advertisement


Mains conditioning

Mike,

If I read Jez's posts correctly, he is trying to say that modern solid state amp power supplies (linear or switch mode) are designed, so that the input voltage doesn't matter, as long as it stays within a reasonable window e.g. 220-250VAC for a UK machine. A modern linear power supply or SMPS provides a constant output voltage to the circuit, irrespective of the input voltage. If I have got this wrong, Jez, please correct me.

Charlie
 
Tried main regen units & they sucked the life out of the system , changed to BMU ( balanced transformers )
 
Arkless Electronics said:
Try re-reading my post which you quoted....
Click to expand...

I have read your post and what you stated is that mains voltage does not matter when it does matter.
There is no mention of your comment only applying to amplifiers. I don’t use my voltage regulator on my amp, which happens to be a valve amp, only on DACS, streamer, hard drive, phono stage and turntable. Every single one of which is labelled as 230V. Both turntable and digital sources sound better with the AG500.

Every piece of equipment I have is marked 230V. I have never measured 240V. Lowest has been 245V.

You will not find 230V anywhere in the U.K. power here is supplied at 240V PLUS, up to a maximum of 253V. Where I live it’s usually 248-249V.

Over voltage compromises longevity of the equipment and will impact of sound quality. Just because you can’t hear it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, it means you can’t hear it. This reminds of the time a salesman in a Hifi shop told me there was no difference between WAV and FLAC, when even my girlfriend who has no interest in hifi could tell WAV was better.
 
in reality nothing will really change! ( 220/240 , 380/415 & 660/690v 50hz )
..........
TwoThirtyVolts?
In the UK, mains electricity is currently required by law to be delivered at 230 Volts,
within a tolerance of +10% / –6%, that is, within the range 253 Volts to 216.2 Volts.
The value of 230 Volts is said to be the ‘nominal voltage’
In an electrical system, ‘voltage’ is the equivalent of ‘pressure’ in a water system,
(current being the equivalent of water flow rate).
History of the nominal voltage in the UK
In 1994, to remove a perceived barrier to trade between European countries, the
European Commission (EC) decided to ‘harmonise’ the standard UK mains voltage
of 240 V and the European standard of 220 V at 230 V.
However, the cost of replacing or adjusting all the electricity supply equipment across
Europe to actually deliver 230 V was prohibitive, there being no technical advantage
whatever in changing, other than ‘harmonisation’.
So, to avoid accusations of failure to harmonise, the European Commission simply
altered the legal voltage limits - nothing actually changed!
The law in the UK currently states that the mains supply voltage must be 230 V +10%
/ -6%, thereby allowing the European 220 V system to stay at 220 V and the UK to
stay at 240 V, yet both appear to be harmonised!
In 2010, the voltage tolerance band may be increased to +10% but again, in reality,
nothing will really change!
 
Arkless Electronics said:
Mains has no effect whatsoever on the sound of hi fi (other than silence if it's not present!), so save your money...
Only bad over or under voltage conditions in rural areas and when using generators etc could need a reconditioned but it's to give the correct voltage and frequency for safe and consistent operation, not to do with sound quality.
Click to expand...

Sure if your mains is a nice clean sine wave at the correct supply voltage. But what about the real-world situation with the (deleterious) effects of:
a) DC on the mains
b) or HF hash?

Both coming from solar inverters and/or the plethora of SMPSes one has around the house.

DCcan be fixed by using iso trannies or DC blockers in front of any components - and HF hash by hash blockers ... but voltage over-supply needs a regenerator to lower it to the 230v which many components are specced to, these days.

Andy
 
Ive heard very good things of the NVA BMU, listened to a system with one in the system at a bake off last year.
 
andyr said:
Sure if your mains is a nice clean sine wave at the correct supply voltage. But what about the real-world situation with the (deleterious) effects of:
a) DC on the mains
b) or HF hash?

Both coming from solar inverters and/or the plethora of SMPSes one has around the house.

