Surge Protectors. Good or Bad?

Ed,

Your system will sound better after plugging into the Wiremold regardless of the system's state of warm-up and compared to any powerstrip using filters or circuit breakers. Please remove the Monster cable strips completely from your hifi--they are responsible for your timing issues, not warm-up.

Use the following sequence when plugging into the Wiremold: (socket closest to the Strip's AC cord-power amp, next socket-preamp power supply, next six sockets-source(s) in any order, last socket-NAPSC if applicable)

hth,

dave

P.S. From the old NaimUSA Website:



"System Setup - Should I purchase a power conditioner or surge suppressor for my Naim Audio system?"

Many systems, in our experience, do not perform anywhere near the ultimate level of performance due to poor conditions regarding the system's electrical set-up. Surprisingly, just a few minutes of extra attention to the AC mains power for your system can unleash a great deal of extra music, at virtually no additional cost!

DEDICATED CIRCUIT
Do you have enough power to feed your system?

The power supplies of Naim Audio equipment are designed to be among the largest, noise-free and most stable in the industry. You should provide your system with the most power possible--excess electrical capacity is important to making a great sound.

It is ideal that the system have its own separate circuit and circuit breaker.

Your electrician should install a dedicated 15 A circuit, complete with new wire, directly to your system. One dual (2) socket hospital-grade outlet is all that is necessary.

The advantage of a dedicated circuit is that your system will not be sharing power directly with other appliances in your house on the same circuit. Tremendous distortion of the power wave may occur if the circuit shares power with a refrigerator or personal computer (or worse, a humidifier or heater). This can reduce the system's performance considerably.
NOTE: Unlike many systems that use vacuum tubes or class-A circuit topologies, your Naim system uses very little quiescent power. The constant power demand of a Naim system is very small when played at normal levels, this advantage reflected in the extended longevity of Naim Audio equipment.

Your Naim components will likely outlast other designs by a large margin!

Outlet Strips
Naim Audio North America strongly recommends, for use with our equipment, a dedicated outlet strip, without circuit breakers, switches, fuses, indicator lights or other passive components which will reduce a system's performance.

We recommend the following items:

CablePro Noisetrapper NANA 8-Outlet Power Strip <see website for current price>
available from <link removed--see NaimUSA website> Eight industrial-spec grade, high-copper-content brass outlets for better conductivity
Non-magnetic, aluminum-alloy chassis
Cascade parallel wiring for hot and neutral connections
Star-grounded to minimize noise
12-gauge silver-plated oxygen-free-copper wiring
Hardwired, shielded power cord



Brooks/Wiremold L10320 (6' cable, <see website for current price>) / L10321 (15' cable, <see website for current price>) Outlet Strip
available from your local Naim dealer Nine panel-mount brass outlets
Non-magnetic, aluminum-alloy chassis
Cascade parallel wiring for hot, neutral and ground connections
12-gauge copper wiring with crimp connections
6' or 15' stranded-copper power cord with molded plug



Sequencing
The order in which the components are plugged into the strip is critical. If you plug the power amplifier into the strip closest to the end where the strip power cord enters, and work your way back to the source component, you will get a much better sound. Here are some examples:

A simple system:

NAP 150x Power Amplifier
FLATCAP2x Power Supply for NAC 112x Preamplifier
CD5x Compact Disc Player
Other sources, turntable, etc., in any order

An SL2 active system:

NAP 250 Power Amplifier
NAP 250 Power Amplifier
HICAP2 Power Supply for SNAXO 242 Active Crossover
SUPERCAP2 Power Supply for NAC 282 Preamplifier
XPS2 Power Supply for CDX2 Compact Disc Player
In some cases, it may be preferable to plug the power amplifier directly into the wall socket.

Because of the advantage of being able to control the order in which the components are plugged in, using a dedicated outlet strip is far superior to plugging all system components directly into a quad or double quad receptacle. Here are a couple more tips:

Keep power wires separated from signal wires--do not bunch your power wires together, but keep them flowing as gracefully as possible (electricity does not flow effeciently around sharp corners and bends).
Use only the Naim Audio power cords as supplied--they easily outperform even the most expensive power cords, and certainly any average cord.
POWER CONDITIONERS
Our customers often inquire about the purchase of a power conditioner suitable for a Naim Audio system.

