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Mains supply and HiFi

I first tried a small mains conditioner and noted a small improvement. I then purchased a large upgraded model. This continued the marked improvement in the sound. The upgraded one contains, I believe, a mains isolation transformer- inter alia. The improvement was so noticeable and impressive that I purchased a second one. They have now sat for many years in my system- one on one mains side of the room powering inputs- the other on the other side powering amps.

They also protect the equipment.

Short of installing a dedicated mains spur I doubt whether many OTHER changes would bring such good improvement to the sound.

This, given that your system is good enough- and you do not have cloth ears.

If you disagree, I respect your views. I am also sorry that you cannot benefit from such upgrades.

Try before you buy: don't spout forth about what you have no hands- on experience of!
 
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I think it depends on your mains supply. Where I live the sine wave is very pure with no distorsion and no noise. I live in the country – there’s no mains pollution at all, or any pollution for that matter.
Mains conditioners have no effect.
For people who live in crowded cities, near factories, that’s entirely different.
 
chartz said:
I think it depends on your mains supply. Where I live the sine wave is very pure with no distorsion and no noise. I live in the country – there’s no mains pollution at all, or any pollution for that matter.
Mains conditioners have no effect.
For people who live in crowded cities, near factories, that’s entirely different.
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I agree. In places in England the case is different.
 
Nope. Not even the worst mains supply will have any effect on well designed equipment other than when there is a mains powered motor involved such as a TT with synchronous motor.
 
In addition to my post #43 above, I add to what chartz, in my view, correctly said (post #42):

The varying condition of the domestic mains supply inside our dwellings (spikes etc.) may be adversely affected by neighbour's electrical appliances.

I live in a block of 58 flats. Almost every flat (except mine) has a fridge on 24 hrs: plus 'n' numbers of various other pieces of mains equipment- connected just at the moment when some delightful, detailed, soft passage in the music tries to get reproduced in all its splendid detail.

No doubt I might find someone with ears tightly packed with wool and other desensitising material if I searched earnestly enough. These are listeners unable to hear any difference with or without my 2 large mains conditioners.

However, I would be quite unable to find any such person within the ranks of the pfm membership.
 
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eguth said:
In addition to my post #43 above, I add to what chartz, in my view, correctly said (post #42):

The varying condition of the domestic mains supply inside our dwellings (spikes etc.) may be adversely affected by neighbour's electrical appliances.

I live in a block of 58 flats. Almost every flat (except mine) has a fridge on 24 hrs: plus 'n' numbers of various other pieces of mains equipment- connected just at the moment when some delightful, detailed, soft passage in the music tries to get reproduced in all its splended detail.

No doubt I might find someone with ears tightly packed with wool and other desensitising material if I searched earnestly enough. These are listeners unable to hear any difference with or without my 2 large mains conditioners.

However, I would be quite unable to find any such person within the ranks of the pfm membership.
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Would 3M E-A-R Classic Plus foam plugs do? (NRR 33)
 
i agree
eguth said:
In addition to my post #43 above, I add to what chartz, in my view, correctly said (post #42):

The varying condition of the domestic mains supply inside our dwellings (spikes etc.) may be adversely affected by neighbour's electrical appliances.

I live in a block of 58 flats. Almost every flat (except mine) has a fridge on 24 hrs: plus 'n' numbers of various other pieces of mains equipment- connected just at the moment when some delightful, detailed, soft passage in the music tries to get reproduced in all its splendid detail.

No doubt I might find someone with ears tightly packed with wool and other desensitising material if I searched earnestly enough. These are listeners unable to hear any difference with or without my 2 large mains conditioners.

However, I would be quite unable to find any such person within the ranks of the pfm membership.
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Eguth
I agree that its possible that we have a significant amount of noise pollution on our household mains due to ring mains of all sorts of electronic devices, fridges and central heating systems etc.
putting my Hifi own its own radial was a revelation to me.
A friend asked to borrow my DC blocker as he lives in the headland at Hartlepool and says his mains supply is very changeable and his new denon amplifier becomes hot and vibrates at certain times of the day
anyway he says the DC blocker fixes his problem.
So the deluded Subjectivist who believe that all mains supply in the world are all the same can carry on listening to their systems with their 3M plugs in their ears, I really don't give a s*it for their trolling opinions.

