At the conceptual level there is really only one "ground", where both the "neutral" and the "ground" ultimately wind up.  Variations in the "aptitude" of the "ground plane"/route to the ground cause it to load up with current, which draws/carries/transmits common mode noise.  There is always a certain amount of "talking" between components.  A great example is that any iso-tranny or conditioner that is used will screw up anything on its circuit that is not plugged into it, and many of these devices are yet susceptable to inter-component "cross talk", ie, some (perhaps most) are only good for one component per circuit, and these circuits should probably not share a neutral or ground wire all the way to actual, physical ground.  Beyond that, it's all about proper "stacking".

Romy just made some very specific observations that tie 'scoped forms and values to sound.  I sure wish the stupid "conditioner" manufacturers would do this, including the self-effects of their own components.  Who wants a "perfect waveform" if its net effect on the sound reminds one of molasses or bleach, or if it pollutes everything else?

But no sense worrying about this awful stuff if your power is always good, right?

Are you served AC or DC?

Best regards,
Paul S

Here is what I have been thinking for a whale: how bad electricity impacts our long term judgment about the design decisions. Pretend we have a DSET amplifier and a speaker channel and we have a task to load the DSET’s plate properly. The proper loading of DSET with the given speaker is a satiation when the DSET/speaker combo outputs acoustic-like harmonic structure under wider circumstances. I intentionally simplify the things, bare with me….

Now we have a SET, driven explicitly from bad electricity source. In case of bad electricity the sound got compressed and the flatten MF presses the upperbass to become hard for “swallowing” as it rise acoustic pressure before it rises tonal pressure. To “fix” it or to band-air it people tend to idle the SET’s plate slightly more than they would do with good electricity as the increase transients make people to feel (mistakably) that they got some dynamics, brilliance, vividness back.  The SET loading is done and the sound let pretend is OK. Then we clean up electricity with some kind of devise, let say regenerator.  The dominance of pressure over tone is gone and the need to under-load the SET’s plate is not there anymore. However, the amp, driven from good electricity, is still loaded as it would be for bad electricity – with excessive amount transients and inadequate harmonics. This make us to feel that the power curing devise (let say a regenerator) make sound “sharp” and screw up harmonics but in reality it also might be just a signature of overly ideal plate.

The people who understand what I say would know that I slightly twisted some things but I did it for the sake of illustration of the concept. I do not feel that what I describe before is the ONLY explanation and some power curing devises do screw up harmonics but the above mentioned effect ALSO takes place and shell be considered. I do not know what the percentage of mistaken assessment is made die to the bad electricity have imbedded itself into the common audio judgment, it might be 10% or it might be 80%. But I do feel it is there…

My curiosity peaked with Jessie Dazzle’s last few posts.  I realized that, in France, he receives 220v, 50 Hz power.  I then recalled Romy’s post at http://www.goodsoundclub.com/Forums/ShowPost.aspx?postID=1177#1177.  I was wondering if, at 240V, some of the fluctuations between good and bad electricity could be alleviated.  Perhaps if a power regenerator were to run off of the full 240v and output 120v, some of the problems could be alleviated.  I’m not sure, but it is something that I would like to explore.

I have no idea where the problems in our power come from.  I remember that, years ago, our lights were flickering a few times per day.  We had the power company come out and, after being really impressed with our antique copper connectors, he said that he would try to clean rather than replace them.  After that, the lights were just fine.  This was at work and before I had my playback system there (yes, I have my system at work.  Damn, I love my job!).  The lights still don’t flicker but a playback system is certainly far more sensitive to bad electricity and in very different ways.  So certainly some of the problems exist in the connectors. 

At least today, I had good enough electricity to thoroughly enjoy Karajan conducting Beethoven’s 6th and Horowitz performance of Scarlatti’s Sonata for keyboard in E major, "Cortège."

Just my two cents, anyway.  Tesla may have won the current wars, but his plan to wirelessly transmit power through the earth may have been better for audio.  Too bad it didn’t sell.

Well, if I stop to post in this there is does not mean that the problem is not there anymore and with a new few weeks I hope to attack the electricity problem again.

