Why more bass subwoofer into power conditioner


Hi,

I have plugged my REL 5/SHO directly into 20A wall outlet that is dedicated line.

As an experiment plugged the subwoofers power cable today into a balanced power conditioner Torus RM20 rather than directly to the outlet.

I was surprised to hear more bass.  The bass was same excellent tight bass.

I am surprised because would have thought directly into wall dedicated line would provide more bass.  Is it because the torus itself is 20A powered.

Previously I had plugged the subwoofer power cable into a non balanced non 20A powered power conditioner and found less power than directly into the wall...I expected this result ...

The difference is not dramatic but rather modest nonetheless puzzling as the REL stock power cords are merely 15A.
128x128karmapolice
I have found the same to be true of the gear I plug into my balanced power conditioner from BPT.  More bass.  This is consistently the case as I change gear and the years go by with my BPT. 
Worth looking at the incoming and outgoing voltage.  Sometimes the transformer windings are designed to up the outgoing voltage a little. Usually a good thing.

OTOH, digital power supplies are usually pretty tightly regulated.

"Sometimes the transformer windings are designed to up the outgoing voltage a little. Usually a good thing."

My isolation line conditioner bumps up the voltage by almost 2 volts when compared to the incoming wall voltage.  

Like Erik pointed out, the power conditioner is probably delivering more voltage and current to the subwoofer than the circuit can. This is due to the conditioner design to “wow” you with what could otherwise be accomplished by swapping out the filter capacitors with larger value units and supplying the subwoofer with a very slight voltage boost from a step up transformer. 

There is no magic here. It’s just simple electricity. Some amplifier manufacturers design a switch into the power supply to allow the amplifier to run off of a higher voltage tap from the power transformer when driving a higher impedance load. This has the effect of delivering more current and hence power to the load. 

By by the way, there is no such thing as a balanced 120 volt circuit in North America. That is physically impossible with split phase power delivery, which means the 120 volt feed is derived from the neutral conductor and one of the two hot conductors. Neutral is bonded to ground at the main service panel in accordance to electrical code. Thus, any reasonably modern device that’s designed to connect to a 120 volt circuit will have a polarized plug so extra safety precautions can be made (such as power switch and main fuse being on the hot conductor). If you feel compelled to use balanced power, your equipment would need to handle 240 volt power, which is truly balanced from a neutral and thus ground perspective. The only up side to running with 240 volt equipment is that if the whole house used only 240 volt equipment, the breaker panels we use would always be in perfect balance from a load perspective. But then, the neutral conductor would be redundant and probably removed for economic reasons, and then one side of the 240 volt feed would have to be bonded to ground for safety, and we’d be back to square one all over again. 
Right, balanced power is marketing BS. 

But, according to this Stereophile review https://www.stereophile.com/powerlineaccessories/108torus/index.html
the RM20 consists of a toroidal transformer and surge suppressor. That's it. No battery. No caps. Just a transformer. Transformers can deliver less current at a higher voltage, or more current at a lower voltage, but never both.  That's just basic EE.

Surely by now everyone has heard the power cord that improves bass. Does the power cord add voltage? Current? Or is it something else? And if its something else (which, trust me, it is) then why would it be any different for a conditioner? Which by the way has a power cord. Just what the mystery is here eludes me.

The one thing these all have in common by the way is they deliver a cleaner signal. Whether the signal is the fluctuating AC amplitude of music (in the case of interconnects and speaker cables) or the fluctuating AC of current (conditioners, power cords, fuses), the better stuff always delivers it cleaner. Which we experience as fuller more articulate and extended sound. Isn't that what such an expensive conditioner is expected to do? So why would we be surprised when it actually does?

It’s that something else. Even gear with voltage regulation sounds better, including more bass, through my BPT balanced transformer. I just finished building a voltage regulated tube preamp that holds the B+ at 325 vdc at all times.....spot on. Even in this instance the balanced power transformer improved the sound quality and bass.

These isolation transformer based units from BPT, CPT and others really drop common mode noise (Neutral to ground) and also have the side benefit of quieting mechanical hum in gear with noisy transformers.

Just like Millercarbon says the power cords themselves also deliver sonic impact and can also influence the bass performance of your system. I built two power cords exactly the same except one used a Furutech FI28 G set of connectors and the other a Connex Rhodium plated set. The power cord with the FI28 connectors was warmer sounding with more weighty and powerful bass. Now it can be argued that the Furutech FI28 G connectors influenced the bass quality by thickening and rounding the bass making it seem heavier and deeper. In other words, the bass would not measure any deeper in terms of frequency played.  The point is even the connectors influence the bass and sound......nevermind the power cord or isolation tranny. Interesting hobby! It all matters folks. The parts, parts quality, design etc... It all matters.



millercarbon
"b
alanced power is marketing BS"

This is obviously false because balanced power can not only be created it can actually be measured and is in wide use in a variety of industries, applications, and uses.
“Clear””think”, forget trying to fool people who have probably already forgotten more electrical engineering than you could possibly ever learn. If you don’t/won’t understand, please stop making a fool of yourself and wasting bandwidth here. 
sleepwalker65" forget trying to fool people who have probably already forgotten more electrical engineering than you could possibly ever learn. If you don’t/won’t understand, please stop making a fool of yourself and wasting bandwidth here."

The fool in this instance is yourself for speculating, assuming, and theorizing about a subject about which you know nothing or next to nothing and I will summarily reject, ignore, and defy your complaint, protestation, and request  that I limit my use of what you apparently claim is your "bandwidth."

Nice try sleepwalker but after all you are asleep so I'm sure this is the best you can do.
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