Second thoughts about PowerLine?????????

quote:

Originally posted by Consciousmess:
Hi I had to start this is a new thread as I have just listened to a couple of CDs, which I havent played since I upgraded with a Powerline on my SC2, driving the 252.

The CD was Piper at Gates of Dawn, and the treble in some parts appeared too bright, almost like a shriek. I'm possibly thinking that the PowerLine is allowing excessive amounts of treble through the 252??

Is that a fair hypothesis?

I was originally thinking of going out this weekend and ordering two more PowerLines, but would doing so make this worse or even it up???

It can't be my speakers, surely (B&W Nautilus 803s)???

I'm curious as to any of your comments!!

Many thanks,

Jon

Hi

I have never heard the powerline, but if a powercable makes your treble do to much, there is something wrong elsewhere, at least some thing wrong that results in the PL effect.

There may be a lot of reasons for this and you should investigate, speaker placement, room issue and so on.
All this is in my opinion.

Steinar

Maybe that recording is one of those remastered with artificially bright and compressed sound?

Jon,

All I can say is listen to your own ears.

I have very little experience with the Powerlines, because a)I think they cost too much for me and b)I wasn't 100% convinced the two times I heard them on their overall performance.

With the Aro Keel and Superline I made an easy decision on their obvious benefits and bought them straight away. The Airplug (if it ever arrives) is also an obvious upgrade.

I would have to listen to the Powerlines on my system in my own time to make a proper judgement, so don't listen to me.

Perhaps once the powerline has more time to burn in, things will settle down and the sound will improve?

I'd be surprised if it's the Powerline. In my experience they seem to have the greatest impact in the lower registers, plus a general reduction in the noise floor. I'd look elsewhere to resolve your harsh treble problems.

quote:

The CD was Piper at Gates of Dawn, and the treble in some parts appeared too bright, almost like a shriek. I'm possibly thinking that the PowerLine is allowing excessive amounts of treble through the 252??

Hi Jon

Which version of Piper: Mono or Stereo? Was it from the 2007 anniversary re-master or an earlier copy? - some earlier attempts to re-capture the magic of Piper were not too successful, but the box set with 3 CDs is really superb - if this doesn't sound crisp and bright without shrieking then something is not as it should be. I haven't got my Power-Line yet, but it is certainly a CD I'll try when it arrives in mid-February.

The 30th anniversary edition of Piper was slated for having the poor sound you describe, but the 40th anniversary edition is superb.

Hope you get it fixed because a system with no Piper is not good news.

ATB Rotf

I'm trialing one at the moment. I have CDX2/XPS/Supercap/282/300 into Monitor Audio Studio 60s. I tried it initially on the cd and could'nt make up my mind if the sound was raw or just over aggresive. Am running it now on the Supercap/282 and it's making a lot more sense,

PJW

My first one was on the Supercap/252 where I agree it had the greatest inpact. Temptation soon got the better of me and another one appeared on the 300 and shortly afterwards a third on the Transporter.... addictive little beasts!

I have been gradually putting powerlines in my system, needing 6 in total over the last few months. Originally had a grahams hyrda and was left with dangly bits when I got to 2 and 3 powerlines up to the point where I got an electrician in to give me the sockets needed to get to the full set of 6. I am on 4 now.

Anyway I just wanted to point out that moving from the hyrda to wall sockets
and putting in the 4th powerline was not an immediately happy ride. I had gone from the following on powerlines

geddon,
52
snaxo

to
52
snaxo
250.2
250.2

on powerlines

noticed that on certain records I was noticing a little sibilance on female vocals, most notably alison goldfrapp on the felt mountain album. There was also a pretty radical change in presentation and timing that took some getting used to. I was somewhat worried and played around with plug ordering on the wall, to great benefit, and then decided to let the whole lot burn in for a while.

several days later, no sibilance, very happy indeed with the sound and I think the geddon is weeping that it lost a powerline. NOT FOR LONG

Anyway in summary, I think mains is a bit unpredictable to say the least and in trying to get the configuration right for your system you may well find more top end in certain configurations.

I have just played kind of blue as an old reference and am in no doubt whatsoever that the powerline is right.

fozz

Jon,

Don't take this the wrong way but reading your posts on several threads suggests you're on a pretty steep upgrade path and maybe need to pause for months before you continue.

Here are some things for you to contenplate if you do:

1) You can't hear a Powerline. It lets you hear what your system is doing. Check your set up and your cable dressing.

