Line Conditioners or Not and Why

Perhaps you could try an experiment- take the "filter" out and plug directly into your mains. How does it sound?

ATB,

Mark

I tried a few, albeit a number of years ago and felt, without exception, that they sucked the life out of the music.

How about doing something radical like measuring the mains quality before and after? This isn't hard. 

varyat posted:

Perhaps you could try an experiment- take the "filter" out and plug directly into your mains. How does it sound?

ATB,

Mark

Well, i tried many different options, with mains only, with some items on the "filter" (like power amp only, power and pre amp only, etc), and generally with the Sigmas "filter" sounded better overall.  With the Serius it also sounded better, but the difference was not so significant.

I definitely left the LP12 on the mains, not through the "filter", because i already have the Lingo which i think acts as a filter anyway.

What did you mean with your above comment, trust my ears?

blythe posted:

I tried a few, albeit a number of years ago and felt, without exception, that they sucked the life out of the music.

I do not know, which is why i am asking the forum.  So far i think the results i am getting are not bad, but i like to have a technical explanation (if possible) why one should or should not use these devices.

jon honeyball posted:

How about doing something radical like measuring the mains quality before and after? This isn't hard. 

I have not idea or instrumentation of how to do this.  If i could i would, for sure.

Richard Dane could perhaps give me some reply on the topic, if available.  I would really appreciate this.

Jon,  I know we're looking for a pure 50Hz sine wave (unachievable I know), but can you tell us all the waveform defects that affect our systems, so we can specifically look at the ones that matter to us?

I don't think line conditioners all follow the same processes on what is done with electricity, I think there is a difference between a filter and a conditioner and also a regenerator. Best to find out what Isotek say about them - especially regarding the grounding.

Well for starters the distortion should be really low and should stay low under load. Testing for dynamic load is harder but not impossible

Paristhea posted:

varyat posted:

Perhaps you could try an experiment- take the "filter" out and plug directly into your mains. How does it sound?

ATB,

Mark

Well, i tried many different options, with mains only, with some items on the "filter" (like power amp only, power and pre amp only, etc), and generally with the Sigmas "filter" sounded better overall.  With the Serius it also sounded better, but the difference was not so significant.

I definitely left the LP12 on the mains, not through the "filter", because i already have the Lingo which i think acts as a filter anyway.

What did you mean with your above comment, trust my ears?

Yes, trust your ears. If it sounds better to you with the line conditioner, then it is. Ime, the line conditioner acts as a "filter" and while it may improve certain aspects, overall it robs my system of the sparkle and timing that I enjoy from Naim. I am not familiar with the units that you have posted- perhaps they work better. A dirty mains is a difficult problem to live with . Fortunately, my dedicated lines seem pretty good in this regard. Good luck in your experiment!

ATB,

Mark

I used a monster 8 bank mains cleaner on my AV2 set up which was on there other side of the room  from which my main hi fi was, because of the long line leads i was getting terrible buzzing and rf interference. I asked Naim if this would be okay to use because of what everyone said about main conditioners and they said " if you can get hold of one, try it." I did try it and it works and to this day it is still silent.

Paristhea,

Are you in the UK?

M

jon honeyball posted:

Well for starters the distortion should be really low and should stay low under load. Testing for dynamic load is harder but not impossible

So do we just need to measure THD under load?
Just between Line and Neutral?

I'm using isol8 mini sub wave from UK. It gives much better resolution and I do not hear any problems with dynamics or "life being sucked". Before that I had another filter/power strip from Chang Lightspeed of USA. Less dynamic more polite sounding but also with some evident benefits - better soundstage being one.

Mr Underhill posted:

Paristhea,

Are you in the UK?

M

No i am in Cyprus

Huge posted:

jon honeyball posted:

Well for starters the distortion should be really low and should stay low under load. Testing for dynamic load is harder but not impossible

So do we just need to measure THD under load?
Just between Line and Neutral?

How does one measure these things?

