Outstanding! I'm getting into power improvements right now and having a lot of fun. Sadly, I live in an apartment and can't run any dedicated lines, but I'm doing what I am allowed and can afford.

I'm replacing several outlets in the living room, anyway, so figured I may as well make sure the one feeding my equipment is hospital grade. I also ordered a couple inexpensive hg power cords. Conditioning my power (Furman PST-8D) was such a revelation that I'm hungry for more.

I've heard that dedicated circuits are the way to go, and I wish I could do that, especially since it's so affordable (relative to equipment upgrades). Sigh.

Glad to hear you're enjoying your investment in clean power!

Well done!

A dedicated circuit is a wonderful thing.

The Soloist is a nice piece of kit as well.

Isolated ground? In a residence ALL grounded condutors and protective earth MUST go back to teh service entrance. No such thing as "isolated" ground unless it's a violation. In a new house based on more current codes....it's hard to beleive that the ckts are so loaded down with lotsa rooms on teh same ckt that a "dedicated" line would be so audible. My house is older built in 1977, so they did things a bit less than current 2005 code calls for, so the ckts are more loaded with stuff into more rooms, I had to add some ckts to keep from just popping breakers at higher volue levels. I use 3 ckts powers the system off of 6 Furman units, the Furman with current and voltage front panel meters. Very hadny for higher powered amps, it showed I was pushing it too far for the outlets thus the need for more ckts. Sonically, you would be hard pressed to claim such a audio breakthrough, electrically, yes, it gave less voltage drop at the load according to the Furman meters. Since before the incoming was going to numerous other outlets before it got to the system. I use about 18A when crnakingnice and lifelike...divided amongst 3 ckts now with nothing else on the amp lines. Since my electronics is designed for real world use, the power supplys can still function during in coming voltages dropping down well below the nominal 125 or so. It sounds though a lot better when the ckt breaker doesn't pop on an overload. THAT is teh sonic improvemnt. The use of a separate ground for your stereo is an NEC violation and a BIG safety hazzard. And a DUMB idea. You do not live in a commercial bldg do you, residences do have different code requiremtns, as does commercial, industrial etc. Your service panel is where all grounded conductors (nuetral) and protective eart must terminate to a common rail, other wise you are creating a hazzard that may or may not affect you, but ya never know in a lighting hit or some other fault condition. Audiophiles, what won't they beleive? The whole idea of common ground reference is to be jsut that COMMON reference, it allows ckt breakers to do what they shoudl, protect stuff.

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Isolated ground? In a residence ALL grounded condutors and protective earth MUST go back to teh service entrance.

An isolated ground does return to the same service entrance as any other power circuit in the house. "Isolated" in this context means simply that there is a dedicated ("isolated") ground wire from the outlet terminal ground running directly to the building ground conductor terminal. Nothing scary here.

Isolated ground does not mean running the ground wire to a separate unbonded grounding rod. This is dangerous as differences in voltage potential between the building ground and this additional ground can be quite high.

After an isolated ground is installed you must still ground the outlet box itself and the raceway system.

Now, your equipment ground is bonded directly to the main building ground, not at the outlet box. The outlet box is separately grounded back to the building ground as normal.

It is important to not bond the two grounds together or you may experience ground loop hum. Thus, every single piece of equipment in your system must be plugged into the circuit with the dedicated ground.

The best electrical connection for good sound is a dedicated circuit which has an isolated (that is, not shared with anything else) ground.

An isolated ground receptacle is different from a regular receptacle. A regular receptacle is self-grounding; its metal mounting yoke and grounding terminal are bonded together. In an isolated ground receptacle the ground terminal is isolated from the mounting yoke. These receptacles have an orange triangle located on the face.

(Side note: Technically The NEC does not require that the insulated ground run all the way to the neutral point of the power source as this can be impractical in larger buildings. Accordingly, isolated grounding receptacles are bonded to the grounding terminal on the panelboard that supplies the specific circuit. It's the same concept, just a different implementation).

OK, everybody can breathe again.

