JackD201 - Almost Done

[JackD201]

Fortunately I'm on the same grid as Cardinal Santos Hospital. You can say that being in the same one as a major medical facility, that grid get's "special attention" from MERALCO. It's not so bad. Lows of 225 to highs of 240. Still I wish I'd done the whole isolation transformer bit. Working hours and the sound is sub par. I can live with what I get in the evening. No problems with neighbors, we're not exactly "packed in tight".

Boy, if I did what you do, I'd need the special rebar and 8,000psi concrete for the subwoofers more than earthquakes

So you actually lived in the Philippines. Interesting. When was this? Taguig has changed a lot in the last few years. It's got its own skyline now. I never would have thunk it 15 years ago.

 

[microstrip]

Lows of 225 to highs of 240. Still I wish I'd done the whole isolation transformer bit.

A friend of mine who had a similar situation - lows of 208 and 230V only at weekend and at after 23h, had great success with the Exact power EP15A. He uses it only to power sources and preamplifier, as his Krell amplifier overloaded the EP15A. Result: Sunday night sound every time, as he said!

http://www.soundstage.com/revequip/exactpower_ep15a.htm

Unhappily the EP15A is not manufactured anymore, but sometimes they show in the used market at very nice prices. Although my mains is very reliable I use one to power my Soundlab A1 , as they are very critical to even very small variations of mains voltage.

The local distributor of Exactpower told me he has a client who needed three units - one for each of his Jadis JP200 and one for the sources and preamplifier. This type of tube equipment is very sensitive, as usually the AC supply for the filaments of power tubes is not regulated.

May be there are now equivalent devices, but I do not know of any for 230/240V.

 

[naturephoto1]

Jack,

Really nice set-up, build, and system. I am sure that you will be pleased once everything has been completed.

A friend of mine who had a similar situation - lows of 208 and 230V only at weekend and at after 23h, had great success with the Exact power EP15A. He uses it only to power sources and preamplifier, as his Krell amplifier overloaded the EP15A. Result: Sunday night sound every time, as he said!

http://www.soundstage.com/revequip/exactpower_ep15a.htm

Unhappily the EP15A is not manufactured anymore, but sometimes they show in the used market at very nice prices. Although my mains is very reliable I use one to power my Soundlab A1 , as they are very critical to even very small variations of mains voltage.

The local distributor of Exactpower told me he has a client who needed three units - one for each of his Jadis JP200 and one for the sources and preamplifier. This type of tube equipment is very sensitive, as usually the AC supply for the filaments of power tubes is not regulated.

May be there are now equivalent devices, but I do not know of any for 230/240V.

I have 2 modified Exact Power EP15A Power Conditioners in my system (all of the outlets are Oyaide R1 and things have been changed internally so all of the digital and analog circuitry are now the same). I like them very much and they have been extremely reliable. I use one for my main First Watt M2 amp, the rear Channel Krell amp, my ARC LS10 Linestage Preamp, and for my Sansui TU-9900 tuner. I use the second of these units for my Teres Certus 450 turntable, Soundsmith Strain Gauge 410 Phono Premp, and for the 3 Aragon Palladium1K monoblocks used for the Center Channel and Side Surround speakers. As you have indicated though, and it is unfortunate that they are now out of production. As I recall these were available in a 220/240 volt version however.

Rich

 

[JackD201]

Thanks guys, I'll do some more research on the industrial side. I'm hoping I can find a solution I can slot in somewhere between the main line and my system's dedicated breaker. I've still got some room in my main panel board. Seems there's nothing I can do when power sags below 230 though except try and listen past it.

 

[mullard88]

Hi JackD201,

Is the Lao Lian Ben installed? I also have a few pieces of his work. Would love to visit you again to view your Lao Lian Ben and listen to your rig again.

 

[JackD201]

Hi Mullard,

It's leaning against the side wall now. The gallery dude said it's best we construct some angle bars to hold it up. He got scared when he saw the heatsinks hahahaha! I'll be headed to Vegas then the Bay Area to visit Steve and Ron very soon and will be back 3rd week of November. Bogart, Maddy and I will then move the Analog system from the old lair to Buchanan. Let's plan it for then. Will you be going to HK or Vancouver any time soon?

