outlet.
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I like the analogy! LOL
Yes further away is better.
I have several dedicated 20A lines in my house, but they aren’t always feasible to run without significant electrical work, a lot of houses have full panels, plus the whole running it through the walls thing.