My hypothesis is that playing the same tune twice will always yield a positive outcome for the second play as the brain has already laid down the initial pattern.Playing the same thing twice (or more!) is one of those things a lot of guys do, and I used to as well, but haven't done in many years. Michael Fremer doesn't either.
The second play advantage, could actually just as well go the other way. Had some friends over one time, asked the woman if there was one song she wouldn't mind me playing twice. In between I went out and flipped breakers off. She was excited how much better it sounded. But it left me with the idea, unless you really love the music you're just not gonna want to hear it over and over again.
Not long after that we had some people over and Caelin brought some power cords and not wanting to bore the non-audiophiles I would play a whole song and swap power cords and play a different song. Sometimes even a different album. This was before being triggered became a thing but let me tell you all the audiophiles in the room were triggered. Bigly.
Everyone else though was just amazed that a power cord could make that much difference. Plus there's things like VTA. What's the point of VTA on the fly if you have to lift the arm and move it back? Change the flippin VTA and sit back down. Learn to listen. Which is yet another problem with repeating, its a crutch, you learn to listen for little snippets instead of the whole organic presentation.
I could go on and on just on this one thing. It didn't help at all when I was starting out. It doesn't help at all now.
With HFT specifically, if you even need to play another track I will be surprised. Just one is noticeable. If you put a whole set up in one fell swoop you will not be needing to A/B to be sure. You will not want to take them down. Ever. You might tweak where each one goes. That is fun. You might take one down just for a minute. But if you are like me and really enjoy every little improvement you will never ever want to be without them again.
Thanks for adding your system and the insight. I did see your other profile on another site. All awesomely obsessive! So you have 2 transformers for the main rig? The step down and another in the 'Medusa' (I get it)? What's the rating you'd recommend for my rig? What benefits does it bring? I have no big hum issues.
Really? What site?
Transformers. Okay so this was all done more than 15 years ago. I no longer recall all the details. But it went something like this-
The room was originally wired normal code, 110V, outlet to outlet. Didn't know enough then to argue it very well. That was quickly changed to 110V direct. That was better. Then somehow I'm talking to a guy about wire and mods and he upgraded and has this Audio Consulting step down transformer for sale. The reasoning is high voltage transmission is more efficient. Which clearly it is when we're talking kv. From 110 to 220? Not sure how significant that is but its got to be something, I bought it, and sure enough it was another improvement. But at the same time replaced the 12 ga with 4 ga, so will never know what did what.
Anyway that transformer is all about voltage. The next one in the Medusa is more about isolation.
Here we have to get a bit technical, at least enough to understand what a transformer does and how it works. First off they only work at all with AC. The current must be alternating. Every wire carrying current produces a magnetic field proportional to the voltage. At the same time, when a wire crosses a magnetic field, or a field crosses a wire, either way it induces a current and voltage in that wire. In a cartridge the magnet (or coil) moves back and forth. Motors and generators are just the flip sides of each other.
Well if the current is alternating then the fields are rising and falling and so they will generate or induce a signal in an adjacent wire. That's all a transformer is. A lot of wires wrapped around and around. Power goes in one that creates the fields, which cause current to be inducted into and come out the other side. The ratio of windings on each side determines whether the incoming voltage is the same, or goes up or down.
Now here it gets a little tricky, I don't know the math and nobody wants to see that anyway, but this doesn't just work all the same for all frequencies. If the frequency is very low it won't generate much if any current. Nor if the frequency is very high. When you hear people talk about the importance of transformers in tube amps, how much affect they have on the sound, this is the reason. If the transformer isn't wound in the right pattern it will still transform voltage and current, but not in the kind of nice flat way we want.
So that's the idea behind isolation transformers. They transmit the 60 Hz AC current just fine. They do not transmit the much higher radio frequency noise riding on the line. That long winded explanation is how they do this.
There's an additional smaller isolation transformer in the Medusa. That one is good only for about 35 watts and powers only the 2 Tesla MPCs on the CTS speaker cable. Makes a nice big difference too.
As for ratings, mine is 500VA, aka 500 watts. I would think that would be enough for just about anyone. It might not seem like it, if what you do is add up all the peak watts of all the amps and everything. But peak isn't from music. Peak is filling power supply caps at turn-on. No music will ever draw that much power. It can't. So I would say 500 is plenty, would maybe go 1kVA if a big HT with mega amps and high wattage projector. Anything north of that is serious overkill.
As for how much difference this makes, I ran (by accident and without knowing) BOTH of my TWO Dayton Subwoofer amps off the one tiny little 35 watt transformer. Well I forgot which outlet it was wired into. When I opened the Medusa and saw what I'd done I was staggered the amps worked at all. Also all that power was going through one thin little wire. Well it was SUPPOSED to be just for the Oppo CD player! Anyway, the amps did run, I did get very good bass, only it would clip at really high output. Now with bigger wire and no transformer the bass is better, but nowhere near as much as you'd think. If 2 big sub amps can run off on 35VA transformer then I would think 500VA will be plenty for just about anyone.