You absolutely do not need one--every power conditioner we know of reduces musical performance dramatically.

Do not be fooled--power conditioners will make your system worse in every case. (A few will make one area a little better while ruining fifty other areas--that is the best case we have seen!)

If the power is dirty, you can't improve it with a power conditioner without taking away some of the remaining quality and punch.

LIGHTNING
No power strip or conditioner can protect your system from lightning, your system's worst enemy.

Lightning raises the voltage on the ground side of the line, and can not be protected against--except by unplugging the system during a storm.

DISCLAIMER
We will not guarantee the performance of the system with any power conditioner, line conditioner or computer-grade outlet strip.

If you are not happy with your Naim system, please first try the recommended power setup described above. You should also refer to our SYSTEM SETUP GUIDE." <give Dave Dever grief for not publishing this most excellent document which would probably be ready if Naim gave him a sabbatical in Hawaii>

Dave,

Thanks a million. Now I must suffer in silence until my Wiremold arrives.

Cheers
Ed

quote:

Use only the Naim Audio power cords as supplied--they easily outperform even the most expensive power cords,

No need to bother with the more expensive Naim power cables. That should be a relief.

Bob

quote:

Originally posted by dave simpson:

....Your electrician should install a dedicated 15 A circuit, complete with new wire, directly to your system. One dual (2) socket hospital-grade outlet is all that is necessary.

Dave,

an interesting post.

The Naim manuals refer to the benfits of a "separate mains circuit... ideally with a 30 or 45 amp rating" - are you sure 15 amps is enough?

Thanks

quote:

Originally posted by Denman:

quote:

Originally posted by dave simpson:

....Your electrician should install a dedicated 15 A circuit, complete with new wire, directly to your system. One dual (2) socket hospital-grade outlet is all that is necessary.

Dave,

an interesting post.

The Naim manuals refer to the benfits of a "separate mains circuit... ideally with a 30 or 45 amp rating" - are you sure 15 amps is enough?

Thanks

Will the Wiremold be enough until I can get an electrician to come over and check things out?

quote:

Originally posted by Denman:
The Naim manuals refer to the benfits of a "separate mains circuit... ideally with a 30 or 45 amp rating" - are you sure 15 amps is enough?

30 or 45 amps is nuts. In most American households, the circuits are 10, 15, or 20 amps. Usually, the only time you ever see anything bigger than 20 amps is for an electric clothes dryer, an electric stove/oven, and your central air conditioner.

30A @ 120V -> 3.6kW
45A @ 120V -> 5.4kW

Even with the old knob turned up past, god forbid, 11 o'clock, there is no way you need 5.4kW of available power capacity on the circuit feeding your hi-fi. I would be shocked if you even needed a tenth of that.

Now, if you were driving an extreem boat anchor tube amp (e.g., single ended 845/212/GM70 based tube amp with a B+ of say 1200Vdc) you will need some power, but a 15A circuit will still do the trick even here.

No you don't need 30 or 45 amps to run the kit. But people who have experimented with these things reckon the results in terms of sound quality are better if you use cable with that kind of rating, rather than thinner, lower rated cable. I've no idea why (and probably neither have they), but that's what they've found. Having said that, most UK electricians will look at you as if you're insane when you ask them to put in a 45A spur for your HiFi!

So far no power strips of any kind sound better ( or I prefer it ) in the main rig.

I haven't, however, tried a newly wattgate terminated Tibia with a Siltech Octopus.

A *surge protector* is a feel good product anyway in that when a lightning strikes the house, nothing you can do about it and most aftermarket power strips, whilst they might lower a noise floor and dumb down the trebles ( make a system less bright in some instances ), they restricted dynamics and transients to my ears.

Regarding a higher amp service, several of friends who experimented such a thing told me that 20 amp service is probably a good place to be. ( this is from both valve and class B solid state amps users )

Going from 15A to 20A was significantly better.
Even my skeptical electrician friend was surprised it made an audible difference.

