The argument for/against room treatment

[Lagonda]

Only exceptionally or with poor quality / underpowered regenerators. Most of us do not have kilowatt Krell's!

People should get an AC voltmeter and measure the difference in their mains voltage when they switch a 5A load on and off. Many will be horrified with the result.

I try not to run my washing machine or sauna when i listen to music And my air compressor only runs for 1 minute every hour.

 

[Robh3606]

Only exceptionally or with poor quality / underpowered regenerators. Most of us do not have kilowatt Krell's!

People should get an AC voltmeter and measure the difference in their mains voltage when they switch a 5A load on and off. Many will be horrified with the result.

Well that should not be an issue at all. Sounds like a poor connection somewhere either at the breaker box or the plug. Are you measuring at the plug or the actual main feed. A little dangerous going to the house main feed.

Rob

 

[microstrip]

Well that should not be an issue at all. Sounds like a poor connection somewhere either at the breaker box or the plug. Are you measuring at the plug or the actual main feed. A little dangerous going to the house main feed.

Rob

Did you try my suggested test?

 

[Robh3606]

Did you try my suggested test?

No! I not going anywhere near my house feed. I don't have an AC voltmeter or a current meter to see what the actual load is or for that matter a dummy load that can safely sink 5 amps at 120V AC that can be safely switched on and off while monitoring the voltage.

So where did you measure??

Rob

 

[Lagonda]

No! I not going anywhere near my house feed. I don't have an AC voltmeter or a current meter to see what the actual load is or for that matter a dummy load that can safely sink 5 amps at 120V AC that can be safely switched on and off while monitoring the voltage.

So where did you measure??

Rob

Real men have a voltmeter and we measure at 230 V

 

[Al M.]

Real men have a voltmeter and we measure at 230 V

 

[Robh3606]

Real men have a voltmeter and we measure at 230 V

LOL!!!

 

[Lagonda]

LOL!!!

Monty Python rules !

 

[stehno]

Stehno, which recording of Firebird is that? It sounds rather different from my recording in terms of performance and emphasis of certain instruments.

Peter, that's from a Reference Recording orchestral sampler entitled Tutti!.

I agree with your point that clean power, speaker and listening position, and low system noise level can go a long way to achieving great sound without the need for audiophile acoustic room treatments.

Appreciated. But to be clear, I'm talking of speaker and subwoofer placement / tuning AND a playback system with a greatly lowered noise floor. The implication being that every last one of our playback systems starts out with much raised noise floors and many remain there. IMO, to just say clean power potentially opens pandora's box for others chasing windmills, more rabbit holes, etc that don't seem to go verry far. When to the best of my knowledge it's all found in my signature below - which may need to be slightly updated.

When all this is working together, when can surely listen at a more realistic volume.

Actually Peter, I consider this a gross understatement. These strategies benefit far more than just realistic volumes and hopefully my videos illustrate. Yes, louder more realistic volumes is the ultimate stress test. But only if levels of musicality increase with the increased volume levels. Because at some point along the way to loud every playback system starts to significantly falter sonically e.g. fatigue, ear bleed, breakup, flattening out, etc. and becomes less musical due to its much raised noise floor. In fact, I'm convinced we're all been conditioned to listen at lower volume levels because this can and will lead to hearing damage. Perhaps because all of the smaller playback presentation imperfections induced by a much raised noise floor become greatly magnified along with the music as volume increases.

But near as I can tell the collective whole of these two paths / strategies I mention benefit EVERYTHING in a very big way. But if I had to choose just one, hands down it would be a greatly lowered system noise floor. OTOH, a superior / musical bass impacts and balances out the entire playback presentation to the nth degree and is quite the icing on a presumably already beautiful cake.

BTW, when I say benefit everything in a very big way I really do mean benefit everything in a very big way and with hopefully little/no hype. For example. 7 years ago I upgraded $17k retail in source and int. amp to $4k retail replacement source and amps and never looked back. In fact, I still have those 2 components and I have no real desire or need to upgrade. I've done similar "upgrades" elsewhere too and each time the sonics went up while their costs drastically went down as I continue to whittle away at the system's noise floor. Last time I checked, I'm pretty confident I can easily disprove maybe 11 very popular and very costly beliefs or folklore - acoustic treatments being just one of them. "The room is the most important component" being another, etc. So it's not just more realistic volume levels but everything required to allow that to happen in a very musical way.

