Power - what do you do?

[dev]

A friend of mine tested 13 different conditioners and he swears Audience was the best.

Curious - do share the list and the rest.

 

[Mike]

I will try to get the list - but it was everything from Belkin to Shunyata.

I understand how the search for the cleanest power becomes an obsession! It has the most impact on gear. More than changing cable brands IMO. The DC can't fix the AC!

 

[Mike]

Here's the list:

API
Shunyata
PS Audio
Iso-Clean
Panamax
Audience
Furman
Exactpower
Equi=Tech
Furutech
Bryston
Richard Grey
Chang lightspeed
Monster
Accuphase
PurePower
Red Roller something?
Environmental Potentials

 

[Petro85]

A friend of mine tested 13 different conditioners and he swears Audience was the best.

i have heard the same thing. was told buy someone i trust over anyone else with gear to go with nothing but dedicated lines until i can afford an audience conditioner.
and a good friend who swaps gears as much as you guys told me he has been through the gauntlet of conditioners and the audience was the last one he bought. i been looking for a used one.
oh btw i was also told by a master electrician to run 10/2 wire to dedicated outlets and twist the line once every foot for the best results. i dont know why but he knows enough that i will listen to him. and Jeff has told me the same thing.

 

[socfan12]

I don't know how, but on other forums that have compared Shunyata vs. Audience (and to a lesser extent, Bryston BIT20), people seem to conclude that it's all system dependent. One well known (respected) forum member actually replaced his Audience with the Shunyata/Typhon combo and said it was better in his system. But all seemed to concur place the distributor on a good isolation platform, Stillpoints or otherwise, for best results.

Having said that, I would love to try the Audience one day. They do come up from time to time on Agon, albeit not often. Jeff (AV Solutions) sells them I believe.

 

[Elescher]

HOME THEATER SYSTEM:
Plasma TV and Video processor plugged into Audio Magic Mini plugged into ExactPower plugged into Equitech Balanced wall panel.
All sources plugged into Exactpower plugged into Equitech.
Subwoofers and amps plugged into dedicated outlets.

2 CHANNEL:
DAC plugged into modified Audience plugged into Equitech.
Music Server plugged into dedicated outlet.
Amp/pre plugged into dedicated outlet.

***All components to Tripoint Troy to dedicated ground.
***Careful attention paid to separating all AC and signal cables.
***Audio Magic fuses throughout.

 

[dev]

oh btw i was also told by a master electrician to run 10/2 wire to dedicated outlets and twist the line once every foot for the best results. i dont know why but he knows enough that i will listen to him. and Jeff has told me the same thing.

Ensure you check with your local code prior to doing because that's against code to twist the wires as such where I'm located.

 

[sharkmouth]

I have the Pure Power +3000 & love it. My use 95% of the time never drains more than 50%, mostly 25% of it's available instant current. If the power was to fail on moderate listening levels I can get around 2-3 hours of listening before I use the stored battery capacity. The sound is absolutely rock solid everytime I listen, apart from breaking in new gear of course. Very versatile & highly recommended.

 

[Mike]

Thanks Kev. Very interesting. Pure Power and PS Audio seem to be the leaders in power regeneration (vs power conditioning).

 

[BlueFox]

Two channel system.

Two dedicated 20 amp lines terminate into Shunyata SR-Z1 outlets.
Line one for the source gear.
Line two for both Pass Labs X600.5 amps.
Line one uses a Shunyata Triton connected via a Zitron Anaconda to wall.
Line two uses a Shunyata Cyclops connected via a Zitron Anaconda to wall.
All gear uses Shunyata power cords; Zitron Python, Cobra, and Alpha digital.

HT system.

One dedicated 20 amp line terminated into a Shunyata SR-Z1 outlet.
Shunyata Hydra AV connected via Zitron Anaconda to outlet.
All gear uses Shunyata power cords; Zitron Python, Cobra, and Alpha digital.

 

[Audioseduction]

I always say CLEAN POWER is key to excellent sound!

I have 2 Balanced Power Technologies BP-3.5 Signature Plus Plugged into 2 20A dedicated circuits. I plug my source/DAC/Pre into one and my amps/speakers into the 2nd one. I feel with using a HUGE toroidal transformer from Plitron for balanced AC power and four stages of EMI/RFI filtration to ensure ultra-low background noise is one of the best AC provision for your system power needs. Infact V-Cap Teflon capacitors are used in the filtering network. I would say the noise floor is nonexistence and just as black as space itself.

Output Power Rating: 20A RMS/60A Peak Power per unit

www.b-p-t.com

FRONT VIEW

REAR VIEW

 

[mg8]

Such a good topic. I have tried Synergistic Research Power Cell 10SE, Furman PF-15i, Equitech 1.5Q, and Blue Circle BC6000 as the "big box" component sized solution. I had my sites set on the Running Springs Dmitri but was so pleasantly surprised by a couple of small sized Blue Circle FX2 PLC units, I decided to save the $5K.

