electical power delivery from utility to rack - for the uninitiated

Speedskater & Mikado463, thank you for your input. I appreciate it and will follow-up with my electrician.

Thanks, Duke
 
It sounds easy. Just add some outlets, right. Its actually far from easy to do it right. It takes an amazing amount of thought and implementation. I have been studying how to do it best for a few years. Ed and I have been experimenting at his and my house for while now. I have done a few small projects for clients now too. Ed is starting a business I am a part of. There is a real need as its more complex than you think. I have Ed system down to 7 MV of potential between ground and neutral at his sub panel about 42 feet from his service. That is very low. I have my system at 0 mv of potential at my cord ends at my equipment. There is about 26 feet of wire from my service to ends of the cords. Most houses I walk into start with hundreds of mv of potential at random places in their panels. Most have spurious ground issues. All this floating of voltage potential causes humming out your speakers and in your transformers. It sucks dynamics and clarity. If you toss a few 10 awg romex feeds to your rack you will get a nice gain over 12 or 14 awg that is in your general wall receptacle feeds. It wont shed any of the noise that may be bothering you. If noise is not an issue then your lucky. But if noise was not an issue, there would be a lot less power conditioners being sold. My system is now dead, dead quiet and I really have little as far as conditioning. The only real conditioner I have is an Akiko Corelli. I have some Add Power gear, but I don't know that address noise. It seems to be more about a gain in speed and dynamics. Music is much more alive. It kind of falls flat when I unplug the Symphony.
 
i am in the US -- there is access to everything from the mechanical room in the basement which is below the listening room, so it would be a fairly easy thing to have done.
 
Tubes said:
I ran a dedicated 20 amp line to the outlet behind my system and it was a worthwhile investment. To take it to the next level though I bought PS Audio P3 Power Plant which is a power regenerator. It takes the AC that's coming in from the outlet, converts it to DC and then reconverts it to an ultra-clean, hash free AC signal that makes a huge improvement in dynamics, bass and the size of the soundstage.
Click to expand...

sounds like an effective power strategy.

just thinking out loud here on an unfamiliar subject... if one uses a power regenerator like the ps audio p3, would not that make whatever power distribution chain coming before it irrelevant? sort of like the power equivalent of optical isolation?
 
aKnyght said:
sounds like an effective power strategy.

just thinking out loud here on an unfamiliar subject... if one uses a power regenerator like the ps audio p3, would not that make whatever power distribution chain coming before it irrelevant? sort of like the power equivalent of optical isolation?
Click to expand...
You bring up a good point! If I had purchased the P3 prior to installing the dedicated line, I may still have hired an electrician but only to up the amperage at the outlet from 15 to 20 amps.
 
Kingrex said:
My belief says many times regeneration, filters etc are band aids for issues in your home electeical system.
Click to expand...
Don't confuse a regenerator with the many filter type products on the market; they are very different animals.
 
I know exactly what a regenerator is. Its a ac to dc inverter feeding a battery bank followed by another dc to ac inverter. Its limited by the ability of the dc to ac inverter.
Solar systems are also dc to ac inverters. Never put solar on your house if you want good audio. They are very noisy. I have never heard a P10. I assume PS Audio uses a better inverter than Sonnyboy or Outback or one of the other commercially available ones out there. Batteries also make noise. If they were so good, many phono stages, DAC, Servers etc would use them. They don't for a reason. Even Sutherland uses wall power in place of a bunch of DC batteries now.

But still, you should not need any regenerators or filters. You probably have a few other issues in the power distribution at your house. And your local electrician won't find them. I built up Eds house, then his plant electricians, very skilled guys, showed up, did not understand why I did what I did and tore my work out. I showed back up and put meters in his gear and proved what I was doing was valid. The sound improved when I was done.

There could be situations where you need a something or another because you have issues out of your control. Before I invested in anythig like a power filter or regenerator, I would think about what is feeding the rack. What is injecting noise into your audio.
 
Kingrex said:
I know exactly what a regenerator is. Its a ac to dc inverter feeding a battery bank followed by another dc to ac inverter. Its limited by the ability of the dc to ac inverter.
Solar systems are also dc to ac inverters. Never put solar on your house if you want good audio. They are very noisy. I have never heard a P10. I assume PS Audio uses a better inverter than Sonnyboy or Outback or one of the other commercially available ones out there. Batteries also make noise. If they were so good, many phono stages, DAC, Servers etc would use them. They don't for a reason. Even Sutherland uses wall power in place of a bunch of DC batteries now.