I'm not saying sonic improvements can't be had with a custom room, a component upgrade, or strategic acoustic treatments. Sonic improvements, especially smaller ones, can be found most anywhere. Rather it's really just to say these so-called "necessities" in most cases only provide very limited minor improvements and even collectively could/should pale in comparison to even a reasonably humble system with a drastically lowered noise floor.

I'm oversimplfying things as a drastically lowered noise floor is based on a couple of primary aspects but also many smaller seemingly never-ending aspects of the playback vineyard and requires far more than just token efforts. Sure some may already address many of these aspects to some degree and to some degree others may give more than a token effort to knowingly / unknowingly lower a system's noise floor. But it has to be the right aspects combined with the right efforts or it's mostly for naught.

 

[MadFloyd]

I'm getting the impression that stehno is suggesting that vibration management is key to reducing noise floor. If so, I find that interesting because I have found that vibration mgmt tools simply make things sound more hifi and fatiguing.

 

[Lagonda]

I'm getting the impression that stehno is suggesting that vibration management is key to reducing noise floor. If so, I find that interesting because I have found that vibration mgmt tools simply make things sound more hifi and fatiguing.

I am just patiently waiting on the introduction of some new product, all these words must lead to something specific in the end

 

[stehno]

If you would have paid attention, I do not listen at elevators levels, but rather loudly, even though I avoid ear-damaging volume levels.

I do pay attention. When I hear or read something noteworthy, I'm there.

I agree, room treatments or other means to get rid of unwanted reflections/resonances are more important at loud listening levels.

Do you pay attention?

I would have expected that you know by now where I stand on the Audiophile Video Wars on WBF and that I don't do videos.

Oh, THAT Al M !!! Yeah, yeah, sure sure. My parole officer talks about you all the time.

Most videos don't sound good, and none that I have heard sound convincing.

I can't disagree there. But can't the same be said about most playback systems? IOW, are not some of these of these videos infomative to you? Why must they sound good to bring value? I don't see these in-room videos as entertainment. I see them as educational and informative. Good, bad, or ugly, they provide us insight that previously was unavailable to us about the person, their knowledge, as well as their playback system. Not to mention the insights gathered from those commenting on these videos. I find them quite informative. Even those that won't comment are potentially telling a story. And every once in a while I'll encounter a pretty stellar video. I even find your comments about in-room videos informative.

That includes your videos too.

Now you've gone too far.

I have in fact answered that question in #88.

See my first response above.

 

[stehno]

Replying in general to stenho's posts let me try to paraphrase what I'm reading and stenho can correct me as necessary - he's saying that if the playback system is good enough, any reasonable room with a decent mix of soft furniture and typical home furnishing items will provide an excellent listening experience so there'd be nothing important to be gained from trying to make the room better with exotic treatments such as bass traps or other specialized devices. Did I get that right?

Close enough.

I have listened to a bunch of those videos and it does sound to me like things are working pretty well in that room with those speakers. I do hear a consistent room sound from those recordings,

By room sound I'd like to think you're referring to recording hall because in most every case, that's what I think I'm hearing, even with many poorly-engineered recordings. But if by room, you mean listening room, I hope you're hearing very little "room sound". I've included a video below and would appreciate your take. This music piece I found on a Telarc sampler disk a few years ago and find it to be a nice little gem.

the typical effect that you hear more on the recording than you do when you're actually listening there in real life. I'm convinced that he's got a great sounding setup there.

Thanks.

I know from my experience that you can get an extremely enjoyable experience from a good playback system without specialized room treatments. But I'll disagree that there's nothing more to be gained from engineered room treatments. If it doesn't matter to you, then that's perfectly fine. We each have our threshold of what's good enough to get us into the musical mental state we are seeking.

Actually, I never said no improvements can be made. IME, little improvement potentials are endless and abound most everywhere. But little improvements are quite limited and a FAR cry from necessity or requirement as some/many claim.

I'll confess that I currently don't have any specialized room treatments. I've experimented with them a little and heard the improvements but right now I don't have the means or space to keep them in place. Like stenho, I have big speakers which solve some of the problems and I'm getting a pleasing experience.

