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October 20, 2008 - 1:35pm
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Richard Gray Power Conditioning Products.. a revelation.
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Now that the shouting has died down . . .
I have always had trouble with the design of these products as the run in parallel to the power, not in series. This may be my lack of understanding of the specifics of circuit design, but it seems to me that the power yuck would just keep going along to the unit being powered, especially if the cleaning circuit had a higher impedance.
I have a PS Audio Power Plant Premier and find the power regeneration lowers the noise floor and adds clarity when used on mic pres and ADCs.
On what equipment does the RPG product work the best?
Hey Elk.. well, I noticed a marked improvement on all my gear, but the SoundCraft Ghost was definitely the most obvious, Maybe because the design isnt as well thought out as some of my other gear? I have an old Fostex multitrack machine for which the RGP produced a right stunning result too.. but they definitely improved every situation I put it in..I will post some files later this week.
My mic pres(24 channels of DAV with Mytek Conversion primary kit) are dead silent, so effects are not noticed as much there, although I do have a pair of m221 schoeps that I havent used em with..hmm
Hi
Im with Elk on this one, I dont understand how a parallel device can seriously improve the mains power.
It addition to this, one thing that has really struck me as odd. Why isint high quality audio designed to run off DC voltages ? and then you could have batteries which have zero noise and a totally pure supply ?
If you are going to use AC then in the industrial world you need a large Constant Voltage Transformer inconjunction with other components to reduce AC noise below a 3% distortion.
I just cant get over the snake oil looking nature of these power conditioners, why are they only used in Hifi and not in any other power sensitive industry ?
Alan
I find it odd that the same person that chided me in the 200,000 speaker thread is now shooting off about a power conditioner... not exotic enough for you?
you have the literature, feel free to contact richard gray directly..
Pardon me if this is a dumb question, but do fuses also run in parallel with a circuit?
I ask because sonic claims are made for them, as well.
I've been trying to look around for an article about parallel power conditioning but can't find anything that 'splains it for me.
In your house, wouldn't all the devices plugged into the same circuit be running in parallel?
Is the example of the fridge making noise in your Hi FI rig and example of something running in parallel having an effect on an audio circuit?
NC
Sorry, i thought it was a reasonable constructive post asking a valid technical question.
Ill stop participating in your posts if contradiction of your opinion is not allowed
Alan
Buddha
There is no such thing as a parallel fuse in domestic electric supplys.
You are correct in that everything that is in a house is effectively on a single supply, people can run dedicated audio breakers but they are still combined at a fuse panel and noise from your fridge can indeed get everywhere.
From twenty years expereince with delicate electronics on oil rigs, ships, chemical plants the only way to truly provide clean power is via an inline power conditioner. These are very expenisve to make, you can buy a 2000VA UPS at Best buy for like $299, a real inline one of the type id use for real protection would cost $5000 !!
Alan
Dup can't hammer me hear, so I'll bring up Mapleshade again just to be spiteful. Pierre Sprey designs and uses his own battery powered recording equip't. to eliminate ac noise- but you probably all know that. I've also seen some battery powered preamps. I'll bet some people can hear the batteries draining and don't like them!
Anyway, I'll go way out on a limb and bet the main problems are power and the expense of replacing batt's.
Why not just have a battery charger ?
You could trickle charge the batterys when not in use ?
This is exactly the same method used for the high power tornado sirens you see everywhere. They use approx 100 amps @ 24 VDC but they charge @ 5 amps !!
Alan
Well, it's like this. Sometimes the True Scientist skeptics join in the forum and tell the plebes that they are all deluded by pitchmen, scam artists and the high-dollar snobbery promoted by the shills in their favorite magazine. Arguments and insults ensue. Then they want to share their own perfectly reasonable hero worship/audio epiphany while whipping a little common sense on the rabble. Bandwagon doesn't fill up so quickly.
Respect and consideration go a long way.
BTW, Just got caught up in the Rants and Rants section. You handled that nicely, moving to here and all. But Welsh is not a Dupster...not by a long shot.
I am not qualified to answer this question. But that never stops me from trying
Hi
My position is simple, it doesnt matter if a product costs $2 or $2,000,000.
There are things to be admired and things to be cynical about. I dont really know what the big deal is about cost.
After all if someone offered you Manhattan island now for a billion dollars ? would you not think it a bargin ?
Its all relative, the trick is to see through the smoke to the real value of items regardless of their absolute cost. Therefore a $2400 power conditioner can be a lot worse value than a $200,000 pair of speakers.
Alan
Red Wine Audio modifies a number of products to do just this.
ncdrawl,
I find the biggest difference with mic pres when using ribbon mics, probably because I am always wishing for more gain.
PS: You are pretty safe once you get away from DUP. The rest may ask some pointed questions but are truly interested.
A fair question.
My guess is that once the power is "good enough" in other applications there is no reason to ask for more.