That is an impressive endorsement for a dedicated power.

I looked at this possibility for my own system, and realized I would need to add wiring about 45' (horizontal distance, but not much extra for vertical component) from where the power comes to my house to where my system sits, and just let the idea slide.

How many feet did you have installed for $200?

Anyone: is there anything of concern with adding about 50-odd feet of dedicated line?

You've whetted my appetite!

250' of 12/2 ROMEX brand Simpul, the new stuff that slides through teh walls beetr is $67. Plastic old work Carlon box a few buck outlet $1,00 ckt breaker for "intercahandable type <$10. for all else it's labor charges. takes time to run through existing walls. For all else there is bill-me-later. $200 is actually not a bad charge to run a new outlet...

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250' of 12/2 ROMEX brand Simpul, the new stuff that slides through teh walls beetr is $67. Plastic old work Carlon box a few buck outlet $1,00 ckt breaker for "intercahandable type <$10. for all else it's labor charges. takes time to run through existing walls. For all else there is bill-me-later. $200 is actually not a bad charge to run a new outlet...

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See I can be helpful, just let's not talk about dedicatde gruodn again, ko?

One can buy a standard 120/240V in and 120/240V output isolation transformer for peanuts on ebay,and then re-strap it to have balanced AC. Just remember, the VA rating of the given transformer must be de-rated by about 40%. This means a 20KVA rated transformer..would be able to carry about 12kva of gear, on continuous load. This is not ideal, however. This is an impedance issue and will round the sound off and slightly limit dynamics in the bass, unless you over spec the transformer.

For the average audio system, the mentioned 20KVA rated transformer would do fine. I'll go find one on ebay and link to here, so you guys can understand what I'm talking about.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Elgar-High-Isolation...1QQcmdZViewItem
a 2.5kva rated unit. Can handle about 1.5kva in balanced wiring configuration. Not reccomended for heavy loading. Put all your pre-stuff on it, leave the amps plugged into the wall.

Balanced power on consumer in a residence operation is a disaster wating to happen...So now you have 60V across each leg to ground, and teh stuff is designed with teh 120v hot nuetral grounded conductor at 0....if you ain't got this on GFCI when something goes bad you energize the entire system and get knocked on your ass. DUMB DUMB DUMB. Balanced powere used in commerical enviorments, that have rooms, and stuff LABELD tagged and wired properly, doing this nonsense at home is asking for toruble!! We wire for fire? Nothing liek 60V on a leg that is suppsed to be teh GROUNDED conductor at 0 potential!!! But then this is aduio, nothing matters in reality, it's all about the perceptions....And install a commercial Elgar humming and buzzing away and heating up nicley....eeeessssshhhhhh

Thanks for the additional detail. Seems like a worthwhile activity.
Especially given I'm looking at paying $2k to replace my refrigerator with a silent one. (Live in a loft-like open space)

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Thanks for the additional detail. Seems like a worthwhile activity.
Especially given I'm looking at paying $2k to replace my refrigerator with a silent one. (Live in a loft-like open space)

Hey I'm interested in hearing about quiet refrigerators. Have you isolated it down to particular brands or is there a "quiet" specification to look for?

TIA

Yes there is actually, appliances are also rated in dB noise when in operation, even CU mag mentions it. Some refrigerators do make more noise than others when running. There is scinece involved in appliances. They dod get better and better over time, more efficient, quiter etc. How come nobody wants to use old 40 year old refrigerators, yet they want to use old obsolte audio electronics and keep trying to make beleive they are better than new stuff. I'll take a new GE Profile dishwasher over my old 30 year old GE/Hotpoint it replaced, same with teh stove...new is usually better, more efficient, more reliable. Only in audio does old somehow linger.....would you want to look at a 40 year old tv, if it still owrks or a NEW HDTV 47" I'll take my new stuff. Old is just that, OLD. Don't see any one rushing to marry 70 year olds, when the 30 year olds are available!!!