2) We become so used to our fave albums that we often confuse "different" with "inaccurate" and equate it with "wrong". You can't make such judgements without due consideration and almost certainly not at your speed of upgrade.

3) Powerlines can be faulty just like anything else.

4) almost all who have expresses a dislike on here appear to have done so having assumed their system was perfect before. A silly mistake. Problems masked are still problems waiting to be revealed.

Mike

quote:

Originally posted by Fozz:
I have been gradually putting powerlines in my system, needing 6 in total over the last few months. Originally had a grahams hyrda and was left with dangly bits when I got to 2 and 3 powerlines up to the point where I got an electrician in to give me the sockets needed to get to the full set of 6. I am on 4 now.

......
fozz

I would be interested in other people's experiences of moving from a hydra (or similar) to wall sockets to enable the use of PowerLines.

And whether the wall sockets were all connected to the same spur/ring or separate spurs/rings.

Richard

quote:

Jon,

Don't take this the wrong way but reading your posts on several threads suggests you're on a pretty steep upgrade path and maybe need to pause for months before you continue.

Aww, com'on. Don't spoil the guy's fun. He got a credit card 3 months ago for the first time in his life and he's determined to enjoy life on credit to the full.

Lets face it, even Prudent Gordon is now encouraging everybody to spend spend spend our way out of recession. Old Jon is only doing his bit for Queen and Country!!!!!!!!!!!!

And its fun to watch.

Cheers

Don

I have only heard a Powerline once; this was at the Bristol show last year. My wife and good friends Mark & Julie were convinced that it was a big step forward from the standard mains, I was the only one with the jury still out.

We heard a simple track of singer with a small scale accompaniment, can’t even remember if it was male or female. The track sounded good and then the Powerline was installed. Immediately it was as if a veil had been removed from the sound, there was certainly more emotion in the voice and the backing instrument/s had more space around them, so far so good one would think.

The problem for me was it reminded me of Linn LP12 vs Pink Triangle dems back in about 1985. The Pink revealed more, it had less mid bloom than the Linn, it separated the instruments more, but at the cost of the music IMHO.

Maybe my comparison of the Powerline to the Pink/Linn dem is unfair but it was the only analogy that I could think of. I would love to have the money that I could try Powerlines in my system for a couple of week’s sale or return, but I haven’t. I promise you though that my lack of funds had nothing to do with my initial impression of the product. YMMV.

quote:

Originally posted by Don Atkinson:

quote:

Jon,

Don't take this the wrong way but reading your posts on several threads suggests you're on a pretty steep upgrade path and maybe need to pause for months before you continue.

Aww, com'on. Don't spoil the guy's fun. He got a credit card 3 months ago for the first time in his life and he's determined to enjoy life on credit to the full.

Lets face it, even Prudent Gordon is now encouraging everybody to spend spend spend our way out of recession. Old Jon is only doing his bit for Queen and Country!!!!!!!!!!!!

And its fun to watch.

Cheers

Don

Viv, Viv Nicholson... is that you?

quote:
Jon,

Don't take this the wrong way but reading your posts on several threads suggests you're on a pretty steep upgrade path and maybe need to pause for months before you continue.


Aww, com'on. Don't spoil the guy's fun. He got a credit card 3 months ago for the first time in his life and he's determined to enjoy life on credit to the full.

Lets face it, even Prudent Gordon is now encouraging everybody to spend spend spend our way out of recession. Old Jon is only doing his bit for Queen and Country!!!!!!!!!!!!

And its fun to watch.

Cheers

Don
_____________________

Thanks for the support, Don!!!!!


Jon

quote:

Originally posted by Richard Olsen:
I would be interested in other people's experiences of moving from a hydra (or similar) to wall sockets to enable the use of PowerLines.

And whether the wall sockets were all connected to the same spur/ring or separate spurs/rings.

Richard

Hi Richard.

I moved from Hydra to Powerlines, all of which are plugged directly into wall sockets. I feel privileged - all seven have been entirely beneficial to my system with absolutely no downsides. They do take a while to settle down though.

The only one that didn't initially seem to work as well as the others was the one on my 'Geddon, but this was due to the fact that the latter wasn't positioned ideally - a quick repositioning job and that worked very well too.

consciousness, It would be really interesting to compare your setup with mine, mainly because we are both running 800 series towers, although mine are the 804s. I have a much lesser CD player but it is running two Nordost Vishnu. The 5x is said to have a similar sound to the CDS3, I wonder how much closer to a CDS3 sound my power cords have taken me, as each one certainly improved the player.

