Your thoughts on power conditioning

[ayt999]

does the sds-xlr suck like 300W of power?

no, only about 35W IIRC. I didn't say I don't use power conditioning because it overloads the P300, but rather because it sounds best without power conditioning.

[ayt999]

What differences do you notice powering the SDS-XLR both with and without the P300?

I power my SDS-XLR with a P600

well, what do you notice with and without the P600 inline? let's compare notes.

all I remember from testing it with and without power conditioning a while ago (perhaps a half year or more) is that I preferred it without power conditioning. seemed to get more dynamic range and perhaps a more fuller and clearer sound. IMO going from power conditioning to without was similar to the differences obtained from going from VT-231's to Bad Boys, or Bad Boys to 6SN7W's (short bottles) on the output tubes.

[magnum]

Do you have a link?

http://www.psaudio.com/account/forum/view.asp?catID=2&forumID=10&topicID=3562&pageNo=2

This was just talked about bye Paul yesterday on the PS Audio forum(No other info right now).You may not be able to link in if your on signed up, so here's another link to thier site.

http://www.psaudio.com/

[tiberian]

people have been modding their power plants for awhile. apparently its pretty easy to replace the stock receptacles and hook up wires with something better, like oyaide bronze/gold/palladium outlets and cryo treated teflon coated copper wire. those things should drop the background noise a bit...

[immtbiker]

News!! Ps Audio has decided to start with factory Mods to thier equipment.They are going to start with the P300, they have yet to design the mod so it will be a while, as thier going to do a professional job.

Do you have a link?

http://www.psaudio.com/account/forum/view.asp?catID=2&forumID=10&topicID=3562&pageNo=2

This was just talked about bye Paul yesterday on the PS Audio forum(No other info right now).You may not be able to link in if your on signed up, so here's another link to thier site.

http://www.psaudio.com/

Thank you. I guess I'll wait and see if they do anything for the P500 further down the line. The MultiWave Auto is a great feature.

Also after reading the VPI SDS literature I realized I can use the P500 for a motor controller that works similarly as the SDS but I have to keep it set on 60 htz for use with asynchronous motors. I can't change the htz setting to play 12" 45rpm because it would screw everything else up.

[Thaddy]

Hopefully I can contribute to this thread a bit more in the future. I placed my order this week for the HTS3500 MKII from Buy.com, and it looks like it's going to arrive sometime next week.

[Post]

Yep I'm using a HTS3500 MKII right now too, and although it didn't get rid of my Melos' Toroidal Transformer hum, it doesn't seem to have hurt anything, and the SQ hasn't gone down, so why not have it in there, eh?

[magnum]

There is a new product from PS Audio that eliminates ac line noise, check it out in this video http://www.psaudio.com/redirect.asp?link=http://www.psaudio.com/downloads/harvester.wmv

http://www.psaudio.com/products/noiseharvester.asp

[magnum]

The video seems to only work from their site in the forum "new products"; "harvester"

[magnum]

The video seems to only work from their site in the forum "new products"; "harvester"

oops! it was "Latest PS Audio News" "harvester"

[Post]

well that's novel. but it's still not a humbuster, right? i have a feeling this won't nix the toroidal transformer hum either.

[magnum]

Yes it is not a humbuster. The transformer hum is probley caused bye having some DC on your A/C coming from wall. Humbuster or power plant with multiWave II would fix if it is DC related.

[tkam]

Still sounds like a mechnical hum to me no amount of power conditioning can fix that. Best bet would be to have a DIY'er replace it for you.

[Post]

Lan took one look at how crazy the TT was hooked up all over the Melos board and said "funk that." I admit, I rarely hear it anymore, and then only sporadically when there's no music on and I'm trying to hone in on it. I guess I can live with that.

[kevin gilmore]

noise harvester: Another piece of PSaudio snakeoil.

Someone sent me one in the mail, and i got it yesterday with a schematic.