Life's Good. My friend has the LG washer dryer pair...he likes it. I'm partial to GE......also very very good recently, only got 30 years out of my last HotPoint stuff, and that's cus I got tired of em, 21st century, time to go TriVection...Profile. Are new appliances digital or analog?

The fridge that came with the house makes a sound like a furnace is on. Fortunately we have electric heat, but I've taken to turning off the fridge when listening, which is good for full fridge-quality treatment from the wife if I go to bed without turning it back on. Lesson learned: put a "reminder object" between the stereo and the bed when the fridge is off.

We compared units in the store last week, and a fridge by
http://www.fisherpaykel.co.nz/
was virtually inaudible in the showroom. (Verified it was cold, checked it was plugged in, opened up the doors, came back to ensure it wasn't just in the off phase.)

I will check out LG now as well -- thanks for the tip.

Most stereos have a fridge compensation ckt....called the VOLUME control, how can you hear a refrigerator running when listening to music? and if teh refrigerator keeps running, how far does it get before you find it? Refricerators, the final audio frontier. I can see it now from Shabby Cool Inc. a refrigerator with an "audio grade" tag on it!!!

Sorry about veering the topic from clean power to cold power, but seriously -- the sound of my fridge is a serious impediment for me, even though I sit 2x as close to the speakers as the fridge.

When it comes on, the rumblish noise really interferes with the details from the stereo. Imagining that sound coming out of the speakers would be totally intolerable in a sound system, but the effect is the same.

Also, true - turning up the stereo does reduce the signal to noise ratio, but I don't really like loud music most of the time. I want a volume level where I meet the sound halfway - not straining to hear, but not overwhelmed. I especially enjoy the silences within a piece. I live in a rural environment, so I do have the opportunity for reasonably low background sound, except for the FRIDGE.

If I knew what music it hates, yes I would play loud music to try to make it run away.

I understand. I live in a very quiet rural area and have a home with a very open floor plan with huge open spaces. I, too, care if appliances make noise. I have been known to also make sure that all of the grandfather clocks have been stopped when I am seriously listening.

I like my refrigerator; it's analog and has tubes...well, at least a couple of light bulbs.

Your music listening tastes are so bad it'll stop a CLOCK!!! WOW!!! Sounds entirely unnatural to go through all this hoopla to listen, is it a bit over the top? A clock interferes with listening to music? Wouldn't the concetration on teh music kinda put the tick tock CHIIIIIIIIME out of your mind, and you wouldn't hear it? TICK-TOCK-TICK-TOCK

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Your music listening tastes are so bad it'll stop a CLOCK!!! WOW!!! Sounds entirely unnatural to go through all this hoopla to listen, is it a bit over the top? A clock interferes with listening to music? Wouldn't the concetration on teh music kinda put the tick tock CHIIIIIIIIME out of your mind, and you wouldn't hear it? TICK-TOCK-TICK-TOCK

It's an audiophile thing DUP, don't even try to understand you'll only fustrate yourself (and annoy the rest of us ).

I just wanna here it sound LIVE, REAL and full of IMPACT, if a clock takes that away, cus' I'm labeled an "audiophile", don't label me as such...it's more like insanity, and kookiness. The only time a clock interferes with music listening is when it's 2AM and ya gotta go home cus' they are closing the place.

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I just wanna here it sound LIVE, REAL and full of IMPACT, if a clock takes that away, cus' I'm labeled an "audiophile", don't label me as such...it's more like insanity, and kookiness. The only time a clock interferes with music listening is when it's 2AM and ya gotta go home cus' they are closing the place.

Couple of things.

First have no fear, I would never in seriousness refer to you as an audiophile, you can bank on that!

Second, while you've no doubt attended any number of concerts where you could cough or fart your ass off to the complete oblivion of the performers such tolerance is by no means universal, take Keith Jarrett and (the last) Andres Segovia as examples.

Great link, bjh.

I am certain that if I listened to recordings of electronically amplified blues at high volume the ticking of a large clock would not disturb me one bit.

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Great link, bjh.