Larger class A solid state amp manufactures ( such as Krell and Boulder) have recommended to have a minimum 30A amp service for their larger amplifiers when I inquired about them in the past.

quote:

Originally posted by PAAS:
No you don't need 30 or 45 amps to run the kit. But people who have experimented with these things reckon the results in terms of sound quality are better if you use cable with that kind of rating, rather than thinner, lower rated cable. I've no idea why (and probably neither have they), but that's what they've found. Having said that, most UK electricians will look at you as if you're insane when you ask them to put in a 45A spur for your HiFi!

(note - these comments are not directed at you PAAS)
Shouldn't a well designed power supply take care of these issues - i.e., plenty of reserve power capacity for intermittent very short high current demands.

Heck - look at the wiring inside the boxes. Why is one supposed to string a big honkin' #6 gauge mains cable (required for 50A circuit wiring) to the wall socket, when a couple feet downstream we are sending all the current though a #16 gauge (or smaller) wire inside a magical box?

This doesn't make any sense on many different levels.

quote:

Originally posted by Denman:

quote:

Originally posted by dave simpson:

....Your electrician should install a dedicated 15 A circuit, complete with new wire, directly to your system. One dual (2) socket hospital-grade outlet is all that is necessary.

Dave,

an interesting post.

The Naim manuals refer to the benfits of a "separate mains circuit... ideally with a 30 or 45 amp rating" - are you sure 15 amps is enough?

Thanks

The 45 amp rating is for the UK. In the US national regulations restrict us to 15 amp lines for 120V household devices with the exception of 20 amp 'appliance' circuits allowed in kitchens.

There has been some debate over the use of 20 amp lines here for our hifi since, electrically-speaking, there isn't a problem. However, regulations are regulations and the last thing you would want is any 'out' for your insurance company to deny a claim should your house burn down regardless of the cause. NaimUSA advises a 15 amp line (rightly so) because it is the max allowed. NaimUSA will be very happy to discuss this further via a phone call if it helps.

hth,

dave

P.S. Higher amperage is not the only reason behind the larger breaker. It's also about a lower source impedence that comes with a larger breaker as I understand it.

P.P.S. my work-around (fully legal) was having several dedicated 20 amp lines installed by a licensed electrician in my basement listening room to accomodate supplemental space heaters. One of the outlets is dedicated to powering my hifi.

quote:

Originally posted by Dr. Exotica:
This doesn't make any sense on many different levels.

Right.

But it can make an audible difference.

quote:

Originally posted by kuma:

quote:

Originally posted by Dr. Exotica:
This doesn't make any sense on many different levels.

Right.

But it can make an audible difference.

Guess I'll remain a skeptic.

Based upon Dave's posting, this implies that Naim equipment will sound better in the UK than it will here in the US.

Hmmm.

Anyone done an A/B?

(heh)

Other folks have told me that in general 240V is better than a 110V service we have in the States.

It depends on how anal you want to be.

I'm fine with what i've got and can't be all that concerned with it. ( it is what it is )

I understand anyone who are skeptical for power lead difference. ( not saying they always make a positive difference, btw )

And overall scheme of things, there are far more variables involved in a given system.

Doc,

I'm sure it's been done and discussed here. I believe the consensus was 240V operation was better IIRC.

The superiority of uprating breakers and wire past 20 amps with 120V operation is immaterial when your fire insurance coverage is cancelled. I reverted back to a legal installation for this single reason.

regards,

dave

quote:

Originally posted by Dr. Exotica:

quote:

Originally posted by PAAS:
No you don't need 30 or 45 amps to run the kit. But people who have experimented with these things reckon the results in terms of sound quality are better if you use cable with that kind of rating, rather than thinner, lower rated cable. I've no idea why (and probably neither have they), but that's what they've found. Having said that, most UK electricians will look at you as if you're insane when you ask them to put in a 45A spur for your HiFi!

(note - these comments are not directed at you PAAS)
Shouldn't a well designed power supply take care of these issues - i.e., plenty of reserve power capacity for intermittent very short high current demands.

Heck - look at the wiring inside the boxes. Why is one supposed to string a big honkin' #6 gauge mains cable (required for 50A circuit wiring) to the wall socket, when a couple feet downstream we are sending all the current though a #16 gauge (or smaller) wire inside a magical box?

