Rerurn to Romy the Cat's Site

Romy,

    Your findings are more congruent than not with my own experiences with  different systems and environments.

Dedicated lines:.  My experience with a dedicated line was when I was in a detached house. The line corresponded to your first dedicated (inhouse) line. In slight contrast to you I noticed a mild (but only a mild) improvement compared to the house line. However I didn’t have dimmers or other nasty devices and I lived in a smaller town about 60 miles from a big city.  It seems that if there is any path whatever then the “dedicated” line will experience leakage from other lines. I think the only way around this is to have a second “drop” from the utility going to a separate wiring installation (or separate room/building).

Line distortion:  I think that much of the distortion from house non-audio devices (refrigerators etc) is ameliorated by randomization of peaks and troughs. The key is how varied the other devices are (assuming they are Not on the same circuit as audio). You have an unusual situation because you have so many dimmers (one type of device).

Power regenerators: They seem to behave as another component in the audio system rather than something apart or preceding it. I had a PS Audio power plant at one time and while it did some good things It was inconsistent in its effects. I assume from your experience that the Pure Power regenerators are better but they also seem to behave as components in the audio system. For example, I use a VPI SDS regenerator to operate the turntable. When I stuck a balun in between the wall and the SDS I noticed a reduction in noise level but like you I also noticed a negative effect on the sound. However, if I stuck the balun between the SDS and the turntable (ie the turntable plug into the balun and the balun into the SDS) then I heard noise reduction Without a negative effect on the sonics. But note that the SDS – balun – turntable motor have no direct connections with the audio components.

As a side note because of my dissatisfaction with the existing regenerators (other than the SDS) I  ended up going with PS Audio baluns (UO). However, I found that each component had to be plugged into a separate balun to achieve significant results. The baluns are then daisychained back to the wall. The balun is supposed to reduce noise bidirectionally and it does seem to do that. (Most reviewers did not use a separate PS Audio balun for each component. leading to equivocal results IMO). I felt that the sound was more natural with the baluns than the power plant. The drawback is that I’m still at the mercy of the utility to some extent since I have somewhat less insulation from their garbage. I will try the Pure Power regenerator this year and hope it does better. But I suspect I will still need baluns if the SDS experience is any guide.

As for your installation I agree that was a brilliant idea to have the two splits on the (improved) dedicated line. I would also be interested in any experiments you do in trying to buffer the individual components from each other.

Rerurn to Romy the Cat's Site