Mains cable upgrade/Tacima block

[ElectroMan]

I.D.C.:
Ok times out for me, some good humour here adding to some laughs

Guy's here is some good tips if you want to improve sound over spending hundreds on mains power cables and it's free by the way.

Enjoy

http://www.belt.demon.co.uk/Free_Techniques/Free_Techniques.html

Ah, good old Peter Belt!

Unfortunately, his non-free items make most exotic cables seem cheap.

 

[aliEnRIK]

Andrew Everard:
tomekay:Highly recomend Isotek

Now back under new ownership - news story being posted any minute now...

Look forward to that Andy. I have a sigmas and a Mira personally (The sigmas made quite a difference to my tv actually!)

What was the name of the company that some guys left isotek to set up? I forgets now......

 

[professorhat]

Remember that many mains cable retailers offer full 60 day money back guarantees (like Clearer Audio and Russ Andrews) so you can actually buy, try and get a refund if you're not happy i.e. try scientifically for yourself with your own ears rather than just trust what someone else told you - this is actually the basis of all good scientific research.

And yes, some will have you believe if you do this, you will attempt to hear something that isn't there, because you really want it to be. Maybe that is so, but I can tell you, it didn't stop me from sending back the Clearer Audio Silverline cable (something like £200) because I felt the improvement it gave didn't in any way warrant the price. I'm absolutely positive now this is because my system just doesn't justify a cable of that expense in it - I've since got the Clearer Audio Copperline Alpha which, at £35, offered just as much improvement as the Silverline. Clearly in a high-end setup, the Silverline might well prove its worth.

What it does prove is, I can give living testimony to this 60 day money back guarantee - I was even refunded the postage I had to pay to return the cable once Darren received it. You really have nothing to lose by just trying something out, rather than just blindly ignoring it because someone told you you shouldn't consider it - and that person more than likely also didn't try it because someone told them it was ridiculous etc. etc.

 

[Anonymous]

Ok guy's I have ordered 2 mains cables Tacima CS929 which has a what hifi 5 star rating. One for my hi fi while the other for the movie set up.

I'm willing to give this a test for myself at £23.99 from amazon I can't really go wrong. I'm currently at sea and will return to the uk on the 5th of march and post my finding's after I have had a good listen. Will keep an open mind and ears as it's not really fair to comment on something you have never tried.

 

[idc]

From one idc to another, I'm on the side of mains cables do make a difference, but only a small one in my experience. Other factors regarding mains are more important than the cable itself. You are spot on regarding cleaning contacts and how cables run. My old Rega Mira amp ran hot and at first I had had the mains cable lying on top of it. When I realised how hot it was I moved it and the sound improved. My Russ Andrews mains extension makes little difference, but the Silencer plugged into it makes a bigger difference in that background hiss through my headphones virtually disappears.

So I would argue it is possible to make a difference with the mains, but only very marginally with the cable itself.

 

[Anonymous]

I.D.C.:

By spending a wee bit more money on up-graded speaker cable than on a mains lead will bring greater sound quality than a mains lead will. That is a fact not a guess.

Upgrading the power cables has made an even bigger difference than new speaker cables, and certainly more effective than an interconnect upgrade.

When running one to the cd player the difference is undeniable. Bigger, cleaner bass and more detail.

What I don't understand is, if you can change the power leads into the components, why you would buy a hub but continue to use the free cables, partly 'downgrading' the supply again before gets there..

 

[Anonymous]

Until I receive the mains hub cable and try it out for myself I will remain sceptical over the gains manly because the manufacture of my system does not recommend changing main leads or adding filter main hubs as according to them it does not improve the quality of sound.

The manufacture goes on to say that all equipment produced is protected from any electrical surges
Of course we are talking separation and detail here because you can't add anything to an original recording.

Why would a manufacture not recommend something that's going to improve there product?
Anyway for a small out lay I have ordered a filter hifi main hub and will report back on any change I hear if any.

As for replacing every mains cable from a component I don't feel I need to do this as mine look substantial compared to what I have seen from some other manufactures.

Surly there must come a time when you say that's it. I love the reproduction I'm hearing from my system. Personally I'm there already and will never change my system now.

Saying that I'm heading towards 50 so I suppose that's understandable.Repeating myself but do clean your plug pins and all connections. Keep mains cables away from speaker cables. If I turn my amps up loud with out music I don't get any hum.