I am certain that if I listened to recordings of electronically amplified blues at high volume the ticking of a large clock would not disturb me one bit.

Speaking of which I'd highly recommend The London Howlin' Wolf Sessions! Howlin' Wolf in London in 1970 featured with some of the best English blues players including (prominently) Eric Clapton.

I've noticed that this material has begun to show up on various budget CDs as well, in fact neither of the two CDs I have matches the one linked; one has the complete sessions (at least I had thought it was complete, now it seems there's a hoard of alternate track available), the other about half with the remained consisting of Muddy Waters in similar sessions with young blues players recorded in the US.

Got it, all of Muddy Waters, on eof teh originals, along with Buddy Guy, Hubert Sumlin....all cool dudes

Cool

This would be back when Clapton was playing well. I don't know what happened, but its been a long time since he has recorded anything interesting.

I don't go see prima donaas performing that can't deal with teh realitys of a LIVE audience, if tehy get so overwhelmed by simple humans being in teh saem room, they are not suited to perform live now are they? They wanted to perform in front of a live audience, then they should know what LIVE people do....tell them to unwind, loosen up...their performance is so improtant...yeah..NO TALKING!!! NO BREATHING. didn't hear Buddy Guy complain, he want's the audience to be AWAKE!!! What kind of a live muis event is so boring that the place is silent!!! NO TALKING

Clapton ain't been anygood since he left CREAM, all his solo stuff blows, CREAM at lest did some gooood stuff

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Also, true - turning up the stereo does reduce the signal to noise ratio,

Only if the stereo is playing noise.

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Also, true - turning up the stereo does reduce the signal to noise ratio,

Only if the stereo is playing noise.

I think Noise gets a raw deal -- we are so judgemental on poor noise. Noise should have a lobby for equality and get the attention of congress.

Being so discriminatory as we are, one day Noise might get upset and have its own pressure group to prevent all the Noisest comments.

I have to admit to having made Noisest jokes and not being very respectful toward noise... Why, only the other day Noise came into my Lab and I was openly rude to it. making openly Noisest comment.

I think Noise will, one day, end up getting a Bill through the legislature and we will be very sorry on that day...perhaps Noise will be allowed to ride on the Bus, get a job or even run for President.

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Balanced power on consumer in a residence operation is a disaster wating to happen...So now you have 60V across each leg to ground, and teh stuff is designed with teh 120v hot nuetral grounded conductor at 0....if you ain't got this on GFCI when something goes bad you energize the entire system and get knocked on your ass. DUMB DUMB DUMB. Balanced powere used in commerical enviorments, that have rooms, and stuff LABELD tagged and wired properly, doing this nonsense at home is asking for toruble!! We wire for fire? Nothing liek 60V on a leg that is suppsed to be teh GROUNDED conductor at 0 potential!!! But then this is aduio, nothing matters in reality, it's all about the perceptions....And install a commercial Elgar humming and buzzing away and heating up nicley....eeeessssshhhhhh

If you are grounding a neutral leg, I seriously think they aren't letting you anywhere near any electrical outlets.

To add, refridgerators have compressors, and the compressors reflect quite a bit of noise into the AC power lines, which translates into quite bad sonics.