Speaker size isn't all that significant IMO though I'd prefer large over small. I think. But it's all too easy to overload a smaller room with a larger speaker if one is not careful. Thus far, I definitely prefer full range over limited range though recent revelations with my subwoofer's potential certainly make me more open-minded toward smaller speakers. Ideally and from a purely aesthestic perspective, I'd like nothing more than to possess the smallest speaker possible. Provided I wasn't missing a thing musically including bass and I think with much work that can be done.

Working in the acoustics area I have many experiences with people who are very happy with their excellent systems but who then try some acoustics and find that it really makes a profound improvement. Residential rooms really do tend to have certain problems and those can really be addressed with bass traps! Some, like me, know they work but don't have them yet for various practical reasons. Almost never do I get feedback that there's no meaningful improvement.

Residential rooms tend to have certain problems or residential playback systems?

Thoughts on a "room sound"?

 

[stehno]

I'm getting the impression that stehno is suggesting that vibration management is key to reducing noise floor. If so, I find that interesting because I have found that vibration mgmt tools simply make things sound more hifi and fatiguing.

Oops, quite the contrary, MF. Most likely you were employing inferior products and/or methods which is quite common. Superior forms of vibration mgmt at the components and speakers is by far the greatest dragon slayer. But then there's superior forms of AC conditioning as well. Then there are superior forms of vibration mgmt employed at the superior forms of AC conditioning. Then there's superior methods of cryo-treating every possible electrical part including outlets, romex, ic's, speaker cables, power cables, IEC connectors and inlets, fuses, plugs, etc. Then there's forms of vibration mgmt at the speaker cables. Ensuring dedicated lines at the service panel are on the same leg/phase, etc.

But to clarify. Lately I'm suspecting it's all about the dirty AC coming in from the street and the further corruption of low-voltage electrical currents passing along the signal path from the source to the speaker drivers. IOW, it's ALL about the electrical and finding the most extreme ways in which to purify it or at least absolutely minimize its corruption. Which to me makes all the sense in the world when we're talking about this phenomena we call a playback system's noise floor level.

The above pretty much makes up the entirety of my humble but hopefully extremely-well-thought-out playback system. In fact, a whopping 65% of my entire system's retail cost is made up to manage these things. And it all flies smack dab in the face of so much of what we've been told by the so-called "experts" over the decades. To the point where I think I'm able to easily demonstrate that the electrical energy and how we do/don't treat it makes up the foundation of every last playback system. IOW, the gains are so drastic that it's the components that have become the accessories.

BTW, I know I'm right about this. Otherwise, I'd change my opinion. In fact, I just updated my signature to more accurately reflect this.

 

[BlueFox]

A few years ago I was at Magico listening to a comparison between the S5 and the S7. While the S5 was playing I commented that it sounded just like mine. At that, Alon Wolf said "That's the point." However, mine are in the living room, not a dedicated, acoustically treated, and isolated listening room.

 

[stehno]

Again, I would love to have a technical definition of what means "clean power" . Particularly as one source of noise is own system! Ideal mains is a pure sinusoidal wave of constant amplitude and zero output impedance, nothing added! However some people seem to prefer their uncontrolled noisy and distorted mains supply.

In the spirit of not derailing this thread, IME, clean AC (whatever that means) better yet superior managed electrical energy is perhaps the best argument against acoustic treatments as well perhaps a small host of other common beliefs / folklore. As is speaker / subwoofer positioning / tuning but that's another subject.

Common Claims of Clean AC
- I live next to the Hoover Dam
- I live in a residential neighborhood.
- My electrican or local electric co. technician told me my AC power is clean.
- I have dedicated circuits / lines.
- My voltage meter shows a steady 110 or 220v reading.
- I shut off my appliances while listening.
- The designers of my $500k worth of componentry are geniuses and know what they're doing.
- etc.

IME, these and other claims, though seemingly logical on its face, are misconceptions or misunderstandings if not just plain folklore as all AC is supposedly universally quite dirty perhaps by its very nature. Very few are aware and far fewer know what to do. At the very least it would serve us well to at least pretend our AC is dirty because otherwise we're not gonna' lift a finger to even try to do anything about it. Or if we do try something, it may just be a token effort.

