2. amps-preamps
  3. 1418762449

How to protect my amp without changing the sound?

My house has terrible power surges. One surge fried my former system with all Cary Audio electronics and speakers. Everything was fried from the amp, preamp, speakers to the speaker wires and interconnects.

Now I've replaced much of it with a Wadia Intuition amp/preamp/DAC unit. But for obvious reasons can't consider plugging it directly into the wall.

I started off with a Furman power strip/surge suppressor which really throttled the output. Made my $15K system sound like $3K.

Next I tried a Brickwall surge suppressor which really opened up the sound (getting more current through) but drained warmth and musicality from the sound.

I broke down and bought a Furman 16A power conditioner that is warmer sounding but still doesn't compare to plugging the amp directly in the wall.

What do I do? Keep moving up the Furman line?

Power conditioning isn't absolutely necessary, but strong surge protection is. And I'm no fan of MOV's. Any ideas?
larrybou

Showing 1 response by kgproperties

kgproperties
53 posts
 
You may want to do some research on Environmental Potentials products. I ended up purchasing a EP-2500 Waveform Corrector and a EP-2775 Ground Filter. These items are not cheap and require an electrician to install. However, when comparing the risk of loosing nearly $200,000 of equipment, what's another couple thousand?

Check the Audiogon archives and you will find quite a bit of discussion on their products. After I had the EP-2500 & EP-2775 installed, I could not detect any difference in the sound of my audio system, or in the picture quality of the projection system (thank God!).

Here's an interesting youtube link you may want to watch:

https://video.search.yahoo.com/video/play;_ylt=AwrTcdU5mpNUVbEACUUPxQt.;_ylu=X3oDMTBsOXB2YTRjBHNlYwNzYwRjb2xvA2dxMQR2dGlkAw--?p=ENVIRONMENTAL+POTENTIALS+youtube&tnr=21&vid=EBCBFAE3D09161E52A29EBCBFAE3D09161E52A29&l=272&turl=http%3A%2F%2Fts4.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DUN.608056142745044051%26pid%3D15.1&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D7SnyGCeju34&sigr=11aupo1lk&tt=b&tit=Environmental+Potentials+|+An+overview+from+Border+States&sigt=11plqnl22&back=https%3A%2F%2Fsearch.yahoo.com%2Fyhs%2Fsearch%3Fp%3DENVIRONMENTAL%2BPOTENTIALS%2Butube%26ei%3DUTF-8%26hsimp%3Dyhs-001%26hspart%3Dmozilla&sigb=13a16vl3h&hspart=mozilla&hsimp=yhs-001

Good luck on your search!
Ken G.
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