Lao is great isn't he? I chose him because his works are like windows to other dimensions. Being in a basement I needed a good window

See you soon!

 

[FrantzM]

Thanks guys, I'll do some more research on the industrial side. I'm hoping I can find a solution I can slot in somewhere between the main line and my system's dedicated breaker. I've still got some room in my main panel board. Seems there's nothing I can do when power sags below 230 though except try and listen past it.

UPS .. Jack ... UPS.. Double conversion UPS plus Good Grouding scheme .. More important than most realize ... plus this protects the system .. Current sags and Spikes have a way to reduce equipment ilfe .... Again Double conversion UPS... Not the thread but dedicated lines are not so ..dedicated.. as a matter of fact you only give your system its own breaker .. ALL noise from ALL other parts of the house ( AC, Water Pump, etc) are present in these so-called "dedicated" lines ...

Aside from this important point ... WOW!!! WOW !!! WOW !!!

 

[Mark (Basspig) Weiss]

Fortunately I'm on the same grid as Cardinal Santos Hospital. You can say that being in the same one as a major medical facility, that grid get's "special attention" from MERALCO. It's not so bad. Lows of 225 to highs of 240. Still I wish I'd done the whole isolation transformer bit. Working hours and the sound is sub par. I can live with what I get in the evening. No problems with neighbors, we're not exactly "packed in tight".

Boy, if I did what you do, I'd need the special rebar and 8,000psi concrete for the subwoofers more than earthquakes

So you actually lived in the Philippines. Interesting. When was this? Taguig has changed a lot in the last few years. It's got its own skyline now. I never would have thunk it 15 years ago.

Sounds like you need some line conditioning. Perhaps a Sola constant voltage transformer for the signal preamps and sources.
The line voltage isn't so bad; it's the spikes and noise riding on top of it that can kill switchers in a flash.

I hear ya on the subwoofers. I've already cracked my floor in recent years. 32 years crack-free, and I get the Bassmaxx subs in here and now I've got cracks happening in various places. I suppose it's to be expected when the ground can be felt shaking from the outside of the house.

I lived in Signal Village in Taguig (at the end of the C5 highway) in 2000. Also spent time looking at property in Baguio and Tagaytay. On the day we left, we spent some time at the Glorietta Mall. Hours later, while we were on the plane, it was bombed. Close call. My wife and I spend a lot of time there, cooling down, eating Hawaiian pizza at Sbarro over there. I saw lots of cranes and new construction back then. I can imagine a mini Manhattan now.

 

[JackD201]

Mark

So if my voltage isn't so bad, will surge suppressors like my Hydras be okay? I have a few (2 V-Rays, a bunch of Hydra 2s) that I absolutely needed at my old place. They actually saved my equipment when the condo's own transformer blew.

Frantz,

How do I go about calculating what I'll need? The Lamm spec pages are long. Do I go by max current draw in amperes or is that overkill? I remember you use Burmesters, did you find that using UPS' limited dynamics any?

My brother did the whole transformer thing. Compared to his, my system has a layer of grunge. I don't really notice it except when I come home from his place and to borrow a phrase from Mullard88, it sounds like my system is broken by comparison hence my regrets. I bet he's lurking now saying "I told you so!". What kind of space do these UPS' require?

TIA guys!

Jack

 

[microstrip]

For evaluating your power supply needs you have to consider that you have a very large room, very efficient but active speakers with 1000W amplifiers . As far as I remember , Mark Lavigne uses a 5KW system in his room with similar topology speakers.

Hearing about a "layer of grundge" and looking at your electronics I would immediately look at the ground connection. Do you have a good earth connection, separated from the house one? Have you checked for the polarity of the power plugs? These effects are much more noticeable with the 230V mains than with the 110V systems.

BTW, I recently moved from the Pythons to all Andromeda power wiring and another "layer of grundge" was removed from my system. The Hydra or the V2 will be of no help to the voltage problem.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Jack,

first; wonderful room and pictures. Congrats. i know about dedicated rooms and the effort involved and yours looks stunning.

and having owned the VR9's, great choice.

regarding power conditioning; i did just install the Equitech 10WQ wall panel system. since your native power is 220 volt you might need the 15WQ-E. these bad boys are big and heavy; but they deliver the goods.

the great thing about the Equitech is that it will give you late night power all the time. and you can sell all your power conditioners. i've had one power outage since i installed the Equitech in August. the transformer holds so much power that my system continued to play almost 30 seconds after the lights went out. that's a large buffer and you really do get isolation.

