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Line conditioners ?

O

onedaatmc

Member
Are line conditioners really worth it ? I have all my audio gear running into computer surgeprotectors , which I know aren't line conditioners , but anyway , back to the original question, are they really worth it and can you really hear a difference ?

Thanks for your "Input" !
 
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I have found some items of gear to be very un-obvious, in terms of their perceivable improvement(s) on performance:

Headroom's Static Headroom (but worth it)
tube buffers (in my case, the MF X10 V3) (worth it)
expensive patch cords (not worth it to me)
expensive digital cables (not worth it to me)
power conditioners (still undecided)
 
Save your money or put it into better speakers. Any competently designed audio gear will not benefit by hooking it to a power conditioner. The economy and the manufacturer will, however.
2chanman
 
2chanman said:
Save your money or put it into better speakers. Any competently designed audio gear will not benefit by hooking it to a power conditioner. The economy and the manufacturer will, however.
2chanman
Click to expand...

You may not hear improvement of sound, but your gear sure will like clean constant power with better surge protection a lot better. Especially in the case of a storm. I know mine has saved a tube or two from some pretty serious spikes..

5K in gear.. $3 or 400 for a pice of gear that will sacrafice itself if anything bad happens with your power in.. pretty cheap insurance in my eyes..
 
I bought a monster power center when I lived in my apartment. I had a surge blow up a power supply on my tube phono stage so thats why I got it. Plus I liked the timed turnon, since lots of my gear has no power switches.

Surprisingly, it improved sound quite a bit. The wiring in that apartment was pretty dirty though, I could hear my fridge turn on and off through the speakers. Most of that was eliminated. The power center does not seem to make as much difference in a cleaner home environment, but its nice to know I am as well prepared as could be expected in a storm.

Evan
 
I have found that in both my audio and ht systems, power conditioning\cleaning\purifying etc. has made a noticeable improvement! I use a PS Audio power port at the wall and in the ht I have a PS Audio Quintette and on the audio systems I have a PS Audio Duet and will get another one in the future. These filter the current going to the system quite well. I get a better picture quality, much more quiet background in sound and everything seems to jump out of the speakers better. Also a larger soundstage is noticeable! ymmv! I live in the country and don't have the best electric service so every thing I have put on my systems to condition the power has helped at least some and I feel better about the quality of the current feeding my components. They should last longer I would think! :thmbsp:

http://www.psaudio.com/

Here is another diy project to make a balance power unit which I would like to do someday. http://home.comcast.net/~thomasw_2/CheapskateBP1.html
 
I live in a 1920s apartment and I could hear every light switch, refrigerator noise, etc in the speakers. A cheap $100 Belkin fixed all that. It was night and day in my situation.
 
2chanman said:
Save your money or put it into better speakers. Any competently designed audio gear will not benefit by hooking it to a power conditioner. The economy and the manufacturer will, however.
2chanman
Click to expand...

Spoken like a guy who has never heard a really great sounding well made unit, Monster isnt really where its at but trying Richard Grey or Shunyata products as a quick example makes a fast easy to hear change and turns dismissers into believers time and time again.
Your gear (no matter how hi-fi) is only as good as the power it gets, try a demo from a dealer and hear for yourself.
 
My house is old. Had a slight hum in my left channel. Bought a Furman line conditioner from PE. Took the hum right out.
 
Power conditioners vary in quality, as does the power in your house. If you have a clean power supply (ie. dedicated circuit) and minimal RFI (computers, etc.) then you don't need one, but having one will do no harm.

Now, if you have very "dirty" power, with a lot of mains-bourne interference, it is possible that you could benefit from a conditioner. It won't make any difference to stuff like turntables where the power only drives a motor (which doesn't care how noisy the power is, really!), but preamps and sources can see a lowered noise floor if the power supply couples RFI from the mains side to the low voltage lines within.
Many noise filters incorporate surge supressors as well, which can never be a bad thing... But these are generally available separately anyway.

Personally, I built my own noise filter with large surge supressor, separate stages for different outputs and multi-stage filtering for sources.
It drastically reduced the number of clicks and pops that made it into my HiFi, but that could be as much because none of the mains cabling behind (along with signal wires...) has that noise traveling through it.

I wouldn't treat it as a "tweak", it can't "increase soundstage and bass impact" or any of that nonsense, but it can help fix a major problem in todays power supplies which can in turn affect your enjoyment of your equipment (and music!).
 
Whether you need one or not depends on what condition your power is in? For the back woods folks who run off their own gen sets, I would say yes. If you live in a neighborhood near an industrial complex, factory or big farm operation (like a dairy), you bet. Welding shops and big city pump stations will throw dirty signals all day long with a lot of phase shifts and switching spikes. But what kind of conditioner you need depends on what you are trying to quell?