But still, you should not need any regenerators or filters. You probably have a few other issues in the power distribution at your house. And your local electrician won't find them. I built up Eds house, then his plant electricians, very skilled guys, showed up, did not understand why I did what I did and tore my work out. I showed back up and put meters in his gear and proved what I was doing was valid. The sound improved when I was done.

There could be situations where you need a something or another because you have issues out of your control. Before I invested in anythig like a power filter or regenerator, I would think about what is feeding the rack. What is injecting noise into your audio.
Click to expand...

""What is injecting noise into your audio" Agree stop it at the source, and it might not even be in your house.
 
Here is something to chew on. Your 120/240 utility power and your Data utility are 2 independent power sources with different voltages and potentials. And they meet all over your house. What does regenerator do for that. Regeneration is creating a 3 power source. How are you bonding that 3rd source and tying it back into the other 2 sources? What did you do when you installed it? How is the regenerator interacting with the other 2 power sources?
 
Kingrex said:
FWIW, Pure Power is a battery regenerator. Not sure a PS Audio P10 is.
It does not seem to have batteries. .
Click to expand...
Rather than theorizing how well the PS Audio regenerators work, you can order one and try it out in you own system for free. They will pay the shipping back to Colorado if you're not satisfied with the results. Listen for yourself instead of coming up with reasons why there shouldn't be an improvement.
 
aKnyght said:
i am in the US -- there is access to everything from the mechanical room in the basement which is below the listening room, so it would be a fairly easy thing to have done.
Click to expand...
Some areas of the US have special regulations, Chicago is at the top of the list.
Any area (Authority Having Jurisdiction) is free to add to or subtract from the NEC code and to chose what year (2011, 2014, 2017, 2020) to make law for that area.
For other locations, I would go with one step oversized Southwire brand Romex®. This brand is surprisingly available at both Home Depot and Lowe's.
As for receptacles, top shelf receptacles are best. But it's often hard to decode thew grade level of receptacles because the labels have no defined meanings. So you can use hospital grade receptacles (but you pay extra for things you don't need.)
Do not use Isolated Ground receptacles with Romex®. In fact the only place IG receptacles might be useful is in commercial buildings with many metal conduits. And even then it's often done incorrectly or over time gets corrupted by unknowing workers.
 
Tubes said:
Rather than theorizing how well the PS Audio regenerators work, you can order one and try it out in you own system for free. They will pay the shipping back to Colorado if you're not satisfied with the results. Listen for yourself instead of coming up with reasons why there shouldn't be an improvement.
Click to expand...
Save the regenerators for people that have real strange AC power companies or poorly designed audiophile equipment that can't deal with common AC power.
 
I have friends who have owned it. My whole point is, stop buying bandaids and address the foundation of all power before trying ancillary conditioners, regenerators etc. I have nothing against them. You may find some bring life to your system. I use Add Power. I have had a Denali at my house. Also a bunch of Isotek. The OP is bringing up a very good point I am very passionate about. Electrical power delivery should be optimized as best as can be. I agree with that notion. I am then adding, after getting that right, go ahead and see what all that other stuff will do for you. The true benefits of those devices will be clouded if your feeding it power with short, ground loops, arching, unbalanced voltage etc. That device wont work as intended under those conditions.
 
Unfortunately, I don't have authority over 'all power'. I only have control over the cable that come down from the power pole behind my house. That's what I concern myself with.
 
Just about everything anyone needs to know about AC power in Audio/Video systems and a lot more.
Three important papers/PowerPoints with a ton of information.

1] The Middle Atlantic white paper:

Integrating Electronic Equipment and Power into Rack Enclosures
Optimized Power Distribution and Grounding for Audio, Video and Electronic Systems
White Papers & Guides | Middle Atlantic
note that the method of downloading changes from time to time.

2] The Bill Whitlock 2012 seminar paper:

An Overview of Audio System Grounding and Interfacing
by Bill Whitlock,
http://centralindianaaes.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/indy-aes-2012-seminar-w-notes-v1-0.pdf

3] The Jim Brown white paper (note: with added international pages)

Power and Grounding For Audio and Audio/Video Systems -- A White Paper for the Real World
[url]http://www.audiosystemsgroup.com/SurgeXPowerGround.pdf
[/URL]
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top