I can't provide a sufficient definition of truly "clean power" and frankly I'm unaware of any who can as I suspect there's just too many knowns and perhaps unknowns that can even slightly impact the quality of our electrical energy in some form.

I've dabbled with electrical energy mgnt for 20 years (not really knowing much about it) and your comment caused me to reflect on some things to share just in case any of us really think our AC is clean.

Fisrthand Experiences
- Superior line conditioners (LC's) are rare and are some of the best musical gains most could ever experience.
- Inferior LC's abound and do nothing or induce their own sonic harm.
- Seemingly, the more popular the LC's mfg'er, the more likely it's an inferior line conditioner.
- Some component manufacturers will make a cheap alteration to their otherwise expensive product to give their product a slight "musical" edge over the competition. Think cheap $5 AC filter installed behind the IEC inlet.
- Never do components sound more musical when any type of AC conditioning / filtering is doubled up or daisy-chained especially when different mfg'ers and/or employ different methodologies. For example. Say you own a $50k amp with a cheap $5 AC filter installed behind the IEC inlet and your friend asks you audition his musical $5k LC. You plug it in and it sounds a tad worse rather than better. Nobody seems to know why but this has been consistantly true over the years.
- Lifting / floating the ground on one or more components can improve sonics.
- Lifting / floating the ground on all but one component can improve sonics further.
- Lifting speaker cables (sc's), PC's, LC's, and/or components 4+ inches off the carpet can improve sonics.
- Cryo-treating romex, wall outlets, plugs, IEC connectors and inlets, fuses, ic's, sc's, PC's, etc via the inferior vapor method can improve sonics.
- Double cryo-treating the above electrical objects via the popular but inferior vapor method can improve sonics further.
- Cryo-treating the above electrical objects via the superior full immersion method can improve sonics further.
- Applying forms of vibration mgmt to components, sc's, and/or LC's can degrade/improve sonics.
- Applying superior forms of vibration mgmt to components, sc's, and/or LC's can improve sonics further.
- Using silver cables can improve/degrade sonics seemingly dependent on system's current resolution.
- The quality of construction / materials of audio-grade electrical objects can improve / degrade sonics.
- Dedicated circuits / lines can minimize some noises elsewhere in the house but do nothing to cleanse the dirty AC coming in from the street.
- High current drawing amplifiers connected to their own dedicated circuit / line can improve sonics.
- Dedicated circuits / lines connected to the same leg / phase at the service panel can improve sonics.
- Digital components including computers, etc will induce an audible (and perhaps inaudible) bi-directional digital noise.
- Bi-directional digital noise goes back up the PC to the wall outlet and some say all the way back to the service panel and then induce its harm into other components.
- Digital components should never share the same power distribution unit (power center or power strip) with other components.
- Digital components should never share the same circuit / line with other digital / analog components.
- Digital components and all other components benefit with superior LC's employing bi-directional filtering.
- Class D amps, though not digital, will induce a digital-like bi-directional noise and hence must be thought of and treated as a digital component.
- Class D stereo amps sharing a single IEC inlet will share a digital-like noise between L/R ch that no external AC treatment can remedy.
- Class D int. amps sharing this digital-like noise between L/R ch will also share this noise with the active gainstage and cannot be remedied.
- Class D monoblock amps each with their own dedicated bi-directional filtering LC's can improve sonics and not induce harm to other components.
- Digital components and/or Class D monoblock amps without superior bi-directional filtering LC's can degrade sonics and give the impression all digital and/or Class D amps are interior to analog and/or other amp types.
- Analog components can freely share a single power distribution unit/power strip and/or a single superior LC without perhaps any sonic degredation.
- Ensuring all cables maintain a certain distance from one another can improve sonics.
- Fewer components in a playback system can improve sonics.
- Active gainstage preamps can degrade sonics while also inducing surreal dynamics and a distortive artifact popularly known as "jump factor".
- Aftermarket wall outlets, plugs, IEC connectors and inlets, ic's, sc', pc's, fuses, etc. can improve sonics.
- A $100 DIY custom fully cryo'ed PC can match the sonic performance of a $6000 non-cryo'ed PC.
- Aftermarket PC's performance improvements pale in comparison to superior LC's.
- Cryo-treating any smaller electronic object or cable via the superior full-immersion method seems to be the single most important ingredient from a performance perspective.
- A Home Depot 20amp wall outlet or plug can improve sonics over a standard 15amp version.
- All the above and more will potentially impact a playback system's noise floor.