As for saying speaker cable and interconnects don't improve detail and sound stage Would say to that you have not bought the right interconnects or speaker cable for your system as this is the main area for Improvement from my own experience

 

[Anonymous]

Good morning IDC, would you mind when you post not leaving big blank spaces between lines and using up all that space. It will make reading your posts more enjoyable.

SPACING NOW SORTED by Mods

I must complement you on the nice system that you have, it is regarded as being warm and very musical, unlike many systems in that bracket which I have found to be fatiguing when listening to over an evening.
Glad you are keeping an open mind, I have found that on High End products the quality of components and design in many critical areas, especially in de-coupling rails contributes enormously to the signature sound produced.
With you having 'Active speakers' and therefore lower impedence on your signal paths you don't have the same handicaps others have.

It will be interesting to hear your impressions when you fit the Tacima 929.

 

[Anonymous]

Hi Trevor,

Sorry about the spaces will take note. Yes I am quite looking forward to trying the Tacima 929 and will report back to the forum. Will listen to my normal lead for a good hour and then change over so I can make a comparison when I return from sea on the 4th of March.

 

[Anonymous]

Hi I.D.C., sorry for opening an old thread, but did you ever get back from sea and try out the Tacima 929? I have just ordered one up myself but am still interest to hear your conclusion to this?

 

[RobGardner]

The mains cable into the Tacima is sheilded, so is a step up on bog standard cable. I had to put a new mains plug on mine so that I could place the block where I wanted it.

 

[Anonymous]

I have had the Isotek Mini-sub (mains conditioner) for a day or so now and have spent some time doing A/B testing - which was a real time consuming pain unplugging/plugging in 6 components to and from it and the Tacima block - I have come to the provisional conclusion that I must have fairly "clean" mains to start off with because it hasn't made a material difference to my ears. It is only a provisional conclusion because I am waiting for a Clearer Audio Copper Alpha Line power cable (on 60 day trial) to replace the cheapo kettle lead currently between the Isotek and the mains socket. It would be interesting to see if the better power cable makes more of a difference. I can hear a can of worms being opened.....

 

[idc]

AKL, it could just be that the Tacima is good enough for the job and the difference between it and the Isotek is minimal. I do believe that cables of all sorts and mains conditioners do make a difference. But I also think that diminishing returns kicks in sooner with such than any other part of hifi. I do like the idea that by getting the Clearer Audio mains cable you are in effect upgrading an upgrade

 

[Anonymous]

AKL, that's interesting. You have a very good set up and I imagine it has good presence, especially in the midrange.

I would have expected a clear difference to be heard on an A/B comparison. Can you give me a few more details, perhaps I can then make some suggestions.

Where is your home located, town, rural?

How many wall sockets are you running your system off?

What is plugged into the Tacima, and in what order down the line?

Are you testing the Isoteck in place of the Tacima?

What is the fuse rating of the plugs into the wall sockets?

How old is the house, and what condition is the True Earth and Cross Bonding?

Do you have a fuse box or a consumer unit with circuit breakers in it?

Personally I prefer to use Mains Transformers to filter as they do not 'grip' the mains supply but allow it to flow through. With some filters they impose there own sonic signature, sometimes at the expense of musical enjoyment.

 

[Anonymous]

Good morning Trevor, I will try and answer your questions but let me make it clear that I am completely ignorant of matters DIY/plumbing/electrics/wood work and all my local trademen love me!

I live in a quiet, rural "ish" village in West Sussex near the Ashurst Down Forest (had a lovely walk there this morning and the dogs chased after deer and rabbits and had a fab time). Anyway, my village - two pubs, a post office, a village shop, a hair salon. a butcher's shop, of course a church and that is about it. I don't know how many houses are here but less than a hundred I would guess. The nearest town is a few miles away.

My Isotek is run from a switched mains socket, my Cyrus system is run from the six outputs of the Isotek, two X Power amps from the high power output sockets, and the Pre amp, PSX-R, DACMagic and Airport Express are plugged into the other 4 normal outputs sockets. These 6 components were previously plugged into the Tacima. Yes the A/B testing was against the Tacima (which provided material improvements when I first got it last year). The fuse on the current mains plug from Isotek to mains is 13A (as is the Tacima plug I believe). House is built around 1970s, but I am afraid the rest of your questions are way over my head, I do have a box in the understairs cupboard with one big red on/off switch and about 6 other slightly smaller red on/off switches with labels like kitchen, lounge, upstairs etc but I don't know whether this is a consumer unit with circuit breakers. Sorry for being a bit useless.

