The AC Line

[MylesBAstor]

We've talked about receptacles but let's look at the bigger picture.

What is everyone here using for electrical delivery? New panels, conditioners, etc.? There's just something to reducing the noise floor in the system.

I'm sad when I see some people rewire from the street since living in an apartment in New York limits my options. So basically I had an electrician install two dedicated lines for the audio system, new AC receptacles and all the front end gear is plugged into Silver Circle Tchaik 6 power line conditioner (probably to be eventually updated with the new Furutech Nano NCF receptacles). I'm always leary about plugging big amps into power line conditioners.

Also I'm using on the front-end Gary Koh's new power cords on the phono section and preamplifier. His power cords really resulted in a dramatic change in the sound of the system though right now due to UL rules, aren't yet available. The cord's markedly improved the system's transparency, neutrality and resolution among other things. I've tried them with the cj amplifier but had some hum issues so have to call Gary and figure that out. In the meantime, am using a pair of Kubla-Sosna Emotion PCs that for some reason sound better than I remember.

[Bruce B]

Wired from the street with Equi=tech wall panel. Wire behind walls is JPS Labs in-wall cable using Oyaide R1 receptacles.
The room has been split up Left/Right, Front/Back.
Most every piece of equipment is using JPS Labs Aluminata cable.

[mep]

I hired an Amish electrician to wire my dedicated room when I built it. Seriously, it was a Mennonite electrician that wired my sound room (Mennonites are basically Amish with electricity and a drivers license) and it was the neatest wiring job in a panel I have ever seen in all of the homes I have lived in. My addition which I had built so I could have my dedicated sound room has it's own separate service panel and HVAC system. I had a 20A circuit installed a few years ago when I bought a Krell KSA-250. The Krell KSA-250 is long gone, but now my ARC Ref 6 and Ref 75 are both plugged into it and they both have 20A power cords.

[MylesBAstor]

Wired from the street with Equi=tech wall panel. Wire behind walls is JPS Labs in-wall cable using Oyaide R1 receptacles.
The room has been split up Left/Right, Front/Back.
Most every piece of equipment is using JPS Labs Aluminata cable.

And quiet is essential for you!

[nc42acc]

I just bought three Furutech GTX-D G outlets, not sold on the whole rhodium bandwagon. I am running two dedicated lines back to my power panel. For conditioning I am using a Furman IT Reference 15i.

[MylesBAstor]

I just bought three Furutech GTX-D G outlets, not sold on the whole rhodium bandwagon. I am running two dedicated lines back to my power panel. For conditioning I am using a Furman IT Reference 15i.

Get the outlets installed yet Marty?

[nc42acc]

Myles I am hoping to get these in place this spring. Work has me traveling every week.

[Alrainbow]

I am not fan of power cords , maybe it's that I am lisc ELECTRICAN and have done this all of my life and other than Gauge it makes no sense to me . Some day I would love to have someone come to me or I'll go to them and I want them to demastrate in front of an A/B to let me hear it.
I do think. Noise on the line matters and my music servers are either pure dc or highly regulated psu s. Hospital grade outlets is what all or every company sells as the holy grail of highend power types. Most ven have this stamped on them. The do have a very high pressure on the plug inserted .
Separate circuits is a must same phase used for all maters too. Now ps audio makes p5/10 I use them and do feel they improve things. Something that doing an A/B can be heard . Of power cords of any type really work we should in theory see it on video . All,of the above I can see in video Except cords . And ps audio s cords do nothing either but there power REGENs do plenty it's very obvious . My headphones sytems I use a P5
And two P10 ,s and one P5 on my main Rig. I do feel larger gauge wires matter a bit especially on Amps. I am sorry if this post seems annoying to some or most but unless I hear it it's what I feel. Interconnects matter plenty . Also has anyone here tried rapping aluminum foil on any power cord from end to end and let me know what happens .

[MylesBAstor]

I am not fan of power cords , maybe it's that I am lisc ELECTRICAN and have done this all of my life and other than Gauge it makes no sense to me . Some day I would love to have someone come to me or I'll go to them and I want them to demastrate in front of an A/B to let me hear it.
I do think. Noise on the line matters and my music servers are either pure dc or highly regulated psu s. Hospital grade outlets is what all or every company sells as the holy grail of highend power types. Most ven have this stamped on them. The do have a very high pressure on the plug inserted .
Separate circuits is a must same phase used for all maters too. Now ps audio makes p5/10 I use them and do feel they improve things. Something that doing an A/B can be heard . Of power cords of any type really work we should in theory see it on video . All,of the above I can see in video Except cords . And ps audio s cords do nothing either but there power REGENs do plenty it's very obvious . My headphones sytems I use a P5
And two P10 ,s and one P5 on my main Rig. I do feel larger gauge wires matter a bit especially on Amps. I am sorry if this post seems annoying to some or most but unless I hear it it's what I feel. Interconnects matter plenty . Also has anyone here tried rapping aluminum foil on any power cord from end to end and let me know what happens .