10KVa of 'Q' transformer is basically almost double what i need. you figure rated power for all your gear times 2 for headroom. the 'Q' transformers Equitech uses are more efficient than many other types and very very quiet. you could have this panel in your listening room and never hear it unless you put your ear within 2 feet of it. mine is in the hallway outside my room. there are 2 cooling fans on mine but they have never come on even with everything firing, and the Equitech runs cool to the touch except slightly luke-warm on the panel directly over the transformer. i'll bet your other conditioners run much hotter.

my 100 watt stereo darTZeel amps have lights on the face which glow brighter when they approach clipping. prior to the Equitech there were predicable moments during certain music where they would pulse to the music as the amps were stressed. in the 2 months since i installed the Equitech not only is there lots more dynamics; but the amps have yet to pulse once. lack of distortion is really good for gear.

i did have a set of Lamm ML2.1's on hand a couple of weeks ago to try; they loved the Equitech.

and of course, the system is dead stone quiet and yet is very lively and dynamic and i've yet to find any gear which does not sound it's best with balanced power.

i have a pair of 1000 watt digital amps in my speakers like you; as well as a 100 watt per channel stereo amp (possibly soon to be a pair of 500+ watt monoblocks), as well as 3 tt's, 2 RTR's, and a couple of separate phono stages.

if your power grid is dependable but not always clean the Equitech is the perfect solution. if your power grid is not dependable, then you need a big generator like Frantz talks about.

 

[microstrip]

i've had one power outage since i installed the Equitech in August. the transformer holds so much power that my system continued to play almost 30 seconds after the lights went out. that's a large buffer and you really do get isolation.

Mike,
It seems I underrated your Equitech by 50% !

But no transformer can hold the power after a power-down. Does the Equitech unit have any additional UPS capability? As far as I could see it had only a balancing transformer, breakers, filters , surge protectors, etc.

 

[c1ferrari]

Informative post, Mike - thanks for sharing!

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Mike,
It seems I underrated your Equitech by 50% !

But no transformer can hold the power after a power-down. Does the Equitech unit have any additional UPS capability? As far as I could see it had only a balancing transformer, breakers, filters , surge protectors, etc.

there is no UPS functionality with the Equitech to my knowledge.

previously, when i had a power outage the sound would shut off immediately. with this outage for a few seconds nothing changed with the sound, then it started to lose definition and after 20+ seconds there was no sound.

i have zero understanding of how a transformer works. but it seems logical that there is considerable stored energy in the transformer which takes some time to disapate when the power is cut off. maybe there is another explanation for what happened.

 

[Mark (Basspig) Weiss]

Mark

So if my voltage isn't so bad, will surge suppressors like my Hydras be okay? I have a few (2 V-Rays, a bunch of Hydra 2s) that I absolutely needed at my old place. They actually saved my equipment when the condo's own transformer blew.

Jack, I'm not familiar with that product. However, it's not just the type of suppressor, but where and how it's installed that matters. If the building lacks a proper grounding point, then surge suppression devices may be rendered almost ineffective. Two types of voltage spikes are what we're dealing with: spikes from lightning and spikes from substation switchovers, transformer faults, and heavy inductive loads (on your circuit). Lightning needs to be effectively routed to a ground point outside the building. Surge protectors at the equipment load on branch circuits have been proven ineffective in these common mode spike situations. A whole-house surge protector that sinks to the ground point that the building uses is really the only effective method.
Since many spikes have a much shorter duration than 60Hz or 50Hz line, a little trick I use can be effective at reducing the energy of spikes before they enter your panel. Coiling the mains before the input panel, several turns, forms an inductor. This presents a higher impedance to high frequency spikes, while having no measurable effect on line frequency. Where you may have had to deal with 50,000 amps of spike current before the coil, you may only have to sink 10,000 amps after the coil, in the event of lightning. This works equally well for absorbing HF transients from poor load management and other anomalies of power.
I'm not a big fan of MOV protector-based add ons that sit at the load on the end of a branch circuit. The surge needs to be stopped much further back upstream, where the differential AND common mode energy can be effectively dissipated.