Firstly the new version of APS Pure Power regenerator is coming and they are about to send me one. It will be 2000W unit and it will be 7th Pure Power regenerator. They claim that this one is much more stable (means will not blow) and has some other advances. I hope that it will eventually work somehow…

Second is the Arabian Regenerator (read the thread) that Dima and I are working for 6 month. Well, I distorted my participation in this project. I kind of found, organize, spec and run the project but it is about it. The full nobility of authorship for the Arabian Regenerator lei on Dima’s shoulder – he designed it and built it.

Knowing certain things about the Arabian Regenerator I have feeling that it might be something absolutely out of this world – nothing like this I even seen or heard about. Some objectives that we impose to this regenerator were so ambitions that they arouse Dima to come with incredible inventions – like a completely new topology of amplifier that absolutely immured to loading impedance, capacitance or inductance. This Arabian Regenerator is able to drive at unlimited power into 100mF capacitor outputting absolutely the same characteristic and the same stability as it would against a restive load. That would be a perfect topology for electrostats… Anyhow, there are a lot of VERY slick solutions in the Arabian Regenerator. I would not go into all of them now, nor would I divulge the conceptual topology of the Regenerator. I would only say that the-fully functional board is finished and tested now and below is the picture of it at the Dima’s workbench. I hope in a few weeks I will have it and will be able to evaluate the “minor thing” – how all those design ideas in fact sound.

Well, the exiting times on the electricity Armageddon are coming.

This weekend I made an interesting experiment.  I had a visitor yesterday. The gay is not what I call overly critical and overly demanding listener but he is not a typical Audio Moron and has from my point of view a proper and sane reaction to the things – a seldom quality among audio hoodlums. He also does hear the things, perhaps not by the external or what I call “tactical” hearing but calturalsy - a good and valuable quality in my view, also very seldom among people who practice audio.

We spent 3 hours together and were mostly concern with some aspects of sound of top his top flying tube tuners vs. the tope flying SS tuners but before to do out audio experiments I spend an hour or so to play his various material for him in order him to get a familiar how the playback sounds generally and get comfortable with its sound.

I played explicitly FM recordings off my DAW. I was not sitting at the “sweat spot” but was somewhere else but I clearly heard that it was “bad electricity day”. The sound was flat and quite compressed. An addition of a few dB of volume added pressurizing, almost painful harsh force on ears.  Bass was also very flat with no texture. He did not complained a lot (well if person for a first time exposed to BSO live FM recording in full bloom then it is difficult to complain regarding how bad sound is) even those I felt that he was concerned about the sound of thin mass-strings (that in my vow was absolutely unlistenable). Since the APS people still blowing me and the Avicenna Regenerator is not here yet everything was plugged in the wall. I know that Melquiades’ HF channels are very little sensitive to eclectic power but Lavry 924 DAC through everything go in case of my DAW use is superbly sensitive to electricity and there is nothing the I have can help it.

So, I decided to make some change. I played a cut off my reel-to-real player. It is battery-power and has no contact to great at all, driving Milqs directly. All problems with electricity gone right the way and upper range was soft and non-abusive as it shell be. Furthermore, what I did not tell to my guy was that I was playing Dolby B recorded tape without Dolby decoding (this recording allowed to do it - Kodaly Op.7). Believe me or not but the system handled it wonderfully with no signs of stress at HF.

Well, I figured out – if digital is dead then I need to put the heavy artillery in the fight I begin to spin records. With my TT setup I have an interesting tool - I run my input-choke powered “End of the Life” Phonostage via an RCA-made 100W isolation transformer from in 1920 or 1930. The transformer is absolutely unique as it completely cures all electricity problems. None of the other isolation transformers (and I have quite a few) help to my phonostage. Also, this RCA transformer doe NOT help to any other devise I tried it with. I have to note also that this RCA transformer in some case does not help to phonostage as well (depends what specifically is wrong with electricity) but it is VERY effective in I would say 95% of all cases). So, the analog sound very nice this time. I was able to play is as loud as I wish (I plays it 6-8 loader then Digital files with no complain from my visitor), the basses were as they shell be (you need to hear what the New Jubilee does with bass!) and the top regions were as soft as transparent as I would expected, with no signs of any kind to force themselves to listener’s perception.