Additional Considerations
- Most every electrical replacement object requires burn-in and/or settling-in time before hearing the sonic benefits.
- Small electrical objects like fuses, outlets, plugs, IEC connectors, etc most always take +-53 hours.
- 1M ic's generally about 5.5 days burn-in
- 2M speaker cables generally about 7 -8 days burn-in.
- Typical components about 150 - 250 hours burn-in.
- Atypical components upwards of 500 hours burn-in. Think huge toroidal power supplies.
- Lifting power cables 4+ inches off the carpet 1 - 2 days settling in time.
- Lifting speaker cables 4+ inches off the carpet about 4 days settling-in time.
- Some ic's, PC's, and sc's are senstive and if moved at all require 1 - 2 days resettling times.
- Sending out your used electrical objects / cables, etc to be cryo-treated will return the objects to a new unburned-in state and requires standard burn-in times all over again prior to experiencing its sonic benefits.
- Electrical burn-in seems irrelevant to volume levels.
- etc, etc.

Burn-in times imply round-the-clock play time. Some people's biggest failures is to try something new and good, give it a spin, and because they heard no immediate improvement take it out never giving it a chance to burn-in and/or settle-in. They'll tell the world their system is too good or such a product or method is snake oil and their followers believe them. Especially if their playback system includes much bling.

Some will install a new electrical object say a fuse and immediately claim it changed their world before any burn-in and/or settling-in. If the object was already burned-in prior to I suppose it's possible. Otherwise, I've never encountered such immediacy at least with smaller electrical objects.

There are plenty of other things to consider that I've not experienced but have heard or read more than once from what I consider reputable sources. But hopefully the incomplete list above makes it clear that many of us have overlooked a potentially very significant sector of our playback systems. Think noise floors?

And near as I can tell, no other part nor any collection of other parts of the playback vineyard can have such a profound effect on our playback systems as much as those who perform serious due diligence on their electrical energy mgmt. Not even close.

Caveat
Everybody's mileage should vary with every one of these items listed as there are just too many variables. Some of these gains/degradations can be rather small or quite large and some depend on design, quality of materials, executions, our ears, system resolution levels, etc. Most importantly, if you try something and you hear no difference or you think it sounds worse, that does not necessarily imply it's snake oil. It could well imply your playback system's resolution is worse than you thought. If it sounds worse, it's entirely possible the alteration worked and is now audibly exposing another area requiring attention that previously was hidden.

 

[microstrip]

(...) Was it not you who said since you live near a power station and/or a small town your AC is clean? Very common claim. (...)

No, I did not say it. Please read my post again and if possible correct your post. I said "my house mains is very stable ". It would be ridiculous questioning the use of the "clean mains "as being ambiguous and meaningless and using it immediately.

I will come to your long and interesting post later.

 

[morricab]

To ensure I'm not derailing this thread, IME, clean AC (whatever that means) better yet superior managed electrical energy is perhaps the best argument against acoustic treatments as well perhaps a small host of other common beliefs / folklore. As is speaker / subwoofer positioning / tuning but that's another subject.

Was it not you who said since you live near a power station and/or a small town your AC is clean? Very common claim.

Other Common Claims
- My electrican or local electric co. technician told me my AC power is clean so it's clean.
- I have dedicated circuits / lines so my AC is clean.
- My voltage meter shows a steady 110 or 220v reading so my AC is clean.
- I shut off my appliances while listening so my AC is clean.
- My designers of my $500k worth of components knows what they're doing so my AC is clean at the components.
- etc.

To the best of my knowledge, every last one of these and other claims, though seemingly logical on its face, are misconceptions or misunderstandings if not just plain folklore as all AC is supposedly universally quite dirty perhaps by its very nature. At the very least it would serve us well to at least pretend our AC is dirty because otherwise we're not gonna' lift a finger to even try to do anything about it. Or if we do try something, it may just be a token effort.

I can't provide you a sufficient definition of truly "clean power" and frankly I'm unaware of any who can as I suspect there's just too many knowns and perhaps yet to be knowns that can even slightly impact the quality of our electrical energy in some form.