At the service entrance panel, in a residential 3 wire system the grounded conductor, called nuetral, is attached to the bus which also has the bare ground s from the outlets and switch boxes. These are on the same bus that the nuetral from the utility is connected, this is the return for the unbalanced current of the 120/240 supply system. earth ground and "grounded" conductor (nuetral) are at teh same potentioal only at the panel. They are not connected anywhere else in the house, if they are, that's a wiring error. Grounded conductor is not the same as "ground" implied for the bare wire, for fault current protection. NEC is a beautiful thing. If you go and look at the utility wires, you will see in a suburban development with oever head supply, one HT line attached to the transformer at the large hV insulator, you will also see a wire attached to the transformer, going into GROUND, this is the ground reference. You will see 2 wires coming off the secondary of these transformers, so you have 2 hots going to your house 120V each leg to ground 240V across them, well when you get to your house, where do you think you get 120V to ground from, it's referenced to that grounded line off the center tap of the pole transfomer, which is the "grounded' conductor nuetral, which has the difference current between the 2 legs of the 240/120 supply. nuetral is the grounded conductor, thus the WHITE colored wire in a residential wiring system. The refrigeration compresor does not have anything to do with the soudn of an audio system, if you get the ocasional snap or pop of the thermostat opening or closing, that is in need of either a better thermostat contact, needs a spike supressor across the line. Or have the system moved to a different leg that could be on the same one as the compressor. The sound, an dif you need to call it it's "SONICS" to make it sound really more than it is, of a home audio system, is not changed by the compressor. Or any other motor control that causs the pop or snap, it is an annoying possibly harmful to the power supply of the stereo over time, but it is not chaning the SOUND of the system. You mean you can hear the stereo sound different when teh refrigerator is on or off? i don't think so.....Same for the furnace etc.

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You mean you can hear the stereo sound different when teh refrigerator is on or off? i don't think so.....Same for the furnace etc.

Many can.

Similarly light dimmers, computers - all sorts of things can change the sound.

This is one of the reasons why good power conditioning can make such a difference.

Before I had a dedicated line, I found putting a filter on the same outlet as the fridge helped lower the noise floor on my system. But, I've also found filtering my dedicated line has improved the performance of my system. Your mileage may vary.

Getting rid of pops and snaps spikes is not changing teh sound of teh system, it's eliminating spikes and nosies....the system sounds the same, it just doesn't have the noise pop or so....running some additional AC lines didn't change teh sound of teh system, it does prevent the ckt breakers from popping when the ckt is overloaded, the sound didn't change, unless you compare the sound of a popped breaker to a breaker that is not popped. That difference I can hear. PF units may drop some current draw by a tiny smidgen, again, no effect on system sound. If everytime you do something you think the sound improved, it's self hypnosis, cus' you did something, you are telling yourself soemthing changed, if that is your thing, keep hearing those imaginary improvments. If your stuff is so poorly made, that everytime you touch it, it changes sound, get rid of it, and buy something that is more stable, eeessshhhh. How come if i plug my vacuum cleaner into it's own line it still sucks? Just like it sucked on a line with 5 other things plugged into it?

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... but a dedicated line and good conditioner removed layers of noise and thus made the whole system sound better. Not different in character of sound, just more of the music, detail, etc.

Exactly.

The amp works by taking the incoming power and modulating it with the music signal. If the incoming power is already modulated with noise, this noise obscures the details of the musical signal. Thus, removing this noise improves the sound. Pretty basic concept actually.

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... but a dedicated line and good conditioner removed layers of noise and thus made the whole system sound better. Not different in character of sound, just more of the music, detail, etc.

Exactly.

The amp works by taking the incoming power and modulating it with the music signal. If the incoming power is already modulated with noise, this noise obscures the details of the musical signal. Thus, removing this noise improves the sound. Pretty basic concept actually.

Removing power line noise is the job of a well designed power supply. If the signal to noise ratio of an amplifier is so bad that power line noise is a problem then the product is poorly designed.

That may very well be true, but, it's a real world concern. Not all products are going to have a bulletproof, stiff power supply like a Krell, nor can everyone afford that. I suspect people's mileage varying with power conditioning often depends on what kind of power supplies they have in their gear--some products benefit more than others.

The amp is not working harder, good power supplies, do their job, so that the rest of teh amp ckts do theirs. If you have to condition the power lines and you HEAR this dramatic improvment in teh sound of your system, there is certainly something wrong with your electronics. Probably just one crappy power supply section. I added Furmans to give me more outlets for the stuff, it didn't change the sound at all, it did eliminate the snap or pop from an offending switch or two. And the reason the switch causes the noise, it's not properly filtered across the switch itself on certain components. The sound of the system did not improve, or change...it's spike and noise filtering. And it lets me see teh voltage and current on it's col displays, by seeing the current it allowed me to balance teh stuff so all the load is not on one line, I have it pretty well balanced on 3 AC lines....And there is no such thing as an "isolated" line...it all comes from the same service panel ...no isolation. A separate line, with no other stuff on it, sure, it ain't isolated, check out what that term means in electrical or electronics use....you can isolate it with a transformer, sicne there is no direct conenction then if it's off a transformer, since it is then magnetically coupled, not a direct connection, but when you have in a residence different ckts, they is all coming off the same panel, they ain't "isolated"...

