My monitor/subwoofer system

[Al M.]

Interesting Peter, clean power is so critical to higher level performance in audio, but there are more ways to foul things up than help when trying to address power concerns.

For me, my biggest learning curve was on going from straight out of house mains to a very highly regarded power conditioner. Initially noise and hash reduction was very beguiling, but the squeezing of dynamics that became apparent over time forced me to sell on the unit, and replace with a 10x cheaper balanced power transformer, thence to an audiophile grade one, and isolated feed to the latter/dedicated lines.

My industrial medical grade transformers are also already much cheaper than the audiophile stuff, and I thought they were better, but apparently they aren't after all (fortunately I didn't spend more than $ 500, for the second transformer, on what has probably been a mistake).

Most of that pricey audiophile power conditioning is junk and has fouled up audiophilia. Some may not be, and I'll keep an open mind for that, but usually the audiophile power stuff has all the same problems, with often a reduction in dynamics.

 

[spiritofmusic]

Al, for me, balanced power has been a total boon. I have the UK spec equivalent of Mike's Equi=Tech, and after multiple comparisons of going to and fro between my unit and straight out of the wall, balanced power wins across the board, incl no pinched dynamics.

 

[Lagonda]

My industrial medical grade transformers are also already much cheaper than the audiophile stuff, and I thought they were better, but apparently they aren't after all (fortunately I didn't spend more than $ 500, for the second transformer, on what has probably been a mistake).

Most of that pricey audiophile power conditioning is junk and has fouled up audiophilia. Some may not be, and I'll keep an open mind for that, but usually the audiophile power stuff has all the same problems, with often a reduction in dynamics.

I totally agree with you Al, for year i have been using PS audio regenerators on my source equipment, with plenty of headroom according to the consumption of the gear. After extensive comparative listening i prefer all my equipment from dedicated lines directly connected to the main line. The only thing i am still using a PS audio for is as a over specked speed controller on my hungry TT motor. My listening hours are often in the middle of the night where the rest of the little village i live in is sleeping, maybe that is part of the explanation

 

[PeterA]

I moved my isolation transformer to my ultrasonic record cleaning machine. I swear my records sound cleaner.

 

[Folsom]

Good morning Madfloyd,

One can never go wrong talking the benefit of clean power in audio. But is your power really dirty that it has significant enough adverse effect to the sound of your system? We have been bombarded with the info and benefit of clean power to the point most of us think we have to do "something" to clean up the power going into our gears. It is like the Clean Power 101 class of entering into university of audio. I also was one of those who spent tons of $ on these cleaning power stuff thinking I live in crowded infested Bangkok therefore my power should suck. We can go ahead and try to measure noise from our electricity. If you see the indication of noises, how does that "exactly" effect the sound in what particular area? I am just writing to stir people a second thought about his power. Your power in Boston is not going to be more polluted than mine in Bangkok. I used to live there too and your whole city is far cleaner in every dimension comparing to where I live. Power is not that bad in most cases I believe. The lecturing, talking, teaching, preaching, marketing of clean power in audio is bad. Bad for automatically guide us to almost blindfoldedly jump to buying the clean power products that the sales man keep stirring our concerns in our mind. I am just raising a question if one really needs a power cleaning device.

Says the guy that has all gear with power filters on the input...

 

[Tango]

Says the guy that has all gear with power filters on the input...

Do power supply of Lamm, Emt phono and AS2000 have power filters? If they do, good for me. Otherwise I don't have any power filtration devices between mains and equipment right now. Has been since two years back. That's why I commented earlier. I find connecting directly to main does not give me any bad sound or disadvantage to other systems using special power conditioner. I only use industrial cords. The outlets I use Panasonic bought from Home Depot. Only one side of my amp uses Furutech expensive outlet. Other than that I use Siltech distributor and Siltech Tripple Crown power cords connecting the AS2000 air pump. This is just because I have them and just use whatever I have without paying more.

 

[Folsom]

Do power supply of Lamm, Emt phono and AS2000 have power filters? If they do, good for me. Otherwise I don't have any power filtration devices between mains and equipment right now. Has been since two years back. That's why I commented earlier. I find connecting directly to main does not give me any bad sound or disadvantage to other systems using special power conditioner. I only use industrial cords. The outlets I use Panasonic bought from Home Depot. Only one side of my amp uses Furutech expensive outlet. Other than that I use Siltech distributor and Siltech Tripple Crown power cords connecting the AS2000 air pump. This is just because I have them and just use whatever I have without paying more.