Paristhea posted:

Huge posted:

jon honeyball posted:

Well for starters the distortion should be really low and should stay low under load. Testing for dynamic load is harder but not impossible

So do we just need to measure THD under load?
Just between Line and Neutral?

How does one measure these things?

You use a spectrum analyser.

However it actually won't really tell you very much, apart form giving you a few numbers to write down, as you won't know how those figures relate to any possible effects on sound quality.

I found plugging in my Naims (Supernait 2 bi-amped with a NAP 250.2) to a PS Audio P5 power regenerator to have improved the sound significantly.

Paristhea posted:

jon honeyball posted:

How about doing something radical like measuring the mains quality before and after? This isn't hard. 

I have not idea or instrumentation of how to do this.  If i could i would, for sure.

Do you remember the days when we bought hi fi components by looking at their specs?  THD, RMS watts per channel etc etc. Never mind the sound, was it up to spec?

I'm going back to the seventies with KJ Leisuresound and Lasky's and similar retailers, so some forum members may never have participated in this specification war.

Then along came Naim... and the world changed !

Roger (feeling old) 

Paristhea posted:

Richard Dane could perhaps give me some reply on the topic, if available.  I would really appreciate this.

I can't give you technical insight - I'd leave that to someone like Roy George or Steve Sells at Naim HQ (they will talk about impedance or some such thing) - but I can tell you of my subjective experiences.

The first was when we had a few mains conditioning units at the factory to try out.  All bar one were highly recommended by the various forums, magazines, the odd one out was a special lab unit that had come from the States and had been recommended by a few "in the know".  All made the music sound flat and uninteresting to my ears. One or two of them managed to do this by just being plugged in to the mains next to the system, rather than having the system itself plugged into the unit. 

Next experience was at a dealer event in Sweden.  I had spent the late afternoon clearing the main dem room of extraneous kit, ensuring all bar the Naim system (CDX2, Supernait) was plugged in and setting up the Fraim stand and speakers.  Once all was just so, we sat down to try out some of the CDs and tracks that I always use and are now so familiar to me - this way it's easy to know when the system is doing things right or not.  It was good in many ways, but it was also just a bit "flat" and wasn't soaring the way I knew it should have done.  Around the room were curtains that hid flush shelving.  I had left some items on the shelves because there was nowhere else to put them.  Nothing else looked like it was  switched on.  However, I noticed what looked like a big silver fronted power amp and it had the logo of a well known brand of very expensive mains conditioners on its front.  I pulled it out from the shelf and lo and behold, it was still plugged in to a mains socket.  I unplugged it and put it back in place on the shelf. I drew the curtain and we all sat down again to listen...

Suddenly the system had life.  It soared.  It was quite a change - hard to pin down but undoubtedly the music seemed freer and less constrained, with better flow and much more "real".  It was so profound a change that we all just sat smiling, laughing, slightly stunned that it should have made such a difference to the system.  

So, that has been my experience.  

I use Isol-8  Powerline AXIS blocks in my system to remove the DC. Sound quality is much as before but without a host of Naim transformers buzzing away to the music. Usual issue of rubbish rural mains quality!

and that is because we should look at our gear like being on a loop of electricity. this is why power cables make differences in sound. and the conditioner Richard tell about, while filtering massive on it's output side, was leaving it's own noises at the other "output" - the electrical network in that room.

it's mechanical/electrical "hum" was therefore added to that network when plugged in, regardless if it had something connected to be filtered or not. when removed from the socket, that extra hum had disappeared leaving the local electrical network a tad more "clean"... a good benefit for the CDX2/SN as Richard noted.

catalinmetal, I don't think that mains conditioners tend to add noise or hum, rather they load the mains supply in unexpected ways, particularly in terms of their impedance curves and tendency to self resonance (particularly on the primary side).  When this is then coupled to the complex impedance of a linear PSU (it being plugged into the same mains circuit), even more complex resonances arise.

These electrical effects can cause an increase in unwanted parasitic frequencies appearing on the mains sine wave.  It can also cause short term mains transients (which are often only a few microseconds duration) to induce ringing at these resonant frequencies, so causing more problems than before.