In audio, there is no such things as "good enough". If it can be made better, someone will do so. There isn't the practical real-world yuck/buck type issues.
Cheap UPS power supplies are something else entirely. The inexpensive ($300.00) once have step-approximated sine wave generators. They sine wave is a mess, but will run your computer PSU fine for 10 minutes while you shut down.
I have never had the guts to plug good audio equipment into one after seeing what the power looks like on an oscilloscope.
A true sine wave costs a lot more. This doesn't give you better power supply protection, but it does provide better sound.
I have a number of ribbons myself, my favorites being my coles 4040s. Ive done the whole testing thousands of pro audio products dance too.. I started out with Millennia and DACS amps, gordon, and others before moving to DAV and Pendulum permanently.. that combo is simply amazing. Mick Hinton is a genius(he designs dav stuff but worked at DECCA 30 years in the design dept before going solo)
plenty of snake oil in pro audio too, as youve seen..
Years and years ago, when the Richard Gray company first began manufacturing devices, several reviewers at http://www.hometheaterhifi.com were passing one of them around. This happened after the writer who had requested the product for review had failed to hear any noticeable improvement, and asked other reviewers for their feedback.
The device at the time was one for which the claim was made that the more you put in the circuit, the greater the improvement. Some people were using four or more in sequence.
When I received the device, I too failed to hear an improvement. That, of course, may have been due to my reference system at the time, which has since improved in every respect. I eventually returned the product to the initial reviewer.
When it came time to write the review, the writer reported back to us that his agreement with the Richard Gray Power Company was that he could only review the product if the review was favorable. He thus sent the unit back without writing a review. My reaction was to question why he had ever agreed to such terms in the first place. I would never accept a product for review under such conditions.
I have no idea how the latest Richard Gray products might affect the sound of my current system. Nor do I have any reason to question the initial post in this thread. I simply know that, after my experience years ago, I have always given the company a wide berth.
what power products do you use at home?
I'm truly interested, but mainly interested in the psychology of belief systems and why people sometimes think they hear stuff that can't possibly exist. Since so many people don't want to hear that viewpoint I (try to) refrain from posting in threads such as this. But now we have four people (including DUP in absentia) all saying power conditioners cannot and do not improve the sound of audio. Yet the OP insists "at 2400 bucks for my home and studio.. it was a steal. wiped the floor with everything else ive used."
Go figure.
--Ethan
Ethan, as Ive stated, the main difference was in the soundcraft ghost room... and that experience is easily repeated.
and yes, buying 4 units for 2400 bucks is, to me, a bargain. Look at Shunyata or some of those companies.. multiple thousands of bucks for a product that ive paid 600 per for
I dont think Serenius was saying that conditioners dont do anything for audio.. he was saying that the model I have didnt produce results for him.
I firmly believe that my Gefell mk221/josephson c617s decimate my DPA 4006s. Can that be true?
who dismissed power conditioners as a whole?
I had not, prior to owning rgpc products had never heard any difference with power products. Ive used Shunyata, PS Audio, Furman, Exeltech, and many other brands both exotic and cheap. This time, though.. it was a night and day difference. Id bet my life on the fact that you could come in and hear the same thing. Id bet anything that I own.
That thor review tells me everything I need to know, Mr. Serenius. at 3,300 and 2,100.00 vs 600 dollars, id expect that the review of those just had to be favorable..... they told me everything I could possibly want to know..
Thanks. (btw, I wasnt asking for a back and forth, just wanted to know the one thing)
the ps audio is a cheaper product, I believe.. id bet that by default it will get lower marks....
Thank you for putting this in words..exactly how I felt as I read that. Good to see that there are others out there that feel as I do.
And there's the crux of it! One person reports no difference and the other will gladly buy four units for a total cost of almost $10,000. If that device actually changed the sound in a meaningful way, I'd expect everyone who tries it to report an improvement. But that never happens.
If a power conditioner really did change the sound, that change would be easy to measure in terms of improved frequency response, lower distortion, and/or lower noise. Yet even the vendors are unable to come up with such evidence, instead relying on purely anecdotal reports such as:
If the noise floor was lowered, I expect to see hard data expressed as dB improvement at various frequencies. I'd also expect universal agreement from everyone who tries it, but that never happens.
--Ethan
Ethan, the units are 600.00 a piece. total cost was 2400. 2 for my studio, 2 for my home.
also, Ethan..
It took Serenius paying 3 grand for Nordost(which i see he has a marked investment in) to notice improvement with power conditioning..
at least I am a cheap(er) audiophool.
Id gladly send you one too, Ethan, let me see if I can make that happen..
Same argument - so change $10,000 to $2,400 and I still have the same opinion.
As always, I have $100 that says you'd never be able to pick out blind whether the RGPC unit is in use or not.
--Ethan
That would be great! Where do you live? Hopefully you realize that if you send me one I will test an audio system with the unit inline and not, and post the results here.