Alan
 
Well guys thanks so much for the support. I was much of the opinion that 'it shouldn't make any difference' and TBH was surprised that it did. Not just the RA cable, but also the original power cable when configured the same.
A massive thanks to Simon (@sq225917) who was spot-on. After removing the spliced-in piece of wire from my 4-block extension and cleaning the mains connections plus soldering the twisted wire ends, I could no longer detect any notable difference between having my pre and power amps share the same plug into the 4-block, or a different cable plugged directly to the wall socket for the power amp. The effect was to provide better clarity / focus on almost everything, but was most notable on Clapton's '461 Ocean Boulevard' the track 'Let it Grow'. Towards the end, this builds up in both L and R channels, but there is some quiet drum / cymbal work mid-image which just used to descend into 'mush'. Now I can make out the cymbals! Still room for improvement though so will be looking at the 0V plane of my cap banks. Just goes to show....
All the best,
A deluded ape who's off his face.
 
337alant said:
i agree

Eguth
I agree that its possible that we have a significant amount of noise pollution on our household mains due to ring mains of all sorts of electronic devices, fridges and central heating systems etc.
putting my Hifi own its own radial was a revelation to me.
A friend asked to borrow my DC blocker as he lives in the headland at Hartlepool and says his mains supply is very changeable and his new denon amplifier becomes hot and vibrates at certain times of the day
anyway he says the DC blocker fixes his problem.
So the deluded Subjectivist who believe that all mains supply in the world are all the same can carry on listening to their systems with their 3M plugs in their ears, I really don't give a s*it for their trolling opinions.

Alan
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'Objectivist', surely.
 
I added an ATL dc blocker to reduce the Naim kit ‘hum’ that was occurring. Not only did that work, it also made a substantial difference to the clarity of the sound, enough for my wife to notice and comment without prompting from me. Whether that was because of the background hum being removed and no longer filtering the sound , or something else I have no idea.
 
Craig B said:
'Objectivist', surely.
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They style themselves as such, but they are never objective - they are zealots who cannot cope with complexity, randomness or chaotic systems, and instead seek desperately for the illusion of order and oversimplification wherever they can, and then preach to those who know even less than they do.

A true objectivist would know that industry, science and medicine all use mains filtering devices to improve the quality of mains supplies in critical environments - just take a look at Schaffner's catalogue for thousands of examples - all free of any hifi 'woo'. If they were real objectivists they would know that high and low frequency perturbations to power supply waveforms can negatively impact the performance and efficiency of connected devices - be they transformers or complex integrated circuits. They would understand that when attempting to deliver 250VAC at 50Hz, a basic LCR filter can be as useful as it is further down the signal path where you're trying to deliver 5VAC at 10-30,000Hz. They would know that power supply perturbations are a two way road: you don't want them entering your equipment - but you also don't want them leaving your equipment, whether it's a DAC or a 33kW electric pump. And they would know that with power-lines universally used for data-transmission, and growing anti-EMC/EMI-proliferation legislation, that two-way road is even more significant (and demanding) than it was just a decade ago...

But they don't, because they are not objectivists - they're on-the-spectrum egotists who merely think they know it all, instead of realising they merely know some things moderately well.
 
earlofsodbury said:
They style themselves as such, but they are never objective - they are zealots who cannot cope with complexity, randomness or chaotic systems, and instead seek desperately for the illusion of order and oversimplification wherever they can, and then preach to those who know even less than they do.

A true objectivist would know that industry, science and medicine all use mains filtering devices to improve the quality of mains supplies in critical environments - just take a look at Schaffner's catalogue for thousands of examples - all free of any hifi 'woo'. If they were real objectivists they would know that high and low frequency perturbations to power supply waveforms can negatively impact the performance and efficiency of connected devices - be they transformers or complex integrated circuits. They would understand that when attempting to deliver 250VAC at 50Hz, a basic LCR filter can be as useful as it is further down the signal path where you're trying to deliver 5VAC at 10-30,000Hz. They would know that power supply perturbations are a two way road: you don't want them entering your equipment - but you also don't want them leaving your equipment, whether it's a DAC or a 33kW electric pump. And they would know that with power-lines universally used for data-transmission, and growing anti-EMC/EMI-proliferation legislation, that two-way road is even more significant (and demanding) than it was just a decade ago...

