powdermnky007 Posted November 17, 2004 Share Posted November 17, 2004 What line conditioners if any do you use? I've seen alot of panamaxs in signatures. Do they make a difference? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oscarsear Posted November 17, 2004 Share Posted November 17, 2004 Balanced power and yes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
minn_male42 Posted November 17, 2004 Share Posted November 17, 2004 ---------------- On 11/17/2004 10:24:56 AM powdermnky007 wrote: What line conditioners if any do you use? I've seen alot of panamaxs in signatures. Do they make a difference? ---------------- line conditioners may or may not make an improvement in your sound/picture quality depending upon your power that you have coming into your house..... they may also clean up power problems within your house.... (air conditioner coming on for example).... whether or not you use a line conditioner, you should always use some sort of surge protector - from a whole house unit installed near or in your breaker box or a stand alone unit in your rack..... i prefer the series mode technology (surge-x, brickwall, zero surge, adcom and now furman) vs the MOV based units that are out there..... some of these units allow you to sequence the power on/off and even use the 12 volt trigger from your preamp/receiver to turn power up/down your entire system with your remote..... i personally use a surge-x SX-1115RT as a surge protector/line conditioner in my system..... does it make the system sound better?..... ~maybe.... but it does give me piece of mind from the surge aspect... http://www.surgex.com/products/sx1115r_rt_rl.html try a line conditioner in your system - just make sure you get it from some place that you can return it if you don't hear/see any improvements... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Anonymous Posted November 17, 2004 Share Posted November 17, 2004 Dedicated 20 amp/powervar Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leok Posted November 17, 2004 Share Posted November 17, 2004 Belkin F5C980-TEL is available at Staples for under $100. Made a big difference in both my systems. It is a real filter and does block rf. It also has MOVs for surge protection. Leo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nicholtl Posted November 17, 2004 Share Posted November 17, 2004 ---------------- On 11/17/2004 11:12:29 AM minn_male42 wrote: line conditioners may or may not make an improvement in your sound/picture quality depending upon your power that you have coming into your house..... ---------------- That's the single most important statement right there. If you live in an area that is highly succeptible to brown outs, black outs, and power spikes/surges, having a line conditioner (one that also performs surge protection obviously) is as necessary to your home theater as a TV. If you live in an area that has relatively stable power, however, then the benefits of a line conditioner may simply be slight improvement in overall system performance, if not just peace of mind. I have several stages of protection and filtering for my 2 systems, and they are Monster's HTPS7000, HTS2600, AVS2000, and PS Audio's Powerplant 1000 and Ultimate Outlet. That's not including the $50 Beklin surge-protected powerstrips that I use here and there too. Do they work, you ask? Oh yes, they work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
picky Posted November 17, 2004 Share Posted November 17, 2004 Tripp Lite LCR-2400 ($250): http://www.tripplite.com/products/product.cfm?productID=2832 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
minn_male42 Posted November 17, 2004 Share Posted November 17, 2004 if you are looking for a "line conditioner" you should be aware that the term gets used rather casually by some companies... traditionally - and most electronics firms still use the following definition today..... a line conditioner takes a variable voltage - from 87 volts to 141 volts and converts it to a standard 117 volts (or 120 volts)..... tripplite, apc, and furman are companies that use this definition....... other companies sell what they call a "line conditioner" even though they don't regulate the voltage at all.... they might employ filters and chokes to try to clean up the power.... but true "line conditioning" refers to voltage correction..... a few links for your perusal discussing "line conditioners" http://www.tripplite.com/products/conditioners/index.cfm http://www.apc.com/tools/surge_selector/index.cfm http://www.furmansound.com/pro/reg/index.htm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leok Posted November 18, 2004 Share Posted November 18, 2004 nicholtl If there is a fair amount of rf mixed in with the power it will cause a lot of signal modulation in audio equipment, which results in smeared sibilances, harsh overall sound and poor resolution of low level detail. Protection against line voltage variation is one task of a power conditioner, but that doesn't address audio quality. Good RF isolation is the feature that will improve audio quality is areas with rf mixed with the power. Leo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
powdermnky007 Posted November 18, 2004 Author Share Posted November 18, 2004 I see the difference now between rf filters / line conditioners. Man do I have lots of toys to buy Found a good Furman FAQ saying what I need the most. http://www.furmansound.com/faqpower1.htm I see they have many different amp ratings, from around 10 - 20 amps. What is a good guess for a dynaco st-70 ( 35 watts X 2), preamp, cd player, record player Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
