Surge protectors!

[jase fox]

AKL:
A note of caution - as with all things, different people have different hearing, and different houses have different degrees of mains noise. A £1200 Istoek Sigma conditioner fed with fairly "clean" mains in a rural setting near a sub-station may not make a material difference, but a £30 Tacima fed with fairly "noisy" mains in an industrial area may well make a bigger difference.

So it doesn't really matter what some folks say, it is what works for your ears in your house that counts.
I couldnt agree with you more here AKL our power station for my area is literally just round the corner if i look out my back bedroom window you can see it, my sound suits me just fine & it is each to there own. But i do like to experiment, ha

 

[idc]

Alec Trickle:If you don't concentrate on them the "differences" will melt away. Try it. It's your perception that's changing, not the mains.

Most of the time I don't concentrate on the differences, but I like hifi and I like listening for differences and that is why I thoroughly enjoy this forum and discussing such with generally likeminded individuals.

I have a new amp, its a hybrid valve amp and it slowly 'burns in' as the valves bed in and the capacitors physically change as they bulge. That is not my perception. Regarding the mains, it is widely accepted that later at night the mains is quieter and the voltage rises slightly as demand falls and there are many reports, including by myself, of hifi sounding better at that time. That is also not my perception.

I accept that many people just listen to the music and are not bothered about the quality of sound. They may or may not register differences in sound between hifis, let alone differences in the mains. So be it. I am bothered about the quality of sound and I do like to listen to and notice differences. Sometimes those differences are tiny, but that if anything is half the fun. Thats it, I am having fun! (Though my wife has just switched the TV over to Eurovision and the entry from Bosnia Herzegovinia have temporarlily spolied my fun with music.)

 

[Anonymous]

Headroom is king.

There are no easy fixes to obtaining it, and filters by themselves are a compromise on it, hence the findings of many posts.

Stability on the draw (voltage)

Capacity (Amps)

Volume (capacitance)

RFI Interference

Spurious voltage on the Neutral path.

Poor True Earth connections and cross bonding.

Without addressing ALL the above issues you will struggle to get an detailed, totally involving musical experience, you will just be listening to Hi Fi and not a musical performance IMHO.

 

[Anonymous]

trevor79:Headroom is king.

There are no easy fixes to obtaining it, and filters by themselves are a compromise on it, hence the findings of many posts.

Stability on the draw (voltage)

Capacity (Amps)

Volume (capacitance)

RFI Interference

Spurious voltage on the Neutral path.

Poor True Earth connections and cross bonding.

Without addressing ALL the above issues you will struggle to get an detailed, totally involving musical experience, you will just be listening to Hi Fi and not a musical performance IMHO.

Hilarious. Thanks.

 

[jaxwired]

Alec Trickle:

trevor79:Headroom is king. There are no easy fixes to obtaining it, and filters by themselves are a compromise on it, hence the findings of many posts. Stability on the draw (voltage) Capacity (Amps) Volume (capacitance) RFI Interference Spurious voltage on the Neutral path. Poor True Earth connections and cross bonding. Without addressing ALL the above issues you will struggle to get an detailed, totally involving musical experience, you will just be listening to Hi Fi and not a musical performance IMHO.

Hilarious. Thanks.

Smug and over confident. Nice combo. If only we could all be so smart and well informed...

 

[Anonymous]

trevor79:Headroom is king.

There are no easy fixes to obtaining it, and filters by themselves are a compromise on it, hence the findings of many posts.

Stability on the draw (voltage)

Capacity (Amps)

Volume (capacitance)

RFI Interference

Spurious voltage on the Neutral path.

Poor True Earth connections and cross bonding.

Without addressing ALL the above issues you will struggle to get an detailed, totally involving musical experience, you will just be listening to Hi Fi and not a musical performance IMHO.

No comment.

 

[Anonymous]

jaxwired:Alec Trickle:

trevor79:Headroom is king. There are no easy fixes to obtaining it, and filters by themselves are a compromise on it, hence the findings of many posts. Stability on the draw (voltage) Capacity (Amps) Volume (capacitance) RFI Interference Spurious voltage on the Neutral path. Poor True Earth connections and cross bonding. Without addressing ALL the above issues you will struggle to get an detailed, totally involving musical experience, you will just be listening to Hi Fi and not a musical performance IMHO.

Hilarious. Thanks.

Smug and over confident. Nice combo. If only we could all be so smart and well informed...

Smug, possibly but not over confident. I do know pseudotechnobabble garbage when I see it.

 

[Andrew Everard]

Alec Trickle:Smug, possibly but not over confident. I do know pseudotechnobabble garbage when I see it.

And I know a much-banned poster when I see one...

 

[aliEnRIK]

Dont feed the trolls

 

[jase fox]

Looking at your signature equipment list i'm surprised you hav'nt gone down the bluray route yet Rik? Unless you just hav'nt updated your list recently.