 

[Anonymous]

Hi, a lovely morning for walking the dogs.

Thanks for the info, let me go through it with you.

Living in a village you will have less Mains contamination then if it were a Town or City.
I can confirm you do have a Consumer Unit fitted with circuit breakers (20A for the ring mains)
Now in your set up you have 6 items running off a switched socket (yulk) through a 13A plug fuse. (nasty)

This is where the bottleneck is. Is it a double socket?
Replace this socket with an unswitched one, you can do it yourself as it is a straight replacement, just turn off the power 1st!
Next get rid of the 13A fuse, ideally you want 20A unrestricted running into the unit, you can buy Audio fuses that are less restrictive.

If you have a double socket try using both sockets. (splitting your units between them)

Give that a go, I don't think you need a Quality Mains lead for the Unit. For your system I would be thinking on the lines of something like this to try....
http://www.airlinktransformers.com/transformer/bps2000-balanced-power-supply.asp

Hope this helps

 

[Tom Moreno]

I.D.C.:
Mains cables do not improve sound no matter what you read. It can't be done. I'm staggered by the amount of money people throw at mains cables for nothing.

I have a complete Linn system and they recommend not changing mains cables because they do not improve sound quality. Also equipment has safe guards built in for electrical surges. It's a power supply not a signal to your amp

Read this copy and paste artical

Guardian correspondent Dr. Goldacre and his column "Bad Science" which launches a lot of sceptical arguments and includes challenges to th hi-fi community around th issue of double blind testing. Below The KZone makes the following point:

The music you listen to will probably have been created in a recording studio. Even if it hasn't -- it's a live performance perhaps -- by definition it will have been recorded using electrical equipment of some sort. This equipment will have been mains powered. Now, I've spent time in recording studios, and I can't say that I ever saw one that used `audiophile mains cable' to power its mixing and amplification equipment. In fact, I've seen mains leads scavenged from kettles and toasters to power the mixing desk. As a matter of principle, your sound reproduction can never be any more accurate than the original recording. So if you spend more on your cables (mains or otherwise) than the studio does, you're wasting your money.

Yes speaker and inter connect cables can make a diffrance but not mains. This is where you should spend your money.

If you really want to improve your sound I recommend you go along to your doctor and have your ears syringed?

That will save you a lot of money and you will hear a missive increase in sound quality.

I have worked in professional recording studios both here in London and in Los Angeles. While what you say about the mains leads is true, every one of these studios employs extremely high grade mains filtration and conditioning throughout the studio. This is provided on a different phase to the regular mains feed and as you walk through the facilities you will see that every mains socket on the wall has two connections, one white and one orange. The orange is audio only and if you plug your laptop into it the assistant will ask you to switch plugs. Each of the orange sockets is filtered from the others as well and the filtering/conditioning systems used in these facilities exceeds tens of thousands of pounds.

 

[Anonymous]

trevor79: Next get rid of the 13A fuse, ideally you want 20A unrestricted running into the unit, you can buy Audio fuses that are less restrictive.

Thanks Trevor as always, do you mean change the 13A fuse inside the mains plug of the Isotek mini-sub unit to a 20A fuse, or just remove the 13A fuse from the plug, full stop? Showing my ignorance now as I don't even know if 20A fuses exist?!

)

I think I can manage changing the socket but I have a local electrician who will probably do it for a cup of tea, biscuits and a chat!! Think I will ask him round later!

 

[Anonymous]

Tom Moreno: While what you say about the mains leads is true, every one of these studios employs extremely high grade mains filtration and conditioning throughout the studio.

Thank you Tom, that makes sense and that is why I started with mains conditioning before worrying about mains leads for individual components, although I do have a mains lead coming next week for a 60 day trial.

 

[Anonymous]

Trevor, I just checked the specification for the Isotek GII Minisub, which states that there is a 13A fuse inside the unit anyway so I assume there is no benefit to be gained from removing the 13A fuse from the unit's mains plug??