 

[FrantzM]

Hi

Sooner or later an audiophile trying to extract the maximum from his/her system faces the issue of Power Quality. Most people in Information Technology have faced it one way or another and it is dealt with in this area.
It is not so much an issue of how stable your voltage is, although that is one parameter but how clean the power brought to you is. Your equipment suppose a sinusoid, it rarely gets that from the mains. It suppose a stable frequency, it does not. It also suppose the presence of just one frequency, it often gets the whole Electro Magnetic spectrum.

Trying not to repeat what I already wrote in this forum (I will search it). You get a line, several kilometers long from the generating station to your house. Along the path of this wire there is a lot of noise, most of these man-made: Radio and Television Towers and nowadays seemingly every other centimeter, a cell tower plus, the numerous wireless everything people use along the path of these lines… Meanwhile there are millions of electric motors, Digital things and other noise makers sending their noise back on that same line that ultimately will come to your house … To have a good idea, just get an oscilloscope and look at the waveform from your mains, any mains, anywhere in the world. You will likely to see a rather “dirty” signal and this gets into your gear. Some are less affected by it but it is my subjective experience that they are all affected one way or another. So it is essential in my opinion to get your gear the purest AC possible. I don’t know of any formal studies on the impact of Power Quality to sound Quality but Recording Studios are pragmatic about it and take all precaution to insure clean power to their system and for the most part they don’t rely on fancy power cords: They rely on addressing the fundamentals.

First find out the maximum draw of ALL your gears. Emphasis on maximum. Let’s take an example of a 100 watt/ch Class A SS amplifier. Its maximum draw when delivering 100 watts at 8 Ohms to both channel simultaneously is probably 800 watts total but if it doubles its output in 4 ohms it requires 1600 watts then … so if you have say a speakers that can dip into say 2 ohms you amps will want to draw 3200 Watts …total, by the way most normal 20 amps circuit breaker will trip by then but if you are one of those souls who have discovered the advantage of using 240 Volts rather than the usual 120 VAC (thinking in US terms here) you , yes it will want to draw that much from the mains … So yes think in term of maximum power drawn by your gears under the worst conditions .. Preamps won’t ever draw that much nor TT , Tape Decks, CD players and DACs and processor but you get my drift. What you get then is the rating of your system … I think isolation transformers can do a good job, being inductances, they will present a very high impedance to the nastiest that ride on the power lines and present the system with a cleaner AC. They must be properly sized though, else they will restrict current delivery to the amps, thus the often mentioned complaint of constricted dynamics, one hears with the use of power conditioners, especially those “audiophiles” which for the vast majority are not adequate to power any serious amp I know of only two purely audiophile solutions which correctly address the problem by re-generating the AC: The PS Audio and the Burmester Line Conditioner. Both are not powerful enough to power a medium power system or say a 200 Watts/ch class A amp.

I have often voiced my preference for Professional Double Conversion Telco or Data Center UPS types. My favorites are the ferroresonant models made by Lorrain now Marconi (there are others) in the absence of these unwieldy beast, they are truly big and noisy, Double conversion UPS made by APC are to me the better alternative. They seem to be shunned by us, audiophiles because, they lack the audiophile creds. Maybe if one well-regarded audiophile designer were to modify one of these with the addition of the (ineffective but expensive) cryogenically-treated outlets, fancy faceplate and capacitors, then sell it at several multiple of its original price .. we would accept these but …
Another very important aspect I have often forgotten to mention in my posts about quality is Grounding. Grounding is never a trivial undertaking and in itself a specialty. At the very least make sure you have a very clean ground system of the lowest resistance achievable, lower than the usual 25 Ohms recommended by the NEC. I would have liked much lower than 5 Ohms but this is not always easy. Depends on the terrain and the likes... but make sure it is less than 15 ohms. The ground is the reference and the sink. The lower the resistance to the sink, the easiest garbage flows down to it. The ground is where the system would like to dump all the garbage, if you don’t have a good ground then the system has difficulty getting rid of the garbage and frankly one can hear it.