Lamm uses military grade power filters on their input. They’re superior to the typical ones you find on things like DVD players or cheap electronics. They’re also like 4x the size despite being similar circuits. They actually can work with some dynamic demand unlike the cheap ones. Having strong filtration on the pump is a good idea since you can’t hear any negatives from it, but it could feed back into the line. The EMT and AS2000 use LPS’s so they don’t inject much back into the line, but it wouldn’t be a bad idea for the AS2000 to have some filtration, at least there’s no downside to that anyways.

I totally agree that few power conditioners are worth the effort, but some work just fine. The truth is the people designing them rarely understand the intricacies of an AC eco-system.

A lot of what they do is reduce shared noise from equipment through the AC, the amount of noise from the line is often much less. As in the amp, preamp, and phono “talk” to eachother through AC but shouldn’t. (Lamm’s filters reduce the chatter)

 

[MadFloyd]

In all seriousness, I do think the cleaner the sound, the smaller the sound. Sort of like focusing an image; when it's blurry it's larger, when it comes into focus it's smaller. However, unlike photography, focused is not always as desirable in audio.

 

[PeterA]

In all seriousness, I do think the cleaner the sound, the smaller the sound. Sort of like focusing an image; when it's blurry it's larger, when it comes into focus it's smaller. However, unlike photography, focused is not always as desirable in audio.

I think the photography analogy only goes so far, Ian. Focus is nice on the subject, but we often prefer blurred backgrounds for portraits. There are all sorts of different perspectives and frame orientations and we can manipulate in an editing program how sharp the detail is.

With music, we do not have these visual stimulations, certainly not at home. Music is about the expansion of sound (energy) in the room. I used to try to distinguish between the size or "image" of the origin of the sound, the piano, the cello, the soprano, the string section and the size of the sound (energy) leaving the instrument. This expansion, some call it blooming, is not about focus or dimension, it is expanding energy and therefore fundamentally different from a fixed image in a photograph, at least IMO.

I agree with you that focus is not always desirable in audio. I never really hear focus when listening to live music. Focus of what? I used to conflate the image I saw with my eyes with the sound I heard with my ears. That was misguided, or at least, I no longer think of sound in those terms.

 

[Al M.]

In all seriousness, I do think the cleaner the sound, the smaller the sound. Sort of like focusing an image; when it's blurry it's larger, when it comes into focus it's smaller. However, unlike photography, focused is not always as desirable in audio.

It might be possible that a cleaner sound, as it is achieved, becomes smaller because that is what it naturally does. Yet it could also be that the device that cleans up the sound causes it to become smaller by a concomitant electronic artifact introduced by it (e.g., choking of sound). I don't think there is a simple answer, but my suspicion goes to the latter option.

Furthermore, if I read Peter's impressions correctly, the sound without the isolation transformers was actually cleaner in his view (less HF distortions), but it was still bigger. I personally didn't hear much difference in cleanness of sound this time with or without transformers (so that would take cleanness out of the equation), and still the sound without transformers was clearly bigger, with more energy.

Lastly, since not just images, but the whole soundstage and energy projection of the sound became smaller with transformers, the idea of 'focus' making things smaller only goes so far in this instance. Perhaps this last comment goes into the direction of what Peter was saying in the previous post.

 

[Kingsrule]

In all seriousness, I do think the cleaner the sound, the smaller the sound. Sort of like focusing an image; when it's blurry it's larger, when it comes into focus it's smaller. However, unlike photography, focused is not always as desirable in audio.

Actually the exact opposite IMO. Cleaner gives more details, especially side wall and back corner information, leading to a more defined dimension which is the same size or actually bigger

 

[Folsom]

It might be possible that a cleaner sound, as it is achieved, becomes smaller because that is what it naturally does. Yet it could also be that the device that cleans up the sound causes it to become smaller by a concomitant electronic artifact introduced by it (e.g., choking of sound). I don't think there is a simple answer, but my suspicion goes to the latter option.

You've heard another sound coming out of your speakers that was joking part of the music? I have doubts.

That reads like someone trying to figure out the cause of a plague that has never heard of bacteria or viruses. It just doesn't make sense. Consider that distortion is known for diffusing images, and you're proposing something almost like adding distortion as the problem.