DCcan be fixed by using iso trannies or DC blockers in front of any components - and HF hash by hash blockers ... but voltage over-supply needs a regenerator to lower it to the 230v which many components are specced to, these days.

Andy
Click to expand...

Why use an "ISO tranny" when your equipment already has a transformer inside that will do the job?
 
I've wanted to try a mains regenerator for some time, not for reasons of sound quality, but to eliminate hum. I know that my mains often runs hot, up towards 250V, and I almost always get some hum with external PSUs for things like phono stages. I'd love to have silence. However the reasonably priced mains regenerators seem to make a noise themselves, so that would clearly be a waste of time!
 
749er said:
Over voltage compromises longevity of the equipment and will impact of sound quality.
Click to expand...

Can you explain the mechanism by which overvoltage impacts sound quality.

Just because you can’t hear it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, it means you can’t hear it. This reminds of the time a salesman in a Hifi shop told me there was no difference between WAV and FLAC, when even my girlfriend who has no interest in hifi could tell WAV was better.
Click to expand...

Under what specific conditions? With what gear? How do you know the source material was exactly the same (and at the same level)?
 
Julf said:
Can you explain the mechanism by which overvoltage impacts sound quality.



Under what specific conditions? With what gear? How do you know the source material was exactly the same (and at the same level)?
Click to expand...

By listening and comparing the way anyone would do in comparing CD player A to CD player B. Or cable A to cable B. No need to touch volume controls etc

In my case it was music streamed from a hard drive. The power supply for the streamer was simply, easily and quickly moved from the wall socket to the regenerator and repeated. It’s only taking about 40W of Power.

Listen to some music with the mains regenerator in the circuit then not in the circuit. The difference was clear and obvious. The benefits of not applying overvoltage to electrical components are well known and have been for decades.
 
749er said:
Listen to some music with the mains regenerator in the circuit then not in the circuit. The difference was clear and obvious. The benefits of not applying overvoltage to electrical components are well known and have been for decades.
Click to expand...

So you weren't actually comparing "overvoltage" to "normal voltage", but "with and without mains regenerator", so any possible differences could have been because of noise filtering, avoiding of ground loops and many other reasons that have nothing to do with the actual voltage.
 
For the benefit of those who seem to have mislaid their reading glasses I'll quote myself with the relevant bit in bold:

" Mains has no effect whatsoever on the sound of hi fi (other than silence if it's not present!), so save your money...
Only bad over or under voltage conditions in rural areas and when using generators etc could need a reconditioner but it's to give the correct voltage and frequency for safe and consistent operation, not to do with sound quality."

Quite where all the "so your saying it doesn't matter if there is too high a mains voltage" type posts are coming from when my earlier post expressly said that their most useful function is to prevent over and under voltage situations is quite bizarre...
 
749er said:
By listening and comparing the way anyone would do in comparing CD player A to CD player B. Or cable A to cable B. No need to touch volume controls etc

In my case it was music streamed from a hard drive. The power supply for the streamer was simply, easily and quickly moved from the wall socket to the regenerator and repeated. It’s only taking about 40W of Power.

Listen to some music with the mains regenerator in the circuit then not in the circuit. The difference was clear and obvious. The benefits of not applying overvoltage to electrical components are well known and have been for decades.
Click to expand...

Do you know how the rectification and smoothing process of a power supply are carried out? what a voltage regulator is? Or a SMPS? Do you understand how they work? That most SMPS are specced to work from mains between 90 and 264V with no ill effect? (yes you could waggle the mains between 90 and 264V with no change to the output voltage. It covers Japanese mains at 100v -10% to UK mains at 240V + 10%) Do you understand line and load regulation? If you did you would see that it's impossible for mains to have any effect and would refrain from posting on matters you probably have no understanding of;)

There surely cannot be any other field of human endeavour in which opinion is dominated by people who know sweet FA about what they are talking about and yet simultaneously reject the input of those who design the very equipment they are discussing... it beggars belief!

