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Hi all,
I am confused on the sequence of plugging equipment to the power strip. We know that the sound change a lot by changing the sequence of the equipment plugged to power strip.
1. Some said the power hungry equipment should be close to the power source as far as possible (i.e. first of receptacle of the power strip).
2. Some said, the most power hungry equipment should be plugged at the far end away from the power source (i.e. the last receptacle of the power strip) while low power equipment should near the power inlet side.
3. Some said the sequence should follow reverse of the music flow. i.e. Power amp at the first receptacle close to the power source, preamp at the second, CDP at the third....
(philosophy 3 is very close to philosophy 1. Philosophy 2 is a reverse of the other 2)
I have been repeatedly tried the above and the end results is a little bit mixed.
Dunno the reasons why??!!
Appreciate and thanks in advance for opinion and experience sharing.
Follow Ups:
Initially, I had one transformer connected to the second duplex from the IEC and daisy chained to the three other duplexes. Then I got a second transformer and added it from the second duplex to the fourth and third duplex and removed the connection to the second duplex. In other words, the 1st and 2nd duplexes had one transformer filtering them. The 3rd and 4th duplexes had two transformers filtering them and the second filtering between them and the 1st and 2nd.
I then put all analog components into the 3rd or 4th and all digital into the 2nd. This was far superior to having all four duplexes having two filter in series before them. My amps were plugged into a Synergistic Research PowerCell 10 SE Mk II as the transformers in the power strip are limited to 7 amps.
I say all of this as I doubt if the ordering with simple power strips makes much difference.
"We know that the sound change a lot by changing the sequence of the equipment plugged to power strip."
We do? That's news to me...
"I have been repeatedly tried the above and the end results is a little bit mixed. Dunno the reasons why??!!"
Well, the most logical inference is that the initial premise is bogus.
Trust your happiness to your tests and your ears, all else is noise. Remember, it shouldn't matter at all and if it does that points to deficiencies in the design and implementation of your components or outlet strip. So not mattering is a good thing! And if it does matter but you don't know the mechanism(s) then about all you can do it piss around with it and listen.
I redid mine a couple months ago because it had evolved into a horrible cable tangle featuring cube taps. Now I have a single outlet strip (no filtering, just buss bars inside, a $2 model) for the low level components and have that and the power amp plugged into the same line filter outlet. It sounds fine and if different than before perhaps better, and the appearance improvement was vast! My thinking was that the power amp probably was the only critter whose input current was modulated by the signal so perhaps it would be good to minimize the number of contacts that it shared with the other stuff. And of course new, tight contacts should be better than old, sloppy ones.
Fun stuff but without correlated measurements or structured testing remember that putative causes are mere speculation.
Regards, Rick
I was once doing repairs on a monoblock amplifer although I had both sides.Plugging them into a power strip revealed that, although on the bench they tested out just fine, there was a significant disparity in relative volume. Drove me nuts, but then I noticed that the monoblocks in the power strip were plugged into opposite ends. Placing them in adjacent plugs cured the issue.
Also the advice about segregating the digital from the analog is good advice. I prefer to add some filtering between the analog and digital ( including such things as TT motors) devices. MIT made a separate power strip with an isolation transformer to do exactly that.
Stu
"Placing them in adjacent plugs cured the issue."
That's odd indeed, really odd. Defective outlet?
"Also the advice about segregating the digital from the analog is good advice."
But where does the DAC fit in? How about CD players? Most of my boxes are mixed signal critters of one form or another so I currently just have them lumped together. Guess I should try various configurations one day and see if things change. I may be an inverse audiophile, I think most people are surprised and pleased to find that changing something affects the sound, I'm surprised and pleased when it doesn't...
Regards, Rick
I had already modified the power strip by running heavy gauge romex through the various AC outlets. Theoretically, there shouldn't have been an effect. But one large monoblock upstream can drain voltage for the components downstream.
I noted this when installing a dedicated line for my first system. I simply hooked it up to the bottom of the panel box and was a bit underwhelmed by any change in sound. After a few weeks it occurred to me that perhaps moving the dedicated line closer to the input wiring may help a bit and was very surprised to hear the difference in sound, particularly as now the dedicated line was in advance of such things as the heater and stove, etc.
As far as segregation of components are concerned, I like to keep all my video, digital and motor components at least a tier away from the analog only components. The RF generated by such components tends to bleed back into the power grid. OF course, YMMV.
Stu
Hi Stu!
Let's see, you said...
"I had already modified the power strip by running heavy gauge romex through the various AC outlets."
There you go, clearly not an audiophile device, all those wires and connections! Now mine on the other hand has custom stamped contiguous bars and blades made out of, of, something, probably phos bronze or maybe genuine brass. Anyhow no wires except the line cord and I don't remember how it's terminated. 2/$6.00 I think at my local hardware store but I figured I was worth it...
"difference in sound, particularly as now the dedicated line was in advance of such things as the heater and stove"
Hmmm. Maybe you islanders wire thangs differently than us westcoasters or did you put in an additional breaker above the 'MAIN' breaker? I don't know how else you can get 'above' the 220V split-phase stuff. I can see where that might help as the main breaker's impedance will produce a voltage drop from all the current noises below it while the 'main' section only sees the meter and wire back to the transformer.