(with a few errors)

Quick bottom line. small resistor (or fuse) in series with .05uf cap in series with a full wave diode bridge.

Output of diode bridge goes to an electrolytic cap, then into a led blinker circuit.

The way it works is as a high pass filter where instead of just shorting the spike (and the cap heats up),

some of the energy goes into the electrolytic to make the led blink.

More of the purest and most evil of snake oil. Backed up by a video that is pure fraud in the first place.

Most products already have some kind of parallel cap including many power filtering devices.

So there is absolutely nothing new here, just a blinking led.

If you have spikes on your line due to el-crapo dimmers, then you should replace the dimmers with

devices that actually work right in the first place instead of trying to remove the noise that should

never be there.

[Jeff Wong]

If the LED is using up the charge stored in the capacitor, wouldn't the effect on the line be somewhat different than a capacitor in parallel just charging up and releasing back on the line? I'm having trouble picturing this. Is there a resistor on each prong? What value and rating is it?

[justin]

Yep I'm using a HTS3500 MKII right now too, and although it didn't get rid of my Melos' Toroidal Transformer hum, it doesn't seem to have hurt anything, and the SQ hasn't gone down, so why not have it in there, eh?

Jahn,

You can unbolt the transformer from the chassis and see if the noise level or frequency changes. If it does, chances are the transformer is of poor quality, or you need more padding between the transformer and chassis. It's unlikely that any power conditioning device is going to help.

[kevin gilmore]

ever so slightly different. Net result is the same. .05uf cap in series with say 10 ohms in series with what amounts to a short

(diode bridge with electrolytic) to the other side of the ac line. Absolutely equivalent to a .05uf cap in series with 10 ohms

directly across the ac line. Which is pretty much what is inside many of the line filters available today. Including the quiet lines.

Does nothing for common mode noise (that which is on both sides of the ac line at the same time)

The led blinker does absolutely nothing except look stupid.

Paul missed a great opportunity to make even more money on this piece of bullshit.

Make a version with .1 uf caps and a RED led for "low frequency noise"

Make a version with .075 uf caps and a YELLOW led for "low middle frequency noise"

Make a version with .05 uf caps and a GREEN led for "middle frequency noise" (this is the one they are selling now)

Make a version with .025 uf caps and a Blue led for "high frequency noise"

...

The real solution is to fix the problem of noise generation in the first place. Not to remove the noise

after you have made the noise.

[hungrych]

So KG, what do you think of the Power Plants then? (like I couldn't guess)

[kevin gilmore]

1) OVERPRICED (as in way overpriced)

2) inefficient (as in lots of heat generated, about 50% heat)

3) all the multi-wave crap is just that, pure crap, and not good for some equipment

4) inability to drive some loads, producing more distortion in these cases than plugging direct into ac.

Other than that, they are fine boatanchors.

[hungrych]

So what kind of solution would you recommend? Giant isolation xformer/torroid?

[kevin gilmore]

go look in the ruh ro thread around april 18

[magnum]

Hard to believe anyone sent him a noise harvester when it hasn't ben released yet, maybe a beta tester that didn't return thiers but highly doubtful IMO. Sounds to me he just don't like PS, anyway we will soon see if the NH is snake oil or not! I'm just as interested to know what is the truth now.

[Grand Enigma]

The NH is just a backwards way of trying to fix a problem... instead of paying $100 for one of these take the 100 and get an electrician in to find what is the real cause of the line noise. People are lazy and are always looking for the quick fix... much like the diet pills... take this and lose 20lbs in a week without exercise and diet...

[Post]

Jahn,

You can unbolt the transformer from the chassis and see if the noise level or frequency changes. If it does, chances are the transformer is of poor quality, or you need more padding between the transformer and chassis. It's unlikely that any power conditioning device is going to help.

the transformer is actually on a long threaded bolt held by a wingnut. so it's not a prob to add more padding if that's all it will take. I'm going to slice up a pandafoot here and get my sorbothane mojo going!