Al you are welcome to your opinion buddy. Being an electrician I value your opinion. Intelligent discussion is important as is listening. And if we listen to the same thing and have two different opinions, so be it. It's not a code blue. But I certainly think that we don't realize how much cables serve as antennas in our system among other things.

I will tell you this from listening to many PC over they years. Nothing but nothing is more hit or miss in audio, than PC cords; especially when we start talking about big power amplifiers. The mantra should be do no harm and can't say that in many cases.

Right now am using some cables from Gary Koh on the front end but trying to figure out why I get hum in the system when I use his cables on the amplifiers. Maybe one day we can get Gary to talk about his experience with power cords!

Let's talk about something else that is weird. Why does the choice of cable on a power line conditioner make a difference? In theory, it shouldn't either. Nothing should be getting through the PLC but something is. Food for thought.

[Alrainbow]

So true and it does. Power I general is a hit man miss. If the psu uses large caps it some how robs some of the speed , I think it's why gays class d amps and his methods mY work better in some chains. I never claim to know and I do think we all hesr a bit different. As such what may make one person happy is needles to my brain or vice versa. MEL is clear example of this. I love his Nola's but dislike the mytek , i own one. Only witha server is its PCM ok but still has something to its sounds that is just not for me. It's dsd is better but not in the league of an msb or lampi. Even the ifi dsd you have I own one its PCM is not for me and too warm but it's dsd is ok and perhaps as good as the mytek and in some ways better. Using a laptop as a source. For him call me if you wish. Or texted me a time. Let me ask you some questions. Hum is ghost of sorts and a power cord causing it is even more odd. As for Gary he is someone I really trust , nice guy who has avast knowledge and loves the hobby as ypu do.

[nc42acc]

Guys with all the great reports on the Furutech NCF outlets this may be the icing on the cake.

[Alrainbow]

Being who and what I do for a living is not really a help I n audio not a big one anyway. Some of what I know does not always apply
I also have an electrical engineering degree again I only understand the specs well. But again how it sounds is what matters

[MylesBAstor]

Being who and what I do for a living is not really a help I n audio not a big one anyway. Some of what I know does not always apply
I also have an electrical engineering degree again I only understand the specs well. But again how it sounds is what matters

I wish all this stuff didn't count believe me! Some changes are immediately apparent in all systems and other improvements say in the area of transparency with better systems.

[garylkoh]

The power cord is one of the most contentious, if not THE most controversial component in the audio chain. I used to refuse to call cables a "component" because they should do nothing, and not make a difference at all. With my scientific and engineering background, I couldn't find a plausible reason for interconnects, let alone speaker cables to affect the sound of what we hear so much. The most vexing is the power cord - because how can it make a difference to the music at all.

Say, you have a power amplifier, and it is making music through a pair of loudspeakers. There are output devices (transistors or tubes, it does not matter) that modulate a electrical current into loudspeakers that transform this electric current into a physical movement which creates a pressure wave in the air to re-create the musical event in your listening room. This electrical current comes from the wall - which is why some cable marketing folks say that the power cord is "the most important" cable component.

However, if you look at it objectively, the current from the amplifier is not drawn directly from the wall, but working your way backwards, it comes from a power supply in the amplifier. In that power supply, there are a bunch of capacitors - which are reservoirs of current. And they are very FAST reservoirs of current. Anyone who has shorted one of those large capacitors found in an audiophile amplifier knows this very well. If you put a screwdriver across the cap, the spark is so huge that it could weld the screwdriver to the capacitor!!

Behind the capacitor bank, there will be a diode bridge that transforms the incoming AC power supply into DC to top up this capacitor bank. Imagine a reservoir of water, and a stream that feeds it. The diode bridge is this stream. If the reservoir is full and at the same level as the stream, the stream won't flow. That's what "volt" means - an energy potential. That's why the volt is a measure of electromotive force (EMF). If the capacitors are charged, there is no current flow through the bridge (because of the equivalent series resistance of the diode). So, current only flows when the capacitors need topping up.

Since the capacitor bank of an audiophile amplifier should be quite a large, this topping up should occur rather infrequently - usually only at the peak of the AC cycle, and usually at a spurt at a time. The capacitors buffer the current draw of the output devices.

Then, behind the diode, you have this humongous transformer. That's where a lot of the weight of an audiophile amplifier is. This is yet another buffer as the transformer stores energy in a magnetic field, and uses this magnetic coupling to transform the wall AC voltage into whatever voltage (higher or lower) that is needed by the amplifier.

So, if you start to examine the claims for a power cord, it doesn't make sense. Being able to deliver thousands of amps in a microsecond does not make any sense. The first component encountered is the transformer - and that is a huge inductor. An inductor filters high frequencies, hence any "speed" that the power cord is capable of is brickwalled by the primary windings of the power transformer. Since the transformer is a balanced device, any common mode noise coming in from the power line is also effectively cancelled out.

