Want glorious music..try "Balancing" like Marc did

1) Background ramblings (if bored by this jump to 2) below).

There has been a lot of talk here recently using the term "Noise Floor". As I have moved from a 112 -282 - 252 -552 over a period of time I have a pretty good idea of how the quality of Naim sound progresses thru'the levels. Apart from all the outstanding improvements in resolution, clarity, dynamics and instrumental separation that occur, the other important thing that happens is that the quality operating range of the volume control increases significantly. You could say the "quieter" it gets (lowering of noise floor), the "louder" it gets (listener can't resist upping the volume because it all sounds so great) which is never more true than with the CDS3 /552 combination which presents music out of such a deep dark background that it begs to show off dynamic capability.

Trouble is there is always something to spoil this perfect improvement, the dreaded "noise" in our crappy mains supplies, and we get more sensitive to it with the more sophisticated kit. Ah the hum of a sadly disturbed torodial transformer or two is familiar to all, and though we bury it under the music when playing, it's route cause, noise from the mains, IS degrading what we hear.

Some have struggled valiantly with those terrible things called Mains Filter's and uniformly pronnounced they destroy rather than improve the Naim PRaT (not necessarily true for other make systems).I know a few folks here in the midst of further investigations who have experienced variable results with some different designs of conditioner. So it seems the Naim PS's are our best so far, though imperfect, protection against the dreaded "mains".

Well maybe not.

2) A weekend music test (what you should defenitely read)

I have just paid a very enjoyable return visit to Marc Newman's house to give his rather spectacular example of a Naim system a good thrashing with some of my favorite music. Many thanks to Marc. I won't go into detail (Marc can supply those if he wishes) about all the things he has done in the past to optimize his system but just to say that Marc has searched for "silence" as much as anybody here and got quite a way there by using 2 off 500's and running only one channel in each, which he finds reduces the noise floor significantly because of the light duty cycle of the two associated PS's.

So in context, the first time I heard Marc's system which also includes CDS3, 552 and DBL's it sounded pretty damn good in spite of the crappy mains. This time around one new ingredient was added in the shape of bleeding great grey box containing 300lbs of specially configured isolation transformer which fortunately goes in the garage. This produces balanced power which is "CLEAN" in a way that basically removes the crappy mains effect from the equation (see later on in Polar Bear's infamous "speaker change, maybe" thread if you dare, for more discussion on this and 2x500's etc.) . So this was what this visit was about musically.

Now we are relying on memory for the before sound of Marc's system but it did'nt take long to realise a radical change had occurred.

Hang on a minute now let's get this right. The system did some great things before. Those DBL's, which look like they are going to eat you whole, dissappeared beautifully and the music driven by 2 off 500's was marvellously dynamic and clearly defined. Christ a system like that bloody ought to sound good. So now what is different is that the musical presentation is just completely immersive in a way that was'nt there before. Whatever is played be it hard driving rythum, big band, female vocal, piano trio or rock and rap it gets in your bones, so to speak, and and takes your total attention without even trying hard. I mean I was listening to well used CD's so I knew the music and that normally means the mind drifts off on other thoughts occasionally. That just did not happen here. The system is very dynamic but can be listened to hour on hour.

So what is going on here. Well Marc believes that the Equitech Balanced power box not only does an excellent job of removing dirty mains noise (he has really crappy mains, made worse by all the A/C units that are needed to cool the hot Sacremento days), but because it effectively isolates the system from "ground" (see HERE for details) it lowers the noise floor to virtually nothing, which shines through in what you hear. Sounds right to me. The proof is that what you hear is glorious.

Other folks are finding the same as Marc. Ron Toolsie for one. I believe Emil F is fitting an Equitech as I write and will be able to report a european experience so watch for further ramblings on this topic.

3) Back home again (a reality check if you are not already bored to tears)

Understand I am perhaps lucky with my mains supply. I live in a country village and suffer virtually no transformer hum(except when I turn on the washing machine etc). I have an overkill dedicated Mains cable feeding oversize equipment leads hydra connected.

So I am back listening to my relatively humble system at home. No DBL's, No 2 off 500's, rather the same front end on a 300. How does it sound? Not half bad! In fact it has quite a lot of the ease of delivery and immersive sound I experienced at Marc's. I am of course "at home" with a familiar sound but I am pretty damn happy with what I hear. In particular the "late night low demand" time is IMO really noise free and comes close to duplicating what Marc's system does.

Conclusion. It's an individual decision what to do. I expect adding an Equitech would bring an improvement but in my lucky situation I am not sure how much bang I would get for my buck, I am happy with what I have FOR NOW!

For folks that have crap noisy Mains and I know of a few who struggle with that problem, the balanced power solution can be a major improvement. For those that aim high and plan to reach the 555 which will for sure need the very best of pure noise free power at any point in the chain it maybe a balanced power solution is manadatory.

For sure NAIM should have a look at what the equitech approach does to all it's black boxes. I think they would be surprised.

regards
GEOFF