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Not all products are going to have a bulletproof, stiff power supply like a Krell, nor can everyone afford that.

That's a fair point Jeff. Me, I'd rather put the money for a power conditioner into a better amplifier instead. Especially given some of those "conditioner" products cost thousands of dollars.

If you manage to get up here for a visit - which I'm hoping you will! - please bring a power conditioner with you if you can. This would be a great thing for us both to listen to.

--Ethan

Hmmm... I was hoping to travel light, plus, the conditioners I have are being used for my main rig, my headphone rig(s) and my PC, all of which stay on all the time.

Line noise was something I never thought much about with my audio gear. Having worked in Power Generation here, Texas, for 30 odd years I was concerned about Voltage spikes and stability. Since deregulation there is a lot of instability in the grid. A while back I bought a Monster power conditioner from Best Buy. It was about 350.00 and tax. It did make an audible, and visual improvement in my system.

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Removing power line noise is the job of a well designed power supply. If the signal to noise ratio of an amplifier is so bad that power line noise is a problem then the product is poorly designed.

I don't buy that. Why make an amp work harder but do the dirty work of line cleaning? I've never heard an amp NOT benefit in some way from better power, whether by after market conditioning or like in my original post, by having a dedicated isolated line. Sure, some will benefit more than others, just like anything, but to say if it does benefit it's because it's a bad design is ridiculous. For the money I still think getting an isolated line is by far the biggest positive gain you'll get however.

This is high end audio stuff that costs many many times more than Best Buy stuff. When paying thousands of dollars for each piece of equipment I expect to get a product that has superior performance throughout. To accept a poorly designed power supply at this level is just plain dumb.
What is a dedicated line? A circuit that doesn't share the same outlet? A circuit that doesn't share the same breaker panel? A circuit that doesn't share the same transformer.
A direct line to your own private power plant?

I am not as interested in cost as I am effectiveness. Through all of the things that go on here, lightening, voltage spikes etc. my equipment has been well protected. It is also well insured. As for noise, there is not any noise now. But I certainly agree that everyone should buy whatever they think is best.

As for dedicated lines, they can be very effective in many cases.

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Removing power line noise is the job of a well designed power supply. If the signal to noise ratio of an amplifier is so bad that power line noise is a problem then the product is poorly designed.

OK

Yup, again teh amps are merly modulated power supplys. The entire unit is a power supply, if it can't function as such properly, under condtions it is gonna see in teh real world, it's not well done is it? If you spend big bucks on some fancy named thick front panel amp, and it then needs another unit to clean up the incoming power in order for it to meet or deliever the supposed magic sound in the ads, it's either fraud, fake or junk, and just hyped crap. How come Crown, QSC, numerous ohter units keep cranking and cranking all nite long under teh most insane conditions, low line voltages, high line voltages, dips, spikes etc. And the majority of em just keep on going. And they sound just fine. Some $45K amp that needs to be coddled and fed prime ribs in order to just function is not audio equipment, it's just room decorations. And over priced crap. . That's why measurements matter. Not just visual inane perceptions, or subjective auditory perceptions, based on teh mood of the moment. Are Boening jets designed without measurments and real world tests? Still can't let go of that amp that was missing around 500W, but it didn't matter, since it was a hi powered unit, who would miss it? holy Moly, that's subjective insantiy!!! Useless review, until Ja found the truth and reality, never did get a mfg. response to that poor product. Does Mf measure his TT's for noise, wow and flutter etc, or just take teh mfgs. word for it?