I've dabbled with electrical energy mgnt for 20 years (not really knowing much about it) and your comment caused me to reflect on some things to share just in case any of us really think our AC is clean.

Things I Think I Know Fisrthand
- Superior line conditioners are rare and are some of the best musical gains most could ever experience.
- Inferior line conditioners abound and do nothing or induce their own sonic harm.
- Seemingly, the more popular the line condtioner's mfg'er, the more likely it's an inferior line conditioner.
- Some component manufacturers will make a cheap alteration to their otherwise expensive product to give their product a slight "musical" edge over the competition. Think a cheap $5 AC filter installed behind the IEC inlet.
- Never do components sound more musical when any type of AC conditioning or filtering is doubled up especially if different manufacturers and/or employing different methodologies. For example. Say you own a $50k amp with a cheap $5 AC filter installed behind the IEC inlet and your friend asks you audition his fabulously performing $5k line conditioner. You plug it in and it sounds a tad worse rather than better. Nobody seems to know why but this has been consistantly true over the years.
- Lifting / floating the ground on one or more components can improve sonics.
- Lifting / floating the ground on all but one component can improve sonics further.
- Lifting speaker cables, PC's, line conditioners, and/or components 4+ inches off the carpet can improve sonics.
- Cryo-treating romex, wall outlets, plugs, IEC connectors and inlets, fuses, ic's, sc's, pc's, etc via the inferior vapor method can improve sonics.
- Double cryo-treating the above electrical objects via the inferior vapor method can improve sonics even more.
- Cryo-treating the above electrical objects via the superior full immersion method can improve sonics even more.
- Applying forms of vibration mgmt to components and/or AC line conditioners can degrade/improve sonics.
- Applying superior forms of vibration mgmt to components and AC line conditioners can improve sonics further.
- Applying forms of vibration mgmt to speaker cables can degrade/improve sonics.
- Applying superior forms of vibration mgmt to speaker cables can improe sonics further.
- Using silver cables can improve/degrade sonics seemingly dependent on system's current resolution.
- The quality of construction and materials of audio-grade electrical objects can improve or degrade sonics.
- High current drawing amplifiers connected to their own dedicated circuit / line can improve sonics.
- Dedicated circuits / lines connected to the same leg / phase at the service panel can improve sonics.
- Digital components including computers, etc will introduce an audible (and perhaps inaudible) bi-directional digial noise.
- Bi-directional digital noise will go back up the power cable to the wall outlet and some say all the way back to the service panel and then induces its noise into other components.
- Digital components should never share the same power distribution unit (power center or power strip) with other components.
- Digital components should never share the same circuit / line with other digital or analog components.
- Digital components and all other components benefit from line conditioners employing bi-directional filtering.
- Class D amps, though not digital, will induce a digital-like bi-directional noise and hence must be thought of as a digital component and treated as such.
- Class D stereo amps sharing a single IEC inlet will share a digital-like noise between the channels that no external AC treatment can remedy.
- Class D monoblock amps each with their own dedicated bi-directional filtering line conditioners can improve sonics.
- Analog components can freely share a single power distribution unit/power strip and/or a single line conditioner without perhaps any sonic degredation.
- Ensuring power cables and all other wires and cables maintain a certain distance from one another can improve sonics.
- Fewer components in a playback system can improve sonics since less electrical needs to be treated.
- Aftermarket wall outlets, plugs, IEC connectors and inlets, ic's, sc', pc's, fuses, etc. can improve sonics.
- A $100 DIY custom fully cryo'ed power cable can match the sonic performance of a $6000 non-cryo'ed power cable.
- Aftermarket power cables performance improvements pale in comparison to superior line conditioning.
- Cryo-treating a cable or other electronic part via the superior full-immersion method seems to be the single most important ingredient from a performance perspective.
- A Home Depot 20amp wall outlet or plug can improve sonics over a standard 15amp version.
- All the above and more will potentially impact a playback system's noise floor.

