BASICS, IMPROVEMENTS AND THE
‘15 MINUTES OFF’
Major basics can be forgotten. We’ve covered a few
above. In our consumer product-oriented era, things
that can’t be packaged and sold often don’t appear over
the radar much. Long before buying any devices or
products (other than Deoxit contact cleaner), I suggest
you check you don’t have any loose screws anywhere
in your electrical wiring. This may involve paying an
electrician once every few years, and might save a fire,
so it’s worthwhile on good housekeeping grounds alone.
A dedicated mains supply, mentioned by Chris Bryant
(HIFICRITIC No 4), is another early step, whether at
the most basic level, or up to my Super Spur design with
Kimber or armoured 4-core cabling.
A simple test: with a warmed-up and playing and just
listened to system, and at a time of day that listening
occurs, switch off everything else in your house. Check
the sonic difference. Then power them back up. Try this
again when you know the neighbours are away. Sonic
changes observed indicate the severity of any mains
pollution caused by the immediate environment, and the
interactions that might result, but not more generic local
pollution. No change is the best result for this test.
DEVICE LIMITATIONS
& PERMUTATION TRIALS
Let’s reiterate: The AC supply is public, and its capacity
is not finite. Thus, it is obvious that most every device
connected and disconnected to & from the mains,
must affect it, in some or other way. The effect/s may be
subtle, but may be shown by advanced measurements,
calculations, or inferred from principles. Seemingly
subtle effects may be magnified by resonances, or raised
above the noisefloor into audibility when that noisefloor
lowers. It follows that devices devised or invented
to enhance mains quality, as well as different hi-fi
equipment and different electrical items used by yourself
and neighbours, will all be involved in creating a series
of complex variations.
An easily forgotten yet obvious feature of PC power
cleaning devices, is that, like any other ‘problem solver’,
benefits will appear to be absent if and while there are no
problems. Anyone trying such equipment, needs to trial
it for a period, and ideally also remove it periodically, to
check whether results are positive, marginal, or negative.
It is not always realised, that even if you use only one
or two power conditioners, there are permutations of
use, any of which might give the best improvement. For
example, if a CD player pollutes the supply by more than
it needs a clean supply, then placing it on the incoming
side of a single PC will be valuable. With just two PCs,
the permutations increase; a large PC could deal with
just the amplification, with the low level items fed from
a second, smaller PC. In a true dual-mono system, equal
large PCs could handle each stereo side. Or the 2nd PC
might be used to isolate the CD player from the main
supply, double-isolating it from the system proper.
EQUIPMENT WEAKNESSES
AND HIGH TECH ABUSE
Other than the sonic degradation caused by a low or high
supply voltage, much hi-fi equipment suffers from hidden
power related problems. One is endemic: that most DC
supplies self-pollute their own supply. This is a point lost
on those who make big claims for regenerated supplies.
If the 3MVA (aka 3000kVA or 3 million watts) of power
that’s ‘behind’ a typical domestic supply is able to be
distorted by a 150W hi-fi’s power supply (as is the case),
what hope has a mere, if hefty-seeming, 3kVA device? The
regenerated supply will, true, filter the supply effectively
from other sorts of noise and causes of distortions, but
the harmonic self-distortion pattern will be re-created.
Grey/dumb and even legitimate imports regularly
cause bad sound. Hi-fi designers are ignorant enough
of world AC realities. Many American designers don’t
realise that their 60Hz transformers, which are 10%
cheaper to make, are under stress when used on 50Hz
mains (in the UK and EU-land), and the stress doubles
when the voltage is remotely above rating. Designers
have also lapped up the Eurotwaddle, that you can make
universal products for 60/50Hz, 230V. The outcome of
encountering a fully legitimate 255V in 50Hz countries
is to distort the AC to the whole hi-fi system. Tell-tale
signs are loud hum as mechanical noise, and an over-hot
transformer. Educated and reputable UK & European
importers ensure that US makers fit 240V, 50Hz
transformers.
‘High technology abuse’ refers to any system that
spreads RF around the home for trivial purposes. Hifi
can be immune enough to some RF, if power levels
are low, defined as ‘not enough to cause distortion or
audible noise through overload or intermodulation’.
But the overall ‘cocktail effect’, of, for example,
broadband connections spraying RF out of home
phone cabling, and ‘wappy’ wireless products spraying
RF around neighbourhoods, let alone umpteen
mobile phones, or idiot schemes trying to radiate
broadband and TV to us down the AC mains supply,
will, I predict, make the attainment of high-end sound
increasingly dicey in urban and even suburban homes.
RF getting into a high-end system is easily systemic,
meaning that eradication can be complex and require
strong custom solutions.
To get a sonic reality check and proof of the pollution
levels, urban dwellers may increasingly need to take their
system to a friend’s weekend place in a rural area!
Our hi-fi components and systems are steadily and
incrementally improving, giving better analysis and
appreciation of the music we enjoy. At the same time the
potential quality improvements threaten to be undermined
by increasing pollution of the mains electricity on which
are totally reliant. Understanding how and why this is
happening is the first and most important step in making
the best of a sometimes bad job.
"Θαυμάζω την κομψότητα της μεθόδου σας. Πρέπει να είναι ωραίο να καλπάζεις με το άλογο των αληθινών Μαθηματικών, ενώ εμείς οι υπόλοιποι αγκομαχάμε στον ποδαρόδρομο" - ο Άλμπερτ Άινσταϊν στον Τούλλιο Λέβι-Τσίβιτα