How are your N803 set up? Can you post a photo. I guess our systems are pretty different other than distantly related speakers, Each power cord I added unfortunately was a no brainer and my system is so not bright that if I was to use any term it would be dark.

quote:

I would be interested in other people's experiences of moving from a hydra (or similar) to wall sockets to enable the use of PowerLines.

And whether the wall sockets were all connected to the same spur/ring or separate spurs/rings.

I have a cdx2/202/hi/napsc/250.2/B&W804S, and my kit used to be powered off a 3-headed hydra (the napsc2 was on it's own regular naim power cable).

Due to a mixup with my electrician, my spur was terminated in 4 sockets, rather than the two sockets I'd asked for... turned out to be a useful little accident.

I later got two powerlines, and they are currently on my cdx2 and 250.2, with the hicap and napsc using regular naim powercables. All 4 leads are connected into the 4 sockets of my dedicated spur.

The first move from an all-hydra system was to PL the cdx2 and the hydra on on everything else (this time, including the napsc). Even with just that one PL, the improvement was incredible. More bass plus a richer, wider river of sound. When I removed the hydra completely and went to one PL + 3 regular naim leads, the PL was good enough that I didn't miss the hydra at all.

Adding a second PL to my 202 wasn't quite the same... more resolution etc but music felt a touch too forward and analytical. Moving it to my 250.2 was another revelation - music became more relaxed, less forced and sounded just natural and gorgeous.

Might eventually try a 3rd PL to see if there are some synergistic effects by using one on the pre-amp also... perhaps the full-PL'd system will click in a way that did not happen when one of the other components was un-PL'd.

I have tried it on a bare HDX and the results are no less than stunning. Never figured mains could make such a huge improvement overall.

Apologies, I meant improvement in mains feed rather than mains itself without which - obviously - we would hear no improvements at all....

Well the good thing about the hydra is that you have absolutely no messing about with plug ordering. I have just this minute put the last two powerlines in as temptation got the better of me. Will not report immediately as I feel things are up in the air with totally un-burned in cables. They show promise, I think too I will again have to fiddle with plug ordering.

I am fed from a single spur dedicated to the hifi. I am pretty sure all will be fab in a couple of days.

Fozz

quote:

Thanks for the support, Don!!!!!

My pleasure, anytime. keep smiling.

if you visit the occasional motorway service station, you often find specialist organisations (last one I met was the National Trust) begging you to sign up for their version of Visa/Mastercard. Once you have established a bit of credibility with one card seller, you usually find its dead easy to get more and more cards and more and more credit hence more and more hifi..........and of course, providing you follow your stated policy of only ever paying back the absolute minimum every month, its quite inexpensive.

I wish I had your courage.

Enjoy!

Cheers

Don

quote:

Originally posted by Fozz:
Well the good thing about the hydra is that you have absolutely no messing about with plug ordering. I have just this minute put the last two powerlines in as temptation got the better of me. Will not report immediately as I feel things are up in the air with totally un-burned in cables. They show promise, I think too I will again have to fiddle with plug ordering.

I am fed from a single spur dedicated to the hifi. I am pretty sure all will be fab in a couple of days.

Fozz

Is this a single spur with a set of 4 * wall sockets?

As if this is the case I am surprised that the sequence makes any difference as they are all fed by the same spur off a bank of 4 wall sockets?

And I assume these sockets are unswitched?

I only ask as if I go for 3 * PowerLines to drive my Naim kit I will move from a hydra like solution with one wall socket at the end of one spur to one with three wall sockets at the end of one spur.

Richard

quote:

I only ask as if I go for 3 * PowerLines to drive my Naim kit I will move from a hydra like solution with one wall socket at the end of one spur to one with three wall sockets at the end of one spur.

I'd hold on before chopping more sockets into the walls. Naim are bound to bring out a powerline hydra type arrangement at some point.

Nigel

Hi Richard, I have four double sockets all feeding from a spur. The arrangement is such that the spur comes in on one socket and then effectively t's off to other sockets either side.

Others may recall I was concerned about the make of socket to install but in the end found a supply of older manufacture crabtree unswitched sockets and they sounded fine so far.

Just as many have reported that left and right sockets in a single pair sound different I had a play with swapping over the plugs feeding my bass and treble amps from one socket. I found a convincingly better arrangement one way sounding more integrated and cohesive so as far as I am concerned it *is" worth playing. It costs nothing.