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Least Controversial, Reasonably Priced AC Upgrades

Hello Everyone

At last, the light is appearing at the end of my house renovation tunnel, and -- fingers crossed -- I may actually be listening to music in my new living room before 2005.

Having spent every last penny on marriage, family, Subzero refrigerators etc, I am trying for the first time to upgrade the wiring a bit and protect the equipment against surges.

Despite my enthusiasm for this site and a pretty decent system, I remain firmly in the dark ages on power conditioners, high end power cords, outlets, surge protectors etc.

The place where we are we are moving in the country apparently has frequent power outages, especially in winter when falling branches down the lines.

I have read many heated debates about power conditioners etc with some of you saying that they actually WORSEN the sound, that I would like to start with a simple:

dedicated line?
Albert Porters wall outlets?
a chunky power strip inside my new 6' component rack on casters?
a surge protector (Monster Cable?) to protect all of the above in my newly flaky electical district?

Again, simple, effective, not wildly expensive please.

The idea is to have a moveable rack of equipment on casters that I can wheel from the corner of the room to my listening chair for easy access, which will be tethered to the wall by one power cord only and with long interconnects to the amp which will be located by the speakers.

The rest of the spaghetti mess will stay neatly inside the rack, concealed by a ventilated door.

Thank you in advance for all ideas and suggestions.
cwlondon

Showing 5 responses by tobias

tobias
1,534 posts
 
Dedicated lines, yes yes.

Surge protectors: I don't know of any that won't limit available power and thus have a negative effect on the music. Maybe someone else does. If lightning strikes on the power line are a problem (and they are at my country place), I take a calculated risk in having the system plugged in during stormy weather.

Power outages: A'gon member Twl has a system which operates entirely off the grid. His music is safe from power outages. The rest of us might want some backup to... well, maybe to allow safe shutdown of our systems, but I can't see a true need for this myself. Maybe someone can enlighten me. In any case, watch out for battery power supplies (UPS) designed for computers. Often they do not output a true sine wave.

The chunky power strip and Porter Ports sound good. You might also contact member Subaruguru (Ernie Meunier) about uncontroversial, reasonably priced wire and hardware.
tobias
1,534 posts
 
Four plugs... meaning, two double AC outlets? The short answer is yes, but one outlet would have to be daisy-chained from the other. That second outlet would have second grabs at the juice, so better to put your greediest component(s) -- the power amp(s) -- on the first plug.

If you mean four double plugs, well yes again, but the daisy chaining point applies in spades.
tobias
1,534 posts
 
Kdl, I think the point is to put your 5 KVA isolating transformer in the service area where you won't hear a hum. For example, mine will go where the second water heater used to be and buck twin-phase 220V down to 120 single. (I may need another tranny to do the buck, if I can't find a 220-in, 120-out isotrans.)The feed from this will come, via shielded twisted-pair, up to my listening room. At least, this is now my dream :o)

Yes, 5 KVA is overkill, but for good reasons, as Sean explained above. Your system may be comfortable with 3 KVA or less, but a bigger transformer has a larger iron core and is less likely to saturate. Saturation is a big no-no, as Sean said too.

If you're in a place where you can't make this kind of mod to your electrical system, my take on what to do would obviously be to find smaller, silent isolating and conditioning devices and use them on individual components, starting with digital. Others may have better ideas.

I am enjoying planning this setup and looking for the gear. Cooking with AC seems a lot simpler than shopping for hi-fi. Sometimes a lot cheaper too ! I saw a tested 5 KVA step-down tranny on eBay starting at $185. It was only that much because it was in a lot with two others.
tobias
1,534 posts
 
Here's my attempt at an answer for question 3.

As I understand them, the Ultimate Outlets, and any other high-quality connector, are just that: connectors. They make a difference, sure, but they won't affect the electric power that goes into them. They'll just transmit it a little or a lot better than other outlets.

An isolation transformer actually functions to remove noise and distortion from the power delivered by your utility. It works by induction--the AC current in your house wiring is led to induce a new current in a new wire. There is no physical connection between the two wires. You get your system's power from the new wire, which is carrying clean current.
tobias
1,534 posts
 
Not AFAIK. If I were doing my line again today I would use cryo-treated wire. That's about the only difference.
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