minn_male42 Posted November 18, 2004 Share Posted November 18, 2004 if you are currently plugged into a 15 amp circuit (most likely) then a 15 amp unit will work fine for you..... most of the better surge protectors out there do offer RF/EMI filters.... the following is from the surge-x website.... "Filter (bi-directional, wave tracking): With 50 ohm load: 3 dB @ 3 kHz; 38 dB @ 100 kHz; 50 dB @ 300 kHz; 50 dB @ 5 MHz; 50 dB @ 30 MHz" and... "SurgeX power conditioning products provide the worlds most effective and reliable protection against surges and transients coupled with state-of-the-art EMI/RFI filtering." tripplite offers this.... "Multi-component suppression circuits combine torroidal chokes, ferrite rod-core inductors, HF/VHF capacitors and multiple layers of metal oxide varistors into exclusive isolated filter banks that remove EMI/RFI interference, even noise from other pieces of connected equipment" and... "EMI / RFI filtering: 40-80 dB" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Griffinator Posted November 18, 2004 Share Posted November 18, 2004 ---------------- On 11/18/2004 9:21:49 AM leok wrote: Good RF isolation is the feature that will improve audio quality in areas with rf mixed with the power. Leo ---------------- If you have a refrigerator, a heat pump, central AC, etc. in your house, you have RF interference backfeeding into your house. Yes, if you live near an industrial grid, the problem will be significantly worse, but it's present to some degree in any house. Oh, and, contrary to what some forum members have said, putting your HT system on its own circuit breaker isn't going to change the situation. Having a second box installed just for your HT will help to some extent, but that will end up costing you more than a good series-mode surge protector with line conditioning and RF isolation. When I finally get myself moved back into my house, I'll be building and installing my own power isolation system for my audio equipment and my computer system (two isolated systems, one for each) and then investing in some series-mode surge suppressors to solve the spike issue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
minn_male42 Posted November 18, 2004 Share Posted November 18, 2004 ---------------- On 11/18/2004 10:10:49 AM Griffinator wrote: .....If you have a refrigerator, a heat pump, central AC, etc. in your house, you have RF interference backfeeding into your house. Yes, if you live near an industrial grid, the problem will be significantly worse, but it's present to some degree in any house....... ---------------- a low cost way to help solve this "internal" power line noise is to get a low cost surge protector that has built-in RF/EMI filtering (like the tripplite isobars).... and plug your refrigerator, heat pump, etc. into that.... the filtering works both ways.... it does work... i had an old microwave that was causing some lines in my tv.... plugged it into a tripplite unit and the lines disappeared.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
powdermnky007 Posted November 18, 2004 Author Share Posted November 18, 2004 I wish they were more specific than 40-80db... and tell me what ranges those are over. panamax 5100 = 50 db and Furman PL Plus DM is from 40-60db the panamax isn't a rack mount (plus for me) and has coax \ telephone and all sorts of extras. there alot of difference between 40 and 80 db! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dgb Posted November 18, 2004 Share Posted November 18, 2004 I used to think this stuff was a bunch of hooey, but since I've been upgrading my system more and more, I've noticed that it sounds much better late at night (11 pm+) than it does during the day. Plus the system is on the same system as the washer/dryer and a mini-fridge, which make all kinds of pleasant noises. I have a surge protector, but obvisouly more is required. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
No Disc Posted November 20, 2004 Share Posted November 20, 2004 I've tried out some of the more high-end line conditioners including those from AudioPrism and Chang Lightspeed, and in all cases, it cleaned up the noise, but at the expense of the music dynamics. I always could hear more micro-detail, but I did not like what the line conditioners took away from the music. After trying several different products I borrowed from the local high-end audio store, I settled on the Audioprism Quietlines ($24). They are a passive shunt that goes into electrical outlets near your equipment. They shunt the noise over to ground and all that is left is a noise free juice. Isn't that what we all want? I borrowed a line noise analyzer from the same high-end store to aid in the proper placement of the Quietlines. It's really remarkable how effective they are. A box of eight of these small plug-in shunts killed all the noise around my setup. My noise was gone and my dynamics were left intact. I will never put in a line conditioner on my 2-channel setup. Certainly not after comparing the sound against the Quietlines. No contest IMHO. I found the line noise analyzer so useful I purchased one ($150) to keep around. I can instantly tell which electrical devices around my room and home effect the amount of noise measured by my 2 channel equipment. I found that just turning off some overhead lights, and air cleaners helped a great deal. Remember the saying... "Do no harm." That is what, in my opinion, most line conditioners can do to your music. My $.02 anyway. - Tim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Griffinator Posted November 21, 2004 Share Posted November 21, 2004 I'd wager the only reason you're losing dynamics with a line conditioner is because you purchased one that can't deliver sufficient amperage to feed your system's peak demands. Of course, that's strictly conjecture, but that's the number one most likely cause of dynamic compression on the power end of the system - insufficient available current. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nicholtl Posted November 21, 2004 Share Posted November 21, 2004 Tbabb, I'm not sure if Audioprism or Chang Lightspeed would be considered "high end," but regardless, it surprises me that $24 devices would best those line conditioners? Perhaps it is how Griff said, that there was something in your equipment chain that was bottlenecking the current flow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
No Disc Posted November 21, 2004 Share Posted November 21, 2004 Those devices are around $500-$700, certainly there are more expensive solutions avaiable, but given the quietlines did what I needed them to do, I seen no reason to spend more. A quick search of the AudioAsylum you will find similar results like my situation. I'm not suggesting to any of you that you don't try out line conditioners on your sytems or even that they won't work. I'm just explaining the results I seen on my system. Food for thought, that's all. And for what it's worth, I kept the Quietlines and returned the two Line conditioner units. - tb Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nicholtl Posted November 21, 2004 Share Posted November 21, 2004 Now I'm curious about these quietlines. Do you have a product info link page? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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