This doesn't make any sense on many different levels.

Think of this in terms of "if the small amount of better (bigger) wire is introduced in a long chain of lesser wire and makes an improvement, *how much better could it be* if the entire chain had better wire installed (substation to wiring harnesses inside our boxes)?"

quote:

Originally posted by dave simpson:
Think of this in terms of "if the small amount of better (bigger) wire is introduced in a long chain of lesser wire and makes an improvement, *how much better could it be* if the entire chain had better wire installed (substation to wiring harnesses inside our boxes)?"

Dave - I see your point. However, why is the wire so small inside the boxes? Seems like this is the biggest choke point (i.e., smallest wire in the food chain by far).

If Naim used bigger wire inside the boxes, wouldn't things sound better... Shouldn't the transformers be wired with thinker wiring? The leads to the LM317s are pretty small as well...

quote:

Originally posted by kuma:
Other folks have told me that in general 240V is better than a 110V service we have in the States.

Apparently we typically don't get 240V in the UK any more - our grid specification was changed to 230V +10%, -6% to allow harmonisation across Europe...

Someone carried out an experiment to measure how mains voltage and frequency actually varies.

It seems we're getting close to 240V after all - I guess we just told the rest of Europe we had changed to 230V to keep them happy

Mains Variation

quote:

Originally posted by Dr. Exotica:
If Naim used bigger wire inside the boxes, wouldn't things sound better... Shouldn't the transformers be wired with thinker wiring? The leads to the LM317s are pretty small as well...

A performance has nothing to do with a girth of wire.

You have to get the notion of *fatter the better* out of your head.

denman,

Where we live, we do no get a consistant 110v either.
I've monitored it once in summer ( i'm sure it varies by seasons as well ), and it was between 100V-125v )

quote:

It seems we're getting close to 240V after all - I guess we just told the rest of Europe we had changed to 230V to keep them happy

The mains voltage was not changed, just the spec. was widened to cover European voltages.

Regarding the need for thicker mains wiring, it is the lower resistance that is most important in providing the charging current for the caps. in the power supply.

They have to be charged in the very short time that the mains hits it's peak value. The time this takes is a function of the resistance of the wire and the value of the caps.

Bob

quote:

Originally posted by Dr. Exotica:

quote:

Originally posted by dave simpson:
Think of this in terms of "if the small amount of better (bigger) wire is introduced in a long chain of lesser wire and makes an improvement, *how much better could it be* if the entire chain had better wire installed (substation to wiring harnesses inside our boxes)?"

Dave - I see your point. However, why is the wire so small inside the boxes? Seems like this is the biggest choke point (i.e., smallest wire in the food chain by far).

If Naim used bigger wire inside the boxes, wouldn't things sound better... Shouldn't the transformers be wired with thinker wiring? The leads to the LM317s are pretty small as well...

Best guess would be multiple extremely short runs internally offer no improvement due to short lengths and improbability of making a good solder joint. Imagine it would be a royal pain...

quote:

Originally posted by Dr. Exotica:
30 or 45 amps is nuts.

How wonderful to have an expert here - what would you estimate the maximum instantaneous switch-on demand of, say, an Armageddon to be?

Quite a few of our units will occasionally draw well in excess of 45 amps once in a while on switch on.

Just wanted to clarify a post I made earlier claiming my 20 amp line was "legal" when I stated 15 amps is the max allowed here in the US....

Evidently, here in the US, local authorities at the township level are allowed to interpret/alter National Code to some extent. This was the reason for forum debate in the past for 15 amps vs. 20 amps for *some* US Naim customers.

NAIMUSA can definitely advise as well as your local building inspector and a licensed electrician. In my town for example, discussions with my contractor in the planning stage revealed a dedicated 20 amp line was within local code for powering my Naim gear or any other 15 amp, 120V appliance. Again, your township may be different. Please contact someone with authority before attempting a project like this.

I have sinced contacted a licensed & insured electrical contractor for estimate/installation of dedicted 15A hifi line.

Quote given over the phone seems like a very reasonable price to pay to run my gear propely.

Thanks to all who helped.

ATB
Ed

Excellent move, Ed. It will be well worth the money.

enjoy!

dave