Interesting reading, Dave. I came across something very similar to your conclusions in the Mapleshade Audio "free upgrades" section on their website. Anyone who has not read those pages should do so, it's good lots of really good, free techniques and tweaks to use to optimize performance.
http://www.mapleshaderecords.com/audioproducts/freeaudiotips.php
A point of clarification: now that only the TV and cable box are plugged into the power conditioner, do you just switch off the power conditioner to "disconnect" them from mains, conditioned power, or do you actually physically unplug them from the power conditioner?

Did Mr. Hansen discuss how/why this tweak works? I think that I do something similar by de-tuning (tuning to an empty station, that has empty stations on either side of it) all TV's and radios when not in use.

IN THEORY, as long as one component in a system is properly grounded every thing in the system is grounded through the ground connection of the interconnects. However then when disassembling the system one would want to unplug and disconnect everything else first. It's not something that I'd recommend for many people. One of the benefits to using a power conditioner is that it makes the entire system reference ONE PATH to ground (as long as everything in the system is plugged into it of course.) Many people feel that less paths to ground in a system lowers the background noise will be. Noticing I'm talking about PATHS to ground as everything in your house should share a common ground (except Antennas, cable TV systems, or Satellite systems.)

Interesting solution. My problem would be that I have quite a few custom settings in both my TV and DVD player(s) (Blu and HD-DVD) which would need to be re-set if all power was disconnected. Not that I have any hum/noise problems in my audio system anyway, but just something to point out if other folks didn't think about it.

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Interesting solution. My problem would be that I have quite a few custom settings in both my TV and DVD player(s) (Blu and HD-DVD) which would need to be re-set if all power was disconnected. Not that I have any hum/noise problems in my audio system anyway, but just something to point out if other folks didn't think about it.

Doug-

Most modern TVs and DVD do store the user default settings in non-volatile memory so that they are not lost because of power outages. The only reason that I say most is because I hate to use the word all. Satellite receivers are another issues after losing power they have to re-load a lot of their information. Up until a year ago I used to work in a retail environment where at the end of every day's business we used to flip the breakers off (everything was on surge suppressors) instead of turning every piece of equipment off individually. Over the weekend the majority of the gear would be completely cut off from electricity for two days. The receivers, surround processors, DVD players, Plasmas, and LCDs did not lose settings. We were a tweaky establishment so any lost settings would have been noticed very quickly.

OK- my TV might (Samsung LCD) have non volatile memory, but my HD_DVD and Blu-Ray players don't for some odd reason. I just accidentally unplugged one this weekend and had to set it up like it was new.

On the subject of noise, I'll add this discovery. Where I live in New England, it's pretty common to have number of humidifiers in the house during winter, as all that dry heat is murder on the skin and nasal passages. This little devils seem like ultra-noise inducers, especially when on a Low setting. Took me weeks to figure it out as I thought perhaps it was something larger or in-line grounding issues.

The noise BTW is more on the transformer side, less "in" the music itself (although it could be there too). But my Krell amp has quite the large transformer, and I could hear it buzzing from across the room. Luckily, it's an easy fix to just turn off the humidifiers when I'm doing serious listening.

Do you have all this gear in one room on one circuit? My TV/DVD player are on one floor and electric circuit and my audio gear on another. Would I expect a change if I killed all my TV power? ( I am reluctant as all my programing like time will need to be reset if I kill power to the TV system)

A shame that we audiophiles have to tolerate video intruding into our listening!

I found a trick that served me well in the realm of sharing video and audio:

Get a bit of Auralex foam and fit it to the sides of your video device.

I think video screens/TV's/etc goof up imaging and when I had to face the presence of continued video between my speakers, I gave that a try and, man oh man, it made a terrific difference!

Buddha-

For larger CRT TV sets in addition to the acoustic treatment on the sides of the TV try draping a thick quilt over the TV front.

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Buddha-

For larger CRT TV sets in addition to the acoustic treatment on the sides of the TV try draping a thick quilt over the TV front.

Agreed!

I've been planning a board sized to match the front of the TV and placing acoustic foam on that, too.

If I were single, there'd be no damned TV!

In the place I'm renting, no TV and I also have nothing else plugged in to the Hi Fi circuit for the room. No lights of any kind, nada. I listen by candlelight.

Gotta be a purist on something, I guess!

Plus, the mood for Hi Fi listening is much better that way.

Same here, I live in a small apartment and the only thing plugged into the circuit that powers my audio system is my audio system. The TV, (which is in the same room but not between the speakers) DVD, VCR, cable modem, router, etc. are all plugged into a different circuit. I think of it as a poor man's dedicated line.

Another big problem of cable tv and audio is that the cable company rarely grounds their system at an audio friendly location, like the same place your main system is grounded. This at worst causes a major hum at best is not giving you clean power to your gear. Solutions include trying to get the Cable system grounded to the right place, cable wire isolators ($20 or so each) or an isolation transformer. Of course as mentioned unpluggin them from power and interconnects into your amp helps too.

