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Propeller Head Plaza Technical and scientific discussion of amps, cables and other topics. |
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Propeller Head Plaza Technical and scientific discussion of amps, cables and other topics. |
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In Reply to: RE: AC Power posted by Lynn on May 8, 2008 at 19:41:44:
Thank you. And you pose excellent questions, to which unfortunately I haven't very cogent answers.
As audiophile consumers we do the main thing right now by trying to verify the equipment's suitability for our needs in our environment prior to final purchase commitment. We could also do informal relative testing when comparing gear. How close can you get with a transmitting cell or cordless phone before you hear interference? Plug something with a brush motor into the same circuit and see if you hear it with headphones. Sniff around with an AM radio to get an idea of how much noise it generates. That sort of thing.
As far as the sound I'm not very qualified to speak to that, clearly other posters have spent a lot more effort in that area than I have. But I've enough experience to say that it runs the gamut from gross to so subtle that you feel more than hear it. On the gross side, my power amp sits within 18" of our refrigerator compressor on the other side of the wall. After living here a week and wondering if I'd end up with one of the speaker cones in my lap, I trotted down to the supply house and bought a tripp-lite filter to see if that would help temporarily. It did, and I've never bothered to do better although I obviously should put snubbers on the relays. But that was a matter of survival, not sound. On the subtle end I switched to an LCD monitor last year in my study where I use my computer as the source. I don't think I can describe the difference but it just didn't sound as good with the new monitor plugged in. I've got a "bad" arrangement where the computer and stereo are on the same circuit but on adjacent walls and I feed the audio over with a cable. I suspected that it was injecting noise into the ground loop formed by the monitor's signal and power cables along with the power line and audio feed. So I shuffled some connections around and found an arrangement that minimized the problem.
Obviously much of the problem is driven by system topology. Using unbalanced interconnects is bad. Using in-band power is bad. But good engineering can conquer all. I would suppose that high-end manufacturers may pay attention to these areas since they can limit system performance. Mass manufacturers with CE qualified equipment may be pretty good also. And for us consumers... there's always Z-beads and conditioners.
On my "one of these days" list I have looking into these issues in more detail. For me that means measurement and correlation. If I ever do it I will be able to provide some realer answers, albeit limited in scope.
Regards, Rick
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Follow Ups
- RE: AC Power - rick_m 05/9/0808:49:39 05/9/08 (0)
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