However, since power lines are long, there could be non-common mode noise, and this is commonly radio frequency. Since there is capacitative coupling between the primary and secondary windings of a power transformer and a capacitor passes high frequencies, this noise can come through to the output of the transformer. This RFI may be filtered to ground by a filter and some amplifiers may have an input filter already installed. Shielding the 6-feet of a power cord makes no difference to this RFI because it is already present in the wall outlet.

Once this RFI passes through the diode bridge, however, it is turned into common-mode DC, and this is totally eliminated by any competently-designed power supply which transforms any incoming voltage into DC. There should be no AC component (power supply designers call this ripple") in the output of the power supply. With a preamp or other component, the power supply is often regulated, and this even further reduces any incoming power-supply noise.

So:

1) Current capacity of the power cord does not matter - current requirements of music is buffered first by the capacitor bank in the power supply, slowed down by the ESR of the diode bridge, and further buffered by the inductance/magnetic field of the power transformer.

2) Shielding of the power cord does not matter - the EMI/RFI noise is already present at the wall outlet.

3) Common-mode noise is cancelled out by the balanced output of the power supply transformer (not if a half-bridge power supply is used).

4) High frequency noise is blocked by the inductance of the transformer's primary winding. Any high-frequency noise getting through via capacitive coupling between primary and secondary windings is absorbed by the capacitor reservoir.

Power cords make no difference to the sound when you look at it from the viewpoint of an amplifier designer.

Stay tuned..........

[Rust]

"This is yet another buffer as the transformer stores energy in a magnetic field, and uses this magnetic coupling to transform the wall AC voltage into whatever voltage (higher or lower) that is needed by the amplifier."

I don't think that statement is entirely correct and offer this.

A transformer does not "store" energy, in most common application it converts one voltage to another by inductive coupling of the primary and secondary windings. Expanding and contracting flux fields from the primary winding cutting the secondary winding, the expansion and contraction of the flux fields providing the relative motion to generate a voltage in the secondary winding. In an AC circuit. Power in equals power out, halve the voltage double the current and vice versa. Less minor losses due to eddy currents and hysteresis.

A coil is the inductive device that stores electrical power in a DC circuit.

And I am staying tuned. I like the analysis.

[allenh]

Subscribed!

[garylkoh]

Rust - you are correct at 60Hz and at 50Hz. But take the time slice small enough, and the inductance of the coils store energy. One way to illustrate this is when you turn on a transformer (even with the secondary un-terminated) it takes a huge surge and the lights briefly flicker. This is entirely dependent on the point of the AC cycle at which you flip the switch. Conversely, the point at which you switch the transformer off could leave the core magnetized.

Sorry - I do intend to continue this thread...... but I'm slammed because I'm about to leave on a 3-week trip and I have a ton of things to get done before I can leave.

[MylesBAstor]

Man this is looking like last night's X-files finale!

[Joe Pittman]

I recently replaced all of my existing Furutech GTX-D Rhodium duplex outlets with the new NCF (Nano Crystal Formula) versions in my main reference room (8 total). I was so impressed with the improvement, I replaced all of the previous Furutech FI-11 connectors with the new Furutech FI-50 NCF connectors on all of my power cables in the room, 10 power cables total. I was blown away by the improvement.

I have been wondering why power cables and outlets matter for many years now. I have written a brief white paper about why power cables matter (see link http://www.kosmic.us/KOSMIC%20White%20Paper%20-%20Why%20Power%20Cables%20Matter%20-%20First%20Edition%20-%20May%202015.pdf). The main point of this white paper is that components are at the middle of the power chain, not the end.

In addition to the issues related to the transmission of power, I suspect there are many other variables impacting sound. Such as Electrostatic fields, EMI and RFI generated at the connections themselves. My experiences over the last couple of years suggest it is very significant.

I use an Entech Wideband Power Line & EMI Noise Analyzer to check out powerline noise and radiated EMI (electromagnetic interference) at various points in my system. The device has a digital display and also a speaker where you can hear the noise including radio interference. It's a cool device I use to demonstrate noise sources to my customers.

I compared AC power line noise passed through my old GTX-D duplex outlet (Rhodium plated contacts) with the new GTX-D NCF (Nano Crystal Formula) duplex outlet (also Rhodium) and the NCF unit had a 40% reduction in wideband noise. However, there was very little reduction in radiated EMI (but a little).

What's really interesting is that the new Furutech FI-50 NCF connectors had less than 1/4th the radiated EMI than the previous Furutech FI-11 connectors I was using.

I have always wondered why power connections are so noisy. The best analogy I've read is that each power connection acts like a spark plug. AC power crosses the zero axis every 120th of a second, power pulses essentially acting like an AM transmitter. The technology in the Furutech power products is designed to convert EMI fields, static and heat into electrons which are then sunk to ground. The Entech analyzer suggests that the new NCF technology works.

Regarding whats really happening, I am only speculating and talking out of my ass.