Cheers,
Ian

Another thing to try if you are getting hash into your system is moving your interconnects to different jacks on the back panel of your preamp. I use an unshielded IC on my cd player and I leave several open jacks between it and my other components.

I just went with a 650lb balanced AC transformer. That beast does not care what is on the 'wrong' side of it;it does not care what else is using AC power in the house...Nothing gets through to the audio system- except for clean Balanced AC. OTOH, the power company came out to take a look at least once, with puzzled looks on their faces,as they have no idea I have this thing in the house and I'm on the very end of a miles long (branched) line..with my own pole transformer. And this beast is notably more heavy duty than that pole transformer.

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OK- my TV might (Samsung LCD) have non volatile memory, but my HD_DVD and Blu-Ray players don't for some odd reason. I just accidentally unplugged one this weekend and had to set it up like it was new.

On the subject of noise, I'll add this discovery. Where I live in New England, it's pretty common to have number of humidifiers in the house during winter, as all that dry heat is murder on the skin and nasal passages. This little devils seem like ultra-noise inducers, especially when on a Low setting. Took me weeks to figure it out as I thought perhaps it was something larger or in-line grounding issues.

The noise BTW is more on the transformer side, less "in" the music itself (although it could be there too). But my Krell amp has quite the large transformer, and I could hear it buzzing from across the room. Luckily, it's an easy fix to just turn off the humidifiers when I'm doing serious listening.

There is a overall bandwidth 'efficiency of energy transfer' change across the board when going from high humidity to low humidity but most importantly, the high frequencies are affected by up as much as 10db.

Don't forget that one..or conversely...know it for the first time.

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OK- my TV might (Samsung LCD) have non volatile memory, but my HD_DVD and Blu-Ray players don't for some odd reason. I just accidentally unplugged one this weekend and had to set it up like it was new.

On the subject of noise, I'll add this discovery. Where I live in New England, it's pretty common to have number of humidifiers in the house during winter, as all that dry heat is murder on the skin and nasal passages. This little devils seem like ultra-noise inducers, especially when on a Low setting. Took me weeks to figure it out as I thought perhaps it was something larger or in-line grounding issues.

The noise BTW is more on the transformer side, less "in" the music itself (although it could be there too). But my Krell amp has quite the large transformer, and I could hear it buzzing from across the room. Luckily, it's an easy fix to just turn off the humidifiers when I'm doing serious listening.

There is a overall bandwidth 'efficiency of energy transfer' change across the board when going from high humidity to low humidity but most importantly, the high frequencies are affected by up as much as 10db.

Don't forget that one..or conversely...know it for the first time.

Yes, humid air is less dense, so perhaps it would seem to lower noise, since the speaker would have slightly lower output.

Watch barometric pressure, temperature, and elevation effects, too!

Imagine how JA would have heard things during a warm rainy day in Sante Fe! No wonder he moved to New York!

"There is a overall bandwidth 'efficiency of energy transfer' change across the board when going from high humidity to low humidity but most importantly, the high frequencies are affected by up as much as 10db.

Don't forget that one..or conversely...know it for the first time. "

Definitely true, but it' gets so incredibly dry up here during the winter your nose will bleed just from lack of moisture! If anything the sounds probably gets a bit bright during these months from so little to travel through.

The humidifiers bring the air moisture up to maybe a comfortable 45%. In late summer I have for sure heard how really dense air clouds up the sound. Luckily we A/C for those times.

KBK, where did you get a 650lb balanced transformer? It sounds very interesting. Must take up a lot of room. I also have my own pole transformer right by the house.
thanks
barondla

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KBK, where did you get a 650lb balanced transformer? It sounds very interesting. Must take up a lot of room. I also have my own pole transformer right by the house.
thanks
barondla

It's an ex-pro unit for large computer systems or in this case, it came out of a cat scanner set up from hospital that relocated/retired it.

It is a 'line conditioner, that has a 25KVA continuous rating in either balanced or single ended use. This means it is actually a 50KVA continuous rated unit that has been derated. I asked the engineers at the given company that made it as I was being pdf'd the spec and wiring sheet so I could re wire it. The surge capacity is 100KVA for an hour and 200 or 500kva(?- something like that- ie, lots of headroom) transient surge capacity (limited due to losses, thermal and otherwise).

It is from 'Controlled Power', out of Michigan, Illinois. they make their own stuff from scratch.

I found it wasting away on Ebay, no-one knew what it was. It had been picked up by a salvage company and the label was a bit damaged..but I began researching similar units on the net and found it, identified it, conferred with the company engineers(the designers of the unit), and we poured over the ebay photos together while it was on ebay. I clicked on 'buy it now', based on their verification of it's specifications.

It was originally $8kUS in the late 90's. I paid $400 for it and $250 for the shipping and our own shipping firm that we use cleared it for us, and dropped it off at the company loading dock. I rented a truck and nearly gave myself a broken back and hernia getting it into the house and truck by myself. I broke the front door sill just a bit.. Whoops.

kbk: what a great story. how did you explain the damage to mrs. kbk?