AND, it depends on what condition your audio gear is in. If you have 40 year old receivers that are still running the original power supply filter caps, sure they'll need help. BUT, instead of a $400 conditioner, maybe you should re-cap your receiver?
 
I stand by my original statement. Power conditioners were "created" to fill a "need" that does not exist. Their true purpose is solely to put money in the pockets of the charlatans that manufacture and sell them. Yet another audio fallacy foisted on the gullible audiophile. Enjoy!
 
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2chanman said:
I stand by my original statement. Power conditioners were "created" to fill a "need" that does not exist. There true purpose is solely to put money in the pockets of the charlatans that manufacture and sell them. Yet another audio fallacy foisted on the gullible audiophile. Enjoy!
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Thats kinda what I thought, I know that there could be a possible benefit if a RF noice or other anomoly were present. There isn't and its a dedicated circuit, and it's a house thats 70 years old.....but all works well with the grounded surge protector I have the stereo hooked into.
 
I got them more for surge protection than for conditioning.

The better seemed to have no effect on sound- but the wiring is also new. I still think they hold potential to help.

A few I tried seemed to alter the sound- thinner in the midrange and less bass. I don't know why- the componentry is simple- but that's what appeared to happen.

The only advice I could offer is go with a decent brand with recognizable name and positive comments.

Some folk like Furman or PS Audio as an affordable and quality brand. I've also heard Furutech thrown around.

I've heard strong mixed results with the Monster Cable units but never tried one myself to make my own decision.
 
2chanman said:
I stand by my original statement. Power conditioners were "created" to fill a "need" that does not exist. Their true purpose is solely to put money in the pockets of the charlatans that manufacture and sell them. Yet another audio fallacy foisted on the gullible audiophile. Enjoy!
Click to expand...

Believe you me, I'm anything but a gullible audiophile and I cannot agree with you at all. I don't believe in differences between similar gauge speaker cables, exotic power cables, special treatments for CDs, etc... but can honestly say that calling power conditioners useless is pretty far off base.

There are plenty of well made items that have less than stellar power supply sections. There are also plenty of cases where there is strong enough EMI/RF interference on the line to leak into less than perfectly shielded sections of equipment. Beyond that, plenty of places have some large, nasty transients on the line that can be smoothed to a degree.

Until you have lived in an area with bad power, you cannot really know, or be expected to know I suppose, that these things can and do make a difference.
 
OK, lets get our technologies in order. A surge protector is not a power conditioner. A power conditioner is a device that takes fluctuating and dirty power and outputs clean stable power. This is usually done by charging a large battery and inverting the DC to sine wave AC. Here are the specs for a typical commercial power conditioner:

* Voltage Regulation: +/- 3%
* Load Regulation: Typically better than +/- 3%
* Overload Capability: 125% for 10 min
* Surge Capability: 150% of rated output
* Input Operating Range: +10 to -40% (typical)
* Input Current THD: < 5%
* K-Factor: 30 or better
* Operating Temperature: 0°C to 40°C
* Common Mode Noise Attenuation: 120dB
* Transverse Mode (Line) Noise Attenuation: 70dB
* Spike Attenuation: 3000:1
* Crest Factor: 3.5:1

Input operating range is from about 152 VAC to say 70 VAC or so. I have worked in environments where this was a regular occurrence (sag or partial brown-out). Do any of you'all remember the rolling brown-outs in Calif a few years ago when demand exceeded generating capacity? Or, have any of you lived near a shipyard? Either will wreak havoc on your audio gear. A good conditioner can sometimes be a godsend :)

See the noise and spike attenuation, that's what makes the average daily improvement in sound. But supplying clean regulated AC means you never hear what's going on outside your system :)
 
2chanman said:
I stand by my original statement. Power conditioners were "created" to fill a "need" that does not exist. Their true purpose is solely to put money in the pockets of the charlatans that manufacture and sell them. Yet another audio fallacy foisted on the gullible audiophile. Enjoy!
Click to expand...
Please relate your experiences with specific models. If you've tried several and heard no change, then your point is valid...for your set-up and your ears.
 
I live in a 1940's house, and believe in them also. For me they make a larger difference in my enjoyment than interconnects, and speaker cables.
 
BrocLuno said:
See the noise and spike attenuation, that's what makes the average daily improvement in sound. But supplying clean regulated AC means you never hear what's going on outside your system :)
Click to expand...

I beg to differ. I can still hear the upstairs neighbor, and last I checked they weren't inside my system! :D
 
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