 

[Anonymous]

For what little they cost I would consider buying some better quality 13A fuses off Russ Andrews.
Have posted a link on another thread.

You have 3 decent power supplies running off a 13A line which isn't helping achieve a effortless draw. That's why I think a 2000va mains transformer unit will make a big improvement rather than the Isotek you are trialing.

The replenishing rates of the reservoir caps inside your power amps and PSX are hampered at the moment, given an unrestricted supply you will think you are listening to a completely different system.

 

[Anonymous]

Sorry for this long post..... Did a bit more research this afternoon and some people say mains conditioning (apart from "cleaning" dirty mains supply to remove as much interference from other properties nearby and any electrical applicances in the house etc), also lowers the "noise floor" and gives more "headroom". Vague concepts to me! And that if one already has fairly "clean" mains to start off with, then mains conditioning may not necessarily make the music sound too different in terms of tonal balance, soundstage, detail etc, and it may only make the music sound a little more dynamic.... so far so good. Those who have read my earlier posts know that I live in a quiet village and I believe I have fairly clean mains because I cannot really tell any difference between my old Tacima mains condiitoning extension block (rrp £30) and my "ebay special" Isotek GII Mini-sub (rrp £550) after two evenings of A/B testing. (note - the Tacima did make a difference compared to my old cheapo extension block so I was comparing the Tacima with the Isotek).

After doing the above research, I tried the A/B testing again to see if I notice more "dynamic" music with the Isotek.... Well, was I surprised !! I didn't really notice any better dynamics (which is a pretty vague concept to me anyway), but what I noticed was something I was not expecting or indeed looking out for -- using the Isotek resulted in better sound than the Tacima:- tighter, punchier bass, more details in the mid-range and sweeter treble, but not a huge difference. Then I began scratching my head because the difference was noticeable, especially in quieter passages in Dians Krall's piano ballards, and I wondered why I did not pick up the difference in the last two evenings <---- a clue here.

Then

!! I identified the only material differences between the separate testing sessions -- whilst I had the washing machine, tumble dryer and dishwasher running in the utility room this afternoon, and neighbours were cutting grass, using pressure washer to wash cars etc, none of these things were happening during my evening test sessions. So why did the music sound better with the Isotek this afternoon when it should really sound worse with the outside ambient noise and electrical appliances working overtime? The only conclusion I can draw from this paradox is that the Tacima can only "clean" so much electrical noise (say for example up to 2 on a scale of 1 to 10), but the Isotek can do it up to say 8 on the same scale. And when the mains noise levels in the evening test sessions were lower due to absence of all the above electrical appliances or people nearby using lots of electrical equipment, the Tacima can cope and did just as well as the Isotek. But when the mains noise levels were, I imagine, materially higher earlier this afternoon, the Isotek stepped up to the plate while the Tacima did not do as well, hence revealing up noticeable differences in resultant sound quality between the two!

The above ties up generally with what some posters were saying on another thread as to why music appear to sound better at night - less electrical noise being one factor. I will post this on that thread as well. That is my two penny's worth as they say, YMMV!!

PS. Before other posters tell me it is all snake-oil/placebo effect and I am deaf, let me just say that I am someone who would not normally express an opinion (or dismiss other people's opinion) on something unless I have had personal experience of it, or experimented with it. In other words, I do not normally express an opinion based on "objective theory", I always try to base it on personal experience. I shall now run and hide.....

 

[Anonymous]

AKL:Trevor, I just checked the specification for the Isotek GII Minisub, which states that there is a 13A fuse inside the unit anyway so I assume there is no benefit to be gained from removing the 13A fuse from the unit's mains plug??

Removing fuses isn't to be recommended for safety reaons. They won't change the sound, so leave them in.

 

[Anonymous]

Oh really, and can you outline what they are that the rest of Europe don't follow?

I remember when we had 15Amp and 5Amp plugs which were hard wired, and audiophiles have long regarded them as being the best plugs to use.

Still don't see your credentials in your posts.

 

[Anonymous]

AKL I am glad that on closer listening that you do hear the extension to the range and detail in your music.

Much of the noise that is generated on the mains (as you have noted) is down to local activity. Plus, unless you have a dedicated spur will be from your own house!

My previous reference to better fuses stands and you will hear further improvements.