The expensive approach of fancy power cords is not a solution, not even a band-aid, they don’t work for the most part except in our heads and take away financial and technical resources that could have been used in the general scheme of better power quality.
I sincerely would like to see more formal and objective studies on the importance of PQ in the context of an Audio System. I would like to see more awareness from the Audiophile community on the subject as well. It seems some people are realizing the benefits of such… it’s all good then …

 

[Mike Lavigne]

The expensive approach of fancy power cords is not a solution, not even a band-aid, they don’t work for the most part except in our heads and take away financial and technical resources that could have been used in the general scheme of better power quality.

Frantz,

i agree with you mostly on the issue of doing the first things first, provide your system with good power to begin with thru various means and don't get caught up in the small power conditioners and such.

OTOH even with my Equitech i have found that power cords can make significant differences.

this weekend i was using a Belden power cord on my new Allnic H3000 phono stage. Gary from Genesis Loudspeakers was visiting and i tried one of his power cords, designed for components, on the H3000 in place of the Belden. it is sold under the Absolute Fidelity brand.

let's just say that Gary would have needed to pry it out of my cold dead hands to take it with him that night. and i did not have any kind of expectation about what it might sound like.

3 weeks prior when Steve Dobbins and i were listening to this phono in my system we tried another 'expensive' power cord (that Steve brought) on the Allnic that was just a little better (and i would not have paid the considerable price of the difference for that amount of improvement).

anyway Frantz; i'm not expecting to change your mind but needed to point out that nothing, including an Equitech, is necessarily the final word on power grid improvement.

 

[microstrip]

It is not so much an issue of how stable your voltage is, although that is one parameter but how clean the power brought to you is. Your equipment suppose a sinusoid, it rarely gets that from the mains. It suppose a stable frequency, it does not. It also suppose the presence of just one frequency, it often gets the whole Electro Magnetic spectrum.

Happily most of time the mains is not so bad as we could think from your post - once we quantify the effects you are referring they are much less than we imagine. I have just looked at my mains using a spectral analyzer - the highest harmonic is the 5th with less than 5%, followed by the 3rd at 3% - everything else if bellow 1%. The frequence is quite stable. If we look of the specification sheets of the power supplies of our equipment we can not find any reason why a mains conditioner such as a Burmenster, PS Audio or an Exactpower (just the ones I have direct experience) can improve the sound, as the power supplies rejection ratios of the power supplies should reduce interferences to a point they will not affect performance. But they really change the sound!

Now, if I accept somethings I can not explain, why should not I accept the fancy power cables? Just because I do not like the idea someone is getting money with them?

This is many times our dilemma - if someone tells us he his getting an improvement in sound quality using Belden LL7875 shielded cable we accept it easily, but if he is using Nordost Odin we immediately start thinking about one thousand reasons why it should be only his imagination!

 

[audioguy]

Who did your room design?

Once all is completed, I would love to see some REW (or equivalent) measurements on FR, decay, RT60, etc.

 

[FrantzM]

Microstrip

I would grant you that just looking at at he mians on spectrum analyzer or an oscilloscope is not enough, you may have very cleam mains and may I ask what time it was when you performed this test? I wouldn’t be surprised it was during the night. The true test of your mains quality is to use a power quality monitor either self contained or a PC program. It looks at various disturbances for a certain amount of time, not a one shot, although in really dirty areas you will see the disturbances at once , any time of the day.
I will quickly add that nor the Burmester, nor the PS Audio are gear that I would use for the purpose. They do certain things well but I did add in my post that they are inadequate for even medium power amplifiers, let alone a system.
Concerning the audibility of power, I am not sure why, I would like to see further studies but my subjective impression is that it is very audible. In my experience anyone even blind could tell when I move the AC from my UPS to the regular mains ... Not a scientific study mind you... In term of measurements my AC was extremely pure, more so than any mains from any country one would care to think. Simply because it was re-generated a solution which I mentioned in my post.
My view on power cable is not so much that I don't like them but that my experiences with them have been, that in the absence of knowledge, I and others were unable to "hear" the differences they were purported to make. Most cables seems to fail that test I would add.

@Mike
I am willing to open my mind and be proven wrong. I expect to visit a friend in NY and will likely hear his Shunyatta Power Cords. The test PCs will be some heavy gauge Cords I made. I will let you know how it went... Suffice to say that I have immense doubts.. Unless there is a filter somewhere in the cord, there is not much they can do...

And Jack sorry for the Hi-kack it is about your superb system, not power quality but that also would help ...