 

[aliEnRIK]

The PS3 is actually VERY good once plugged through the Sigmas. I also use it to watch converted Matroska files direct off the hardrive (Which look awesome)

Though im keeping an eye out for the SONY S5000 (And ive just spent 1500 quid ish on the marantz so im in no rush). I only have a handful of blurays anyways and I find theyre still far too expensive considering how much dvds are these days.

As my tv only has 2 hdmi inputs I was in no rush to buy a bluray player as my LX50 dvd player plays dvds far better than any sub 500 quid bluray player. The Marantz preamp will now allow me to connect a dedicated bluray player too

 

[jase fox]

Sorry Rik, did'nt notice you had a PS3 Duahh !! & yes i agree that it is a cracking bluray player as i have a few mates that own one.

 

[idc]

Andrew Everard:

Alec Trickle:Smug, possibly but not over confident. I do know pseudotechnobabble garbage when I see it.

And I know a much-banned poster when I see one...

If this is correct is 'Alec' being allowed to post just so that we can have some Sunday debate fun?

 

[Andrew Everard]

No longer so...

 

[aliEnRIK]

jase fox:Sorry Rik, did'nt notice you had a PS3 Duahh !! & yes i agree that it is a cracking bluray player as i have a few mates that own one.

No worries

Though I must stress it wasnt half as good before being plugged through the Sigmas (Sound in particular REALLY came alive)

 

[jase fox]

aliEnRIK:
jase fox:Sorry Rik, did'nt notice you had a PS3 Duahh !! & yes i agree that it is a cracking bluray player as i have a few mates that own one.

No worries

Though I must stress it wasnt half as good before being plugged through the Sigmas (Sound in particular REALLY came alive)

Do you have a website address for these Sigmas Rik? Im curious to have a look.

 

[aliEnRIK]

This is the main info for it ~

ISOTEK SIGMAS

This very site has reviewed one. They said it didnt make any differene to the tv they tried but it sure as hell made a difference to mine (Though it took a few weeks before it clearly did)

Theres quite a few reviews knocking about EDITED BY MODS - please do not discuss moderation.

 

[jase fox]

Thanks alot Rik i'll have a good read later, how much do these cost?

 

[aliEnRIK]

Not cheap

I bought mine off ebay that was only a few months old. Im unsure of RRP but I believe its about 1200 quid. Google comes up with £970 as being the cheapest (im sure it could be found a little cheaper with a proper look mind)

 

[jase fox]

aliEnRIK:Blimey ! Was'nt expecting it to be that much , all i can say is that they must seriously work Rik? It's abit over my budget i must say, the other half would hang, draw & quarter me if i bought one ! ha

 

[aliEnRIK]

haha

I completely understand that.

I wasnt into the cable/conditioner game att all for the first 10 years or so. I thought it was all a gimmick. But after testing the Isotek Elite mains lead on my A85 amp I was hooked. So I decided to try and sqeeze as much life as possible out of the equipment I had before upgrading.

I actually ended up doing both really as my dad sold me his CD32 player (I had an Arcam 83 ~ still do in fact but boxed up)

Wanted to bi amp my A85 but found a P1000 amp for 1k knocked off and bought that to completely replace it. Then wanted to get the very best out of the P1000 so just this week got my AV8003 pre amp. Speakers are probably the weak link now but im keeping them until I move house methinks.

 

[clearer_audio]

Hello everyone

Having just completed a very lengthy development process for our new Copper-line Alpha Power-HUB (which incoporates surge protection, filtering and ground monitoring) I thought it might be of interest if I contributed to this thread.

As has been pointed out surge protectors are very variable. Most surge protectors incorporated into extensions are basic and will comprise of a simple varistor wired between live and neutral to protect this single channel. However the capability of this solution is very limited in terms of capacity (i.e., a single varistor will not last long as one large surge or transient could render it useless) and that it only suppresses surges between live and neutral (i.e., surges can also occus between live-earth and neutral-earth). The quality of a surge protection system can affect sound quality due to raised impedance during normal use.

Filters can also be very limiting by their nature as Trevor has pointed out. This is why some manufacturers provide sockets with different power ratings depending upon the system utilised. We took a different view to this developing a system which is unobtrusive allowing 17A of continuous current delivery for all sockets.

I hope this might be of interest.

Best regards,
Darren

 

[idc]

Hi Darren. Hope you dont mind but here is a photo of said hub..........................

...and at £65 for the 4 way version, considering all it does with filtering etc I hope you have a winner on your hands.

 

[clearer_audio]

idc:
Hi Darren. Hope you dont mind but here is a photo of said hub..........................

...and at £65 for the 4 way version, considering all it does with filtering etc I hope you have a winner on your hands.

Hi IDC,

One was delivered to What Hi-Fi? on Friday. We are not sure when it will be reviewed but we hope they like it!

Best regards,

Darren