Maybe I'll try it, if I plug my system into the outlet on the range it will feed from that section of the panel although it will also go through the little breaker on the stove. I'm almost afraid to try because if it makes a nice improvement then I'll have to rig up another circuit!
Switching gears, I've now got my paws on some larger 'crystals', well beads at least of various sorts and I'm going to take the antiphile approach and start by trying to measure them prior to listening. Why not? I don't hold out too much hope especially since I don't have all the equipment that would be handy but still I think it will be fun. Then of course I'll listen. I've found that a lot more things are measurable than is commonly supposed and I'm hoping it will be easier with larger samples.
Regards, Rick
The power strip was rewired with 10 gauge romex TX series, which is a soft annealed wire with better conductivity. All connections were hard soldered.
Typical home wiring is set up so that your heaviest draw components are placed closes to the the input wiring. Normally your 50 amp breakers are located there, those for your dryer, , etc. I simply moved the breakers down and placed my audio breaker in the first position.
Stu
I'll try it Stu.
Here we have a large breaker that feeds all the 110V breakers so the busses in the box are split into two sections. I'm a gonna try the stove outlet which is handy and the only 110 outlet on the "main" section.
You do realize that I was just kidding about the strip don't you?
Regards, R.
especially when you made reference to that $6 price tag. It may be rather anal on my part, but I did go through many power strips, ripping them apart to "study" their construction. I added that just in case other readers may have been taken in by your humor.
It is rather appalling how cheaply made some power strips are.
I peered into some very high end audiophile power strips, too, BTW. Some simply doubled up the wire from duplex to duplex. One actually used a silver bus bar.
My favorite reasonably priced duplex, the NEMA 5362, uses mechanical clamp on fittings but like other duplexes built to US standards, has only that thin jumper plate linking each half of the duplex. I double up that jumper with a piece of 10/12 gauge wire and stagger the inputs to different receptacles to get more even power distribution. This all helps a bit, not staggering better, but every little bit starts to accumulate.
Of course YMMV
Stu
Hi Stu,
What I was kidding about was your strip being unaudiophileish...
The construction of mine actually did have some appeal to me because I was concerned that having everything plugged willy-nilly into the line filter might not be a good thing and wanted to see how it worked to have all the sources plugged into a single point. The strip I used with the broad, continuous conductor should look like that over a fairly wide bandwidth but probably won't hold up for very many insertions. I think it sounds at least as good, maybe better than before but I haven't done any more tinkering yet. Trying the whole Mary-Ann plugged into the stove is gonna be next...
Regards, Rick
a
Wow, that's mystical!
But I suppose it's true in a sense, they probably all amplify signals as part of their operation. Or perhaps you're thinking that they all generate noise which is also true. Most of them probably don't have much signal correlated power consumption however.
Re your post about your filtered strips...
I don't think it's possible to know in advance what the best configuration is. My power filter has three sets of outlets each isolated with another L/C section so the line isolation increases with each and there is some inner section filtering as well. The possible configurations are mind-boggling so it's fortunate that I'm enjoying what I've got. Naturally it would be a nice feeling to have it optimized but that's a ton of trials and/or measurements. I guess I could start with just the preamp and poweramp and work outward...
Rick
with AC line conditioning. Every line conditioner is a bit different and many address different issues. I have never found a line conditioner, or at least one that was relatively affordable ( say not more that $3K) that addresses every possible power line issue.
I prefer to use a multiplicity of line conditioners and at one point was using basically one per component in order to achieve the best sound. I also ended up significantly modifying the line conditioners I had to up their performance. Additional Corcom type modules ( ER/EV series helped significantly) as well as adding AC caps to address power factor issues.
It was quite enlightening to note that the higher amperage Corcom type modules have much higher RF leakage in comparison to the smaller units: the best sounding were the 3 amp modules, but obviously there are are current issue that need to be addressed. Also bear in mind that the instantaneous current draw of any component can often be 5 times the rated fuse value and that means that you need a large power supply to insure unfettered dynamics. Thus Amps presented the largest issues.
Incidentally using the PLC's on a TV set was the easiest diagnostic test. Differences in picture quality made assessment very evident.
Stu
Location, and timing.
For this, you may want to start by plugging the largest current consumer first, regardless of location on your power strip, and waiting until it reaches steady state, then plugging in the next largest consumer, etc...
It makes for the least trauma to the lighter current consumers that way.
Not an answer but alternative info. The Eichmann power strips recommend in their packaging that analog devices should go first in the strip (closest to the AC inlet) and digital component go last in the strip.
I am guessing they have specific filtering for analog and digital gear? I have a home made unit and there are two runs of wire off the input IEC socket. One run goes to the analog filtering and ac outlets, and the second to dedicated digital filtering and ac outlets.
No, this was their completely unfiltered strip.
Perhaps you are referring to the notion regarding the Wiremold power strip recommended by NAIM. My opinion is that one should try all configurations possible and choose the connection order that sounds the best to the ear. Otherwise, there is no strict rule to follow. IMHO/YMMV
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