--Ethan
Id expect that you would, Ethan. That is the impetus for my sending it..
Hey, Ethan, are there things you can put in parallel to the signal path that would make a measurable difference in the signal path?
I do not know.
ncdrawl, I recall you indicating that you had some results that were measurable - I assume in noise floor. Is this the case?
I suspect that people have different experiences with power conditioners, etc. as their incoming power is different.
PS Audio has been working on methods of measuring the effects of power conditioning equipment, their own and others. I don't know if they have the results out yet but didn't find anything in a quick check of their website.
I have a PS Power Plant Premier (AC power regenerator) that I like a lot. I feel comfortable I could pass an ABX test, but I have no idea how to do it given all the things plugged into it.
But I also can easily hear the difference between certain preamps that measure the same as well. Others that measure the same I can't tell a difference. I still think there is a bit more going on physically that we do not yet know how to measure - or we easily can measure it and do not know how it relates to perception.
hey Elk, yes, the noise floor. Hopefully Ethan will become a believer.
Buddha
From my professional life I just cant see any way putting something in parallal can have a major effect.
Electricity is like water, it will find the path of least resistance. It doesnt really matter what tweak or improvement we are talking about, if its meant to affect the actual signal ( Opposed to say isolation feet ) then it really has to be inline with the signal path to be effective.
Alan
Parallel devices can certainly have an effect. A simple capacitor across the line can remove RF interference by giving high frequencies a lower resistance path to ground. Similarly, an MOV (Metal Oxide Varistor) can divert high voltage spikes without being "in the path."
Bert has the right idea. If a speaker wire has some resistance and you put another thicker wire in parallel that has lower resistance, some of the current will flow through both but more will go through the thicker wire. However, it's still in series with the audio. What Bert is talking about is true too, though that affects the power feed, not the audio signal path.
BTW, I am not saying power conditioning is never worthwhile, and my own article from Recording magazine shows how to wire up a simple filter to get rid of clicks and pops. Where I draw the line is at claims for improved clarity or fullness etc. If you have clicks and pops when the fridge turns on, a power conditioner like the one in my article will definitely help. But subtle increases in clarity and LF fullness are always placebo effect or due to comb filtering. And if the noise floor really is lowered and you can measure it, that tells me the preamp / amp design is lame and has insufficient built-in filtering.
--Ethan
The RF filter specs state usefulness from approx 150khz to 30mhz. Below 150khz and somewhere above 30mhz the filter has minimal, if any, effectiveness. So audio, FM, TV, microwaves artifacts are not filtered.
You have been very lucky that your setup worked. Your RF filter only works under certain circumstances, not all circumstances.
Would you care to explain why you believe that none of the power supply is in the direct signal path? Afterall, the plate/collector resistor is, isn't it?
Take care.
None the less, it does a great job of completely getting rid of clicks and pops from electric motors, and that's one of the biggest problems people have with "power." This type of filter will not avoid voltage sags, of course, nor will it protect from lighting strikes or outright power loss. For that you need an UPS and a lightning rod.
It works perfectly in the situations I described, and not just for me but also for a few dozen others who made the same filter from my plans and wrote to thank me.
A power supply is stiff (low impedance), versus the signal that appears on a tube plate or transistor collector. So assuming a competent power supply design, and small decoupling caps sprinkled around the circuit board at key places, the power supply is supposed to appear as a voltage source with infinitely low output impedance at all frequencies of interest.
--Ethan
A few dozen does not mean it will work in a majority and certainly not all situations.
Describing the perfect power supply is totally different than whether the supply is actually in the direct signal path or not. I was hoping you could explain your belief, but evidently not. So my question quoted below remains unanswered.
By the way, I see you needed some RF suppression so your pioneer obviously does not have a competent power supply.
LOL, dood, you're killing me!
Well, considering you said earlier that filter won't do anything useful, I guess that proves you wrong.
Pity, eh? Guess you'll have to look elsewhere for an electronics education. Here's a good beginners guide:
The Hardware Tutor
I'm glad to answer any follow-up questions you may have.
Where do you see that?
My Pioneer receiver is fabulous, and there's no noise at all from my speakers even when the volume is cranked way higher than normal. And did I mention the receiver cost only $150 at Costco?
Steve, is your little home-based business so slow that you have nothing better to do than try to harass me? Really man, give it a rest, okay? You look pathetic to everyone reading.
--Ethan
Me:
Ethan:
I am sorry guys, but this is what I said.
I am sure your article helps in teaching some basic electronics to newbies. However, I was simply pointing out that at least a portion of the power supply is in the direct signal path, which can easily be demonstrated with a thevenin equivalent circuit model. This means any artificial artifacts in the power supply will enter the direct audio signal path. Also any nonlinearities in the power supply itself will affect the sonic qualities of the music.
I am sorry if you are offended over some additional factual information and irrefuteable evidence being presented to help the consumer in making purchasing decisions.