I wonder how the doctors we have on pfm would react to finding that the many of their patients had an attitude of "well I have no medical training or knowledge..... but, I reject your professional medical opinion and both your diagnosis and prognosis anyway 'cos I've heard rumours from other people who also know nothing about medicine and seen adverts for home remedies, both of which seem to contradict you, and I'll believe these rather than an expert"

Yours, a designer of hi fi equipment and power supplies... currently designing a small SMPS for a valve phono stage.

PS I thought "the word on the street" was that all SMPS sound crap and ruin your hi fi?.... If I point out that most mains reconditioners are SMPS's does that make them instantly crap?:D I could design and build a linear mains reconditioner for anyone who really wants one and doesn't need to ask what it costs... What effect on SQ would it have? well about as much as you can imagine....
 
Offer to those who would like to hear either a
Regenerator, PS Audio P300 which I must get around to selling.
Audio Magic filter box
Various mains filters and cleaners that all make a difference - Tacima, Russ Andrews, PS Audio
Can switch them in and out and even swap over mains cables

PM me for a visit to North West Surrey
 
Arkless Electronics said:
Do you know how the rectification and smoothing process of a power supply are carried out? what a voltage regulator is? Or a SMPS? Do you understand how they work? That most SMPS are specced to work from mains between 90 and 264V with no ill effect? (yes you could waggle the mains between 90 and 264V with no change to the output voltage. It covers Japanese mains at 100v -10% to UK mains at 240V + 10%) Do you understand line and load regulation? If you did you would see that it's impossible for mains to have any effect and would refrain from posting on matters you probably have no understanding of;)

There surely cannot be any other field of human endeavour in which opinion is dominated by people who know sweet FA about what they are talking about and yet simultaneously reject the input of those who design the very equipment they are discussing... it beggars belief!

I wonder how the doctors we have on pfm would react to finding that the many of their patients had an attitude of "well I have no medical training or knowledge..... but, I reject your professional medical opinion and both your diagnosis and prognosis anyway 'cos I've heard rumours from other people who also know nothing about medicine and seen adverts for home remedies, both of which seem to contradict you, and I'll believe these rather than an expert"

Yours, a designer of hi fi equipment and power supplies... currently designing a small SMPS for a valve phono stage.

PS I thought "the word on the street" was that all SMPS sound crap and ruin your hi fi?.... If I point out that most mains reconditioners are SMPS's does that make them instantly crap?:D I could design and build a linear mains reconditioner for anyone who really wants one and doesn't need to ask what it costs... What effect on SQ would it have? well about as much as you can imagine....
Click to expand...


You miss the point and along the way you tell people who actually use one that the benefit is in their mind. Charming.

Every single person h buys their equipment based upon what they hear.

I can hear the difference between WAV and FLAC files, as can my girl friend. I can’t tell the difference when I change cables but I can when I use the voltage conditioner.

Now you can sit wherever you are and tell me I am not hearing a difference, but that does not mean I can’t.

You can say that electronics are designed to work over a wide range of input voltages but that does not negate the fact that it’s better to feed it 230V instead of 250V, because the higher the voltage the greater the “pressure” in components.
 
If your neighbours or you are using powerline adapters, or you have an untraceable ground loop, any active analogue pre amp or phono pre amp that has little or no mains filtering will pick up that noise. You can fix that by using equipment with a properly implemented SMPS, leading example of which are, sorry Jez, Linn. Or you could, as Jez has suggested, buy a big SMPS and plug all your sensitive kit into it. A spur, new consumer unit or poncy plug sockets won't fix these issues either.

Unless I was getting audible mains borne noise, I'd leave it well alone.
 
749er said:
I can hear the difference between WAV and FLAC files, as can my girl friend.
Click to expand...

You keep telling us that, but you never respond to questions about how you compared, what your setup was, and how you ensured the source material was exactly the same (and level matched).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.


advertisement


Back
Top