All of my power cables are Oyaide P/C-079 or 004 terminated Acrolink P4030 ii 7N OCC cable. The FX2 work great and the Acrolink/Oyaide combo is outstanding (a great value for performance as well). My Outlets are Oyaide R-1 on the sources and R-0 on the Amp. I like the R-0 better than the R-1. If I need to "warm up" the sound I'll put an Oyaide GX duplex in the mix.

The PLC's seem to work better (in my opinion) the closer they are to the component. I am also very interested in upgrading the power cable to a VH Audio Airsine or may be even a Pranawire Satori. I am sure these are great price point performers but for my system I think it may be in the diminishing return stage.

I know that clean AC is paramount for a performance audio system. Even modest cable upgrades and PLC investments will yield great performance upgrades. I'd make sure the AC is addressed prior to upgrading any components, cables or speakers.

 

[Mike]

Thanks everyone. I'm enjoying the responses - they are all vastly different approaches - with the same goal in mind: clean power.

 

[GaryProtein]

I have an 80 amp dedicated sub-panel with a recently added fifth 20 amp line. I have a full basement, so running wire is no problem.

One line for each of two woofer amps, one line for each of two midrange/tweeter amps and one line for everything else (CD player, tuner, crossover, everything else). If I think I'm going need more power than that, I'm going to sign myself into the looney bin because I'm probably doing something I shouldn't be doing.

 

[Petro85]

I have an 80 amp dedicated sub-panel with a recently added fifth 20 amp line. I have a full basement, so running wire is no problem.

One line for each of two woofer amps, one line for each of two midrange/tweeter amps and one line for everything else (CD player, tuner, crossover, everything else). If I think I'm going need more power than that, I'm going to sign myself into the looney bin.

that is interesting, i always wondered if jumping a sub panel off my box is better than just running dedicated outlets out of the main box. would be better cause its a dedicated panel id imagine.
do you find it better that way? im a backyard electrician. lol. love doing stuff like that.

 

[sharkmouth]

Gary, thats a very relevant answer re the power usage & need. I think you may have the welder by the work bench covered too. But the biggest part of the equation is for people to come to a realisation of what their power requirements are & how best to cover them. I've used filters & conditioners in the past, I now use a regenerator as it ticked all the boxes & supplies the power that I need on demand.

 

[watchdog]

The bulk of my equipment is hooked up to an Acoustic Revive RTP-6 distributor which is plugged directly into the wall. A CSE regenerator that is also plugged directly into the wall feeds my Mac Mini and an external hard drive which stores my music (surprisingly, this made a lot of difference).

I have another distributor, an Oyaide MTB-6 that feeds all my accessories like my turntable motor and phono amp etc. I have a DIY parallel filter there which consists of suppression caps across Live and Neutral and small caps from both Live and Neutral to ground.

I tried a low cost distributor that features surge suppression and choke filtering - very black sound, but total loss of air. I also tried a small Torus isolation transformer unit, powering just the digital equipment - good tonal density but I felt it made the sound a bit too warm and heavy.

 

[GaryProtein]

that is interesting, i always wondered if jumping a sub panel off my box is better than just running dedicated outlets out of the main box. would be better cause its a dedicated panel id imagine.
do you find it better that way? im a backyard electrician. lol. love doing stuff like that.

The sub panel has all its lines off the same leg of the main panel, so all the lines are in phase. I ran out of breakers in my main panel, so I needed a separate sub-panel. If you take them off your main panel, take them all off the same leg of the panel.

The two woofer amps are 2KW each and the two midrange/tweeter amps are 1.2KW each, so each amp gets its own line. Everything else takes very little power and is on the fifth line.

 

[Mike]

After a lot of research and talking to a lot of folks in the industry - I'm circling the wagons and narrowing in on three of these (one for each amp and one for preamp/sources):

North American AVR Series | Torus Power

TORUS AVR 20 POWER CONDITIONER at Music Direct

Here is what I like about it:

* Power Regulation (a must for me here in Florida)
* The AVR20 (for a 20amp line, AVR15 for 15 amp line) can actually supply MORE power for brief periods than actually plugging the amps into the wall directly - therefore restricted dynamics do not come into play.
* Surge protection (a must for Florida)

....still reading and researching....but I'm narrowing in on this.

During my research, I found this site quite interesting: http://www.ground1.com

 

[tunes]

Mike, is the torus a regenerator in the same sense as the ps audio power plants? Torus "conditioner" has an input readout on the front panel display of less than 120v and output of 120v which suggest something similar to regeneration no?