The more simple answers are confined to what we already know... a lot of conditioning devices cause voltage droop when they use too much current due to poor design (same with countless amounts of gear). That and the microphones and speakers lend themselves to the phenomenon fairly naturally. It's very important to remember that live music has reflections etc, but the way we record doesn't often include them.

I don't recommend getting obsessed with the imaging. The changes of it are byproduct of more natural sound, not the other way around.

 

[Al M.]

You've heard another sound coming out of your speakers that was joking part of the music? I have doubts.

Frankly, I don't understand what you are reading in my post. When something is choking the sound by limiting power, that is not a sound.

 

[Folsom]

Frankly, I don't understand what you are reading in my post. When something is choking the sound by limiting power, that is not a sound.

Yes but an artifact would be would if its contaminating the music itself.

 

[Al M.]

Yes but an artifact would be would if its contaminating the music itself.

Now we're splitting hairs about my wording. Not interested, thanks.

 

[Folsom]

You can call it that. I’m just interested in fighting the nonsense that is the word “artifact” being thrown around for a concept of bullshit gremlins that don’t exist. It’s become a word to explain things that people refuse to accept any sort of reality of...

 

[Al M.]

From Peter's system thread:

So far, none of the larger speakers I have heard has made me wish to have them in my mid-sized room which is limited in particular by width (12 feet). And I have heard some of them with regular exposure.

There may be some advantages from larger speakers in some areas, but the financial cost of getting there is too high for me, if I don't want to accept lesser intrinsic performance compared to my current speakers in other areas, which I don't. And there are very real potential disadvantages in my room, and some almost certain ones.

ddk's reply:

I'm not trying to sell you any speakers or talk you into anything but 12' isn't too bad Al, if you have enough space for subs and monitors then you have room for bigger speakers too. As far as cost goes there are some extremely wonderful vintage speakers not demanding much money, it's a matter of wanting to start over.

david

(I moved my answer here in order not to derail the other thread.)

Thank you for the encouragement, David. While I might enjoy them on a good amount of musical material, I doubt though that vintage speakers would satisfy me on all music.

A great strength in performance with my current speakers is on string quartets, to name just one example. On much of string quartet playing and recordings, the micro-detail of texture is more subtle than on solo violin.

My previous speakers, Reference 3A MM DeCapo BE monitors, were rather quite good on solo violin. Yet compared to my current speakers, the Reflector monitors from the same brand, their performance on the subtle timbral micro-detail, including bowing transients, of string quartets was much weaker and thus less believable. While of course string quartets on my current speakers still do not sound like live, the believability is on a level that is quite stunning to me and something that until a few years ago I did not think was possible with home stereo reproduction. The chasm between this and the comparatively flat sonic, and expressive, performance on this music on my previous monitors is quite brutal and not funny (the Reflector are also yet considerably better on solo violin).

The drivers are almost the same between the two monitors, even though they are more hand selected on the Reflector. The main difference is the inertness of cabinet, which was already quite high in the MM DeCapo BE, but on yet a whole other level in the Reflector. The inertness of cabinet eliminates resonances that blur resolution of fine detail. (Interestingly, rather than deadening the sound, the inert cabinet enhances dynamics and liveliness, apparently because cabinet resonances do not counteract and diffuse the energy coming from the drivers.)

Vintage speakers would have more cabinet resonances, and especially ones with larger cabinets, which are intrinsically harder to not to make resonate too much.

So it is highly unlikely that I would be able to get anything like the remarkably realistic performance on string quartet, which I so much enjoy from my current monitors, from larger vintage speakers, at least from conventional cone speakers. But that kind of performance, faithful to subtle timbral micro-detail, is for me personally also an integral part of natural sound.

 

[Folsom]

Hmm I dunno, some vintage speakers are pretty amazing.

 

[Tango]

The ability of some vintage speakers is extraordinary in the frequency range up to 18,000 hz. They do the meat and fresh range so good your string quartet could be almost like physically right there in front of you. It is a different sound that doesn't put a microscope on like you described your system, but it really has its magic.

 

[Al M.]

The ability of some vintage speakers is extraordinary in the frequency range up to 18,000 hz. They do the meat and fresh range so good your string quartet could be almost like physically right there in front of you. It is a different sound that doesn't put a microscope on like you described your system, but it really has its magic.

Don't worry, string quartet sounds very physical, meaty and right there on my speakers as well. I was just basking in the vigorous, almost vehement sound of Haydn's quartet op. 33/4, played in a wonderfully lively and commanding performance by the Eybler Quartet.

https://www.eyblerquartet.com/