But they don't, because they are not objectivists - they're on-the-spectrum egotists who merely think they know it all, instead of realising they merely know some things moderately well.
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A scholarly sledgehammer to crack a mid fi nut.
 
earlofsodbury said:
They style themselves as such, but they are never objective - they are zealots who cannot cope with complexity, randomness or chaotic systems, and instead seek desperately for the illusion of order and oversimplification wherever they can, and then preach to those who know even less than they do.

A true objectivist would know that industry, science and medicine all use mains filtering devices to improve the quality of mains supplies in critical environments - just take a look at Schaffner's catalogue for thousands of examples - all free of any hifi 'woo'. If they were real objectivists they would know that high and low frequency perturbations to power supply waveforms can negatively impact the performance and efficiency of connected devices - be they transformers or complex integrated circuits. They would understand that when attempting to deliver 250VAC at 50Hz, a basic LCR filter can be as useful as it is further down the signal path where you're trying to deliver 5VAC at 10-30,000Hz. They would know that power supply perturbations are a two way road: you don't want them entering your equipment - but you also don't want them leaving your equipment, whether it's a DAC or a 33kW electric pump. And they would know that with power-lines universally used for data-transmission, and growing anti-EMC/EMI-proliferation legislation, that two-way road is even more significant (and demanding) than it was just a decade ago...

But they don't, because they are not objectivists - they're on-the-spectrum egotists who merely think they know it all, instead of realising they merely know some things moderately well.
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You should have saved your first and last paragraph reactions for a good mains cable thread stopper over in the audio room.

Amusingly, by leaving your second paragraph out, it is difficult to tell whose personalities you are describing, vis-à-vis, those for or against the need to have their lounge be powered as though it were a medical research lab in order to be able to enjoy listening to recorded music at home.
 
Always the same self-persuasion phenomenon.
As long as there is no silly money involved…
I was talking to a renowned sound engineer the other day about that. He couldn’t care less about it, and boy do his recordings sound good, among the best I’ve ever heard.
 
John Phillips said:
@Frizzy, .......

If I built some kit and found its audible performance depended on a mains lead then I would conclude that I had made a mistake and that there's a fault to be cured. And experience says that can be done. To me, a mains lead has no business influencing the sound of any well-designed piece of kit. Appeal to "my kit is so good that it needs special mains", as I sometimes see, is an abject failure.

On denigration perhaps you might consider the other viewpoint: the hyper-intelligent internet audio blogger denigrating dumb engineers who just swan around all day making things work - what do they know?
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From the other mains cable thread, but THIS ^^^ is the nub of why I started this thread.
Now, if I can get some sort of oscillator / notch filter working properly, I MIGHT be able to measure what is going on. I suspect my earthing strategy around the power amp PSU is dodgy. Copper clad (circa 0.035mm thick by circa 20mm wide, about 0.7mm2 CSA) with 3 pair of caps, amp front-end ref at the 'clean' end with speaker return at 'dirty' end, adjacent to centre tap with these points being about 90mm apart. I suspect that this 0V plane has enough resistance to produce voltage differences between these two '0V' points due to the loading and charging currents. As a stop-gap, I might just arrange it so I can drive 7.5V rms from one channel of the power amp into a pair of parallel 15R 25W resistors as a dummy load (i.e. 1A rms current) and stick my o'scope earth to the clean end and input probe to the dirty end. At least that will show me what the 0V plane impedance is adding to the speaker 0V return if nothing else
 
If the mains lead can have such an effect upon the sound quality would it not also have a more noticeable effect upon a 4k or 8k TV or projector ? Also would it provide an even better source of light through the condenser of my microscope and these effects would be measurable using film and digital recording devices, unlike the audible effects.
 
Ian G said:
If the mains lead can have such an effect upon the sound quality would it not also have a more noticeable effect upon a 4k or 8k TV or projector ? Also would it provide an even better source of light through the condenser of my microscope and these effects would be measurable using film and digital recording devices, unlike the audible effects.
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That is a very good point. The effects would be for both the capture of information and it's reproduction, but we never hear about the startling impact on the capture side.

Anyone experienced this for a mains cable?

As an aside, I've read some seriously disturbing things on hifi forums about perceived sound improvements from linear PSUs replacing SMPSs for network switches and the likes of NAS.
 
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