Audio Wall Receptacles and Power strips/conditioners

[LenWhite]

I recently sold my Isoclean 80A3 power distributor and I'm considering a Nordost Qbase as a replacement - I'm using a Quantum QX4 between the wall socket and my Lindemann 830S preamp. But the knowledgeable people at the Audio Federation believe all power strips/conditioners impart their own sound, so the best approach is to directly connect your equipment to wall sockets fitted with an audio grade duplex receptacle and high quality power cords.

I'm currently using good PC's (Nordost Brahma), but instead of buying a power strip I could sell the Brahma's and upgrade to Nordost Valhalla PC's to match the rest of my audio system wiring. I'm also using Isoclean ICP-003G receptacles which are 24K gold plated, which after reading some articles I'm no longer sure are the best approach.

I'm interested in hearing others opinions regarding the approach advocated by the Audio Federation vs. using power strips and conditioners. Is key but less equipment really more?

 

[zztop7]

Natural Gas

The following is based on the FORTUNES that people are spending on their audio electricity:

I am fortunate to have an isolated mud room in the basement. There I have noisy transformers with capacitors in order to have very clean electricity that is run to the audio equipment.

Now my thought: If I wanted to go crazy for the cleanest electricity, I would study super high quality natural gas generators to see what they could or could not do.

zz.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

two products;

Furutech GTX-D (R-Rhodium) duplex recepticals.

I have 10 of these outlets in my system and love them.

http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue63/furutech.htm

Equi=tech large panel isolation transformers.

I have the Equi=tech 10WQ panel in my system. it's more cost effective and makes stand alone power conditioners look (and sound) like toys in comparison. it does weigh 400 pounds and requires a commercial electrician to install. but once done you can check off the box once and for all where it asks for a clean quiet dynamically alive power grid.

http://www.equitech.com/products/industrial/wall.html

in general I agree with Mike from Audio Federation that stand alone power conditioners that I have heard do have a 'sound' of their own and you end up chasing your tail to try and match gear to the conditioner. when you stand back and look at the cost and effort to integrate stand alone conditioners into a system aspiring to be very high end in performance a 'whole system' isolation transformer makes real world sense both in terms of cost and hassle factor. your a/c grid is so critical to system performance why mess around.

obviously some situations don't allow for my preferred approach, but if it's a consideration then do it.

 

[Ronm1]

On a more realistic level I use a BPT unit, it has the outlets Mike mentions and all my PC cables use the same Furatech connectors. Plus all h/w has had the eic conn replaced with the appropriate Furatech versions. I live in an older home and development so dealing with power and noise had a priority. I evaluated a # of diff vendors and never felt any had a negative effect. BPT had the best effect on noise floor to improve imaging, soundstage for us. Again all were positive, one was just better during the months I evaluated in my home. The emotional connection that comes from blackness with VG soundstage and Imaging is thru the roof, IMHO, of course.

 

[kennyb123]

I have a complete loom of Brahma cords. The Brahma from the wall feeds a QX4, which in turn feeds a QBase QB8. A Qv2 is plugged into the wall outlet and another is plugged into the QB8.

I think this is a fantastic setup, but to be fair, I have not made any comparisons to competing products. Why I am so pleased with it is because of how well my system first responded to it. It first began as a Vishnu loom, but swapping in Brahmas one by one just made things better and better. It's nice knowing that I have a great and predictable upgrade path going forward to if I go to Valhalla.

I can't say I noticed that the QB8 imparted its own sound. My initial impression was the exact opposite.

The really surprising thing about the QB8 is that it responds really well to Stillpoints. I have the now-discontinued cones under it now, but these will be replaced with Ultras at some point. Maybe that does suggest that the QB8 was imparting its own sound by offering a path for more vibration to pass into my components via their power cords. But given the overall gains from my power loom, I can't imagine going in another direction.