Additional Considerations
- Replacing one fuse with a cryo-treated fuse to me makes no audible difference but replacing all fuses at the same time does.
- Most every electrical replacement object requires burn-in and/or settling-in time before hearing the sonic benefits.
- Small electrical objects like fuses, outlets, plugs, IEC connectors, etc most always take +-53 hours.
- 1M ic's generally about 5.5 days burn-in
- 2M speaker cables generally about 7 -8 days burn-in.
- Typical component about 150 - 250 hours burn-in.
- Atypical component upwards of 500 hours burn-in. Think huge toroidal power supplies.
- Lifting power cables 4+ inches off the carpet 1 - 2 days settling in time.
- Lifting speaker cables 4+ inches off the carpet about 4 days settling-in time.
- Some ic's, pc's, and sc's are senstive and if moved at all require 1 - 2 days resettling times.
- Sending out your used electrical parts or cables, etc to be cryo-treated will return the object to a new unburned-in state and requires standard burn-in times all over again prior to experiencing its sonic benefits.
- etc, etc.

Burn-in times implies round-the-clock play time. Some people's biggest failures is to try something new and good, give it a spin, and because they heard no immediate difference take it out never giving it a chance to burn-in and/or settle-in. Even worse, they'll never try it again while telling the world such a product or method is snake oil and their followers believe them. Especially if their playback system includes much bling.

Some will install a new electrical object say a fuse and immediately claim it changed their world before any burn-in and/or settling-in. If the object was already burned-in prior that's possible. Otherwise, I've never encountered such immediacy at least with smaller electrical objects.

There are plenty of other things to consider that I've not experienced but I've heard or read more than once from what I consider reputable sources but hopefully the incomplete list above makes it clear that many of us have overlooked a potentially very significant sector of our playback systems. Think noise floors???

And near as I can tell, no other part nor any collection of other parts of the playback vineyard can have such a profound effect on our playback systems as much as those who perform serious due diligence on their electrical energy mgmt. Not even close.

Caveat
Everybody's mileage should vary with every one of these items listed as there are just too many variables. Some of these gains/degradations can be rather small or quite large but again some depend on design, quality of materials, executions, resolution levels of your system, etc. Most importantly, if you try something and you hear no difference or you think it sounds worse, that does not necessarily imply it's snake oil. It could well mean that playback system's resolution is worse than you thought or if it sounds worse, it's entirely possible the alteration worked and is now audibly exposing another area requiring attention that previously was hidden.

I didn’t see any mention of power regeneration. I have heard big gains in noise floor and soundstage by employing one on my digital or analog source (only 1 plugged in at a time). It effectively isolates the source from the rest and gives clean power to that source.

 

[stehno]

Currently nothing, my house mains is very stable - residential zone of low density population, 50 meters away from the street mains distribution transformer. But I have used with success the PSAudio P10 for some time.

Was I not even in the ballpark? Is it not all too easy for readers to read stable mains and interpret it as clean AC? Doesn't stable imply nothing to do here? In fact, you even admit here you currently do nothing because your house mains is very stable.

Even so, I apologize and I shall correct.

 

[stehno]

I didn’t see any mention of power regeneration.

No mention of power regeneration because I only listed my firsthand experiences.

Actually, I think I stand corrected. When I was an in-home dealer I sold and installed some amps for a doctor friend who employed some PS Audio line conditioners around 2005. A smaller unit but also a larger bit of a mosterous unit (about the size of a hefty mid-sized amplifier) which was I think something like a P600 Power Plant which was some kind of power regenerator and line conditioner combined.

I installed the amps and after about 10 min of listening, my ears couldn't take it any more so I asked if we could just try listening with all his components plugged directly into wall and by-pass the PS Audio gear. He did and even he noticed a musical improvement. I drove home and brought back my own Foundation Research line conditioners and we installed them. Significantly more musical and he purchased 3 units from me.

So I think that's my only potential experience with power regenerators if that's what it was. And if there's any tuning on those PS Audio units, it's entirely possible they were not tuned properly.

I have heard from others supposedly in-the-know that power regenerators can provide some benefit but they too carry forward much / all of the dirty AC coming in from the street since they do nothing to purify, cleanse, condition, and/or filter the dirt. That's only what I heard and I'm sure some units employ different strategies and/or methodologies.

I have heard big gains in noise floor and soundstage by employing one on my digital or analog source (only 1 plugged in at a time). It effectively isolates the source from the rest and gives clean power to that source.

Nice. But what does "hearing big gains in noise floor" mean? I think we have entirely different definitions of noise floor.