Relative Importance of Power Cable/Power Conditioner?

[barmar46]

I just talked to an "expert" in high end audio, acoustic theory and application. He went into a dissertation on the primary importance of room acoutics, proper power cables and power conditioners in getting the most out of excellent speakers(#1 consideration and cost factor for a sound system)... even more important than the cd player as a source. His theis is if the sound is not clean from the git go than a good cd player will still be working with a distorted signal. He talked about secondary considerations like room devices such as "bass traps" and other assorted construction on walls and ceilings. As you all know by now: "I know nuthing!"

So...anybody buying?

I really would appreciate some feeback here. I got a feeling my latest posts may have been pretty inarticulate to all you audiophiles or maybe just plain dee you em bee, because I only got one reponse total (thank you, Jacob!)

So please bear with me here. I'm trying my best. But you guys (and gals...Hi Vicki!) are pretty much over my head in all these tech matters. I want to hang in here if I can!

[Beefy]

So...anybody buying?

Room acoustics, absolutely.

Power conditioners, perhaps. But for equipment 'health' during surges and brownouts, NOT sound quality.

Power cables, not a freakin chance. MAYBE if I had a power conditioner, and MAYBE if I won the lottery.......

[DigiPete]

Power conditioner can help if you have noisey power going to a unit with poor filtering in the Power Supply section.

Try it with and without and without the conditioner. If you don't hear a difference, return the power conditioner. You may want to have one for power surges, etc though.

Power cable.... not for a cd player, unless yours consumes 10 amps, then maybe.... shielding of the power cable could help in an RFI contaminated environment. Definitely would not spend any serious money here. Just get a nice decent build quality and thickness cable and be done with it <$100

Room treatments can help if done right. Depends on your set up.

[Dusty Chalk]

Yeah, room treatments, definitely. Good power conditioning is maybe -- there have been some inadequate power conditioners that end up stifling the amp draw on heavy amp draw things like amps. But like DigiPete said, it will help if your original power is dirty. Only way to tell is to try it with and without (AFAIK).

[jinp6301]

How would you know if your power is dirty without trying a conditioner? Anything you should listen for?

[Dusty Chalk]

Noise floor? I don't know.

[barmar46]

But this issue is: If your budget is a constant as well as the money you've dedicated to your speakers and all the other gear were the variables, would you compromise significantly on your cd player, using it as a transport to feed into a dac and them put the rest of budget into power cables and conditioner or... woud given the aforementioned constants would you focus on choosing a better cd player with a descent dac fed it in to a good phono amp and forgo the upgrad in power cables and purchase of power conditioner to a second phase. There's the rub. If I go with the latter it means I don't buy that Exempler Denon 3910 tube stage output mod and stick w/my inferior Cambridge 540c v1 coupling it w/a Lavry dac and get Cable Pro power cable cables and power conditioner and forgo the former until stage two of my investment. It doesn't feel right to me. But I'm neighter an official audiophile or acousticist.

What say you?

[grawk]

no way would I get power stuff over a good source. Not a chance. Nor expensive cables, fancy stands, etc.

[guzziguy]

no way would I get power stuff over a good source. Not a chance. Nor expensive cables, fancy stands, etc.

x2!

These are all high profit items for a dealer. Put your money in good equipment first. You can tweak it later.

[Dusty Chalk]

^3 -- start with a good foundation -- good source, good amp, good drivers (be they speakers and/or headphones). Everything else is fine-tuning. Unless you have really crappy power, but unless you live in a trailer and are powering things off of a generator, I doubt it.

[Beefy]

If your budget is a constant as well as the money you've dedicated to your speakers and all the other gear were the variables, would you compromise significantly on.......

^ x4

I'm still an audio noob, but there is no way I would compromise on anything for power conditioners, power cables or exotic/boutique interconnects or speaker cables. IMHO, all of these accessory things can be managed with very solid but inexpensive options, which will give very good performance per $$$, and beyond which you get very diminishing returns.

[barmar46]

Last point to clarify: The same proponent of power chords and power conditioner over cd player maintain buy a dac (Lavry) over a preamp (BAT VK-3 w/remote $1000 or BAT VK-30 w/out remote or phono $1250/motovated seller) All Audiogon.

I don't get it do you? Preamp right? Any preferences like abouve $1200 max unless something a little more in Dy-no-myte!

This is sooo good. I mean I'm almost there. Let's have a party at my house. Everyone's invited. Bring all that good music you've been listening to!

[n_maher]

I question the sanity of anyone that recommends a power conditioner over a source. There's no logic, not to mention even fuzzy science to support it. The only reason that I use non-standard power cords is because I build them to length to fit my gear. That's it. And the only reason that I use a power conditioner is for the surge/droop protection.

$30 in parts

[aerius]

How would you know if your power is dirty without trying a conditioner? Anything you should listen for?

Borrow an oscilloscope and stick the probes into the socket. If it looks like this instead of a nice smooth sine wave, your power is bad.

[Pars]

Last point to clarify: The same proponent of power chords and power conditioner over cd player maintain buy a dac (Lavry) over a preamp (BAT VK-3 w/remote $1000 or BAT VK-30 w/out remote or phono $1250/motovated seller) All Audiogon.

I don't get it do you? Preamp right? Any preferences like abouve $1200 max unless something a little more in Dy-no-myte!

This is sooo good. I mean I'm almost there. Let's have a party at my house. Everyone's invited. Bring all that good music you've been listening to!

I'll take some of the drugs this guy is on

x24. Source is way more important. Buy a good CDP with good DACs in it and you don't have to mess with SPDIF. Some people like systems without a preamp... Reks was doing that for quite awhile. Now he has a preamp. What Nate showed you (looks like an audioasylum Bob Crump cord) is all you need for power cords (or Volex 17604 IIRC).

[DigiPete]

no power conditioner and chord is going to make up for the information that never came out of the source.

SOURCE FIRST!!

[postjack]

Just buy a Brickwall and be done with it. Good no nonsense surge protector at a good price.

And I backup what everyone else said.

[slwiser]

Just buy a Brickwall and be done with it. Good no nonsense surge protector at a good price.

And I backup what everyone else said.

x2

[barmar46]

Why is this not a suprise to me? But...since this is not my area of expertise, I began to get mesmorized and drunk by this guys vodoo audionomics. I needed you guys to sober me up!

[n_maher]

At some point, Barry, you're going to need to bring us up to speed with where the heck you're at with all of this. I can't keep track of all the threads anymore.

[luvdunhill]

Just buy a Brickwall and be done with it. Good no nonsense surge protector at a good price.

And I backup what everyone else said.

why use a surge protector at all? why not use fast blow fuses with some sort of inrush limiting?

[grawk]

because lightning will arc past a fuse

[luvdunhill]

because lightning will arc past a fuse

ah.. just unplug it before the storms? I don't see why people recommend a surge protector at all...

[grawk]

because some people don't want to run through the house unplugging everything every time there's a storm. And aren't home 24x7.

[en480c4]

x2