In the end of out meeting I asked my typical question: what among all played material my visitor found was the most memorable from this listening session. The question is not as simple as it might appear and has nothing to do with steadying of glitzy effects. I did not played crappy music and all performances were of very high caliber. Also, my visitor was not a typical audio idiot in his search of a cheap thrill of showy sonic sensations. I knew what I was asking and he understood what I meant. His response was peaty much what I expected – he music played from reel machine and LP cuts were the very first records that he named.

Well, what is next? The APS people promised me that this week then will eventually send me the new revision of their generator. Folks this is going on from the June of last year. My only positive expectation at this point are purely kabalistic – it will be the 7th PurePower APS regenerator and I hope my  Jewish heritage would kick in and bring me luck with this 7th unit. The Avicenna power regenerator I hope will be here before end of the year as well. Let see how that baby will push up against the electrician problems. The last battle between me and audio? Eh!

Romy the Cat wrote:

Well, I figured out – if digital is dead then I need to put the heavy artillery in the fight I begin to spin records. With my TT setup I have an interesting tool - I run my input-choke powered “End of the Life” Phonostage via an RCA-made 100W isolation transformer from in 1920 or 1930. The transformer is absolutely unique as it completely cures all electricity problems. None of the other isolation transformers (and I have quite a few) help to my phonostage. Also, this RCA transformer doe NOT help to any other devise I tried it with. I have to note also that this RCA transformer in some case does not help to phonostage as well (depends what specifically is wrong with electricity) but it is VERY effective in I would say 95% of all cases). So, the analog sound very nice this time. I was able to play is as loud as I wish (I plays it 6-8 loader then Digital files with no complain from my visitor), the basses were as they shell be (you need to hear what the New Jubilee does with bass!) and the top regions were as soft as transparent as I would expected, with no signs of any kind to force themselves to listener’s perception.

Just yesterday I reported in the post above how marvelously my RCA transformer cures the sound. Today I have some time and I decided to record for LBJ a cut of Rach II to show off the Jubilee colorfulness.

http://www.GoodSoundClub.com/TreeItem.aspx?PostID=8778

I played the record into Lavry Gold ADC and listened the file. It was not just bad but it was a nightmare. I figured that Lavry went south. Then I played the phonostage to speakers – the same crap - juts a flat wall of gray sound and nothing else.  There was absolutely nothing changed between yesterday and today and my “kinky” transformer did not work anymore. Just for fun I pull the plug from the transformer and plugged it to the wall.  It was a magnificent transformation – with huge and supremely soft bass, very large sound… but believe me or now it was virtually monophonic imaging. I never saw it like this. I shut it down – it was too much for me.

Paul S wrote:

… Bad Electricity has more than kept pace, setting me back at an exponential rate…

OK, can somebody explain it to me as I’m a 3 year old?

http://www.synergisticresearch.com/page/ac_conditioning

I do not claim that it is BS I juts would like to know what it is. Jack Bybee’s Quantum Toys, if it is the same, works very badly. Should I expect the synergistic search’s Quantum Tunneling be the same?

Paul S wrote:

I think I remember reading that Jack Bybee used some sort of nano-crystaline ferric dust or something that is supposed to quiet the noise riding on the current.  However stupid it sounds, it is my understanding that this is what they use to quite things down for SONAR.

Yesterday there was the worst I can remember in my long-lasting with electricity. I mean it was not just bad it was beyond any description. My preamp has 126 steps (near a db per click) and during an average electricity day I listening it at 50-60 slicks. Yesterday at 10 clicks the sound was so loud and so “face hitting” that at the click #12 I experienced a physical pain. The speakers sound in complete mono and I had a feeling that the drivers have lost their suspension. Each channel produced pretty much a single note of 2000Hz-3000Hz – truly amazing. Furthermore, I heard how the diaphragms were resisting sounding – a very strange effect. It sounded like someone scratched the diaphragms with finger nails. It was only at MF channels and I physically heard the sound of deformation of the cones. I initially thought that that what a few days back I was accidently driving my MF Vitavox S2 with unfiltered 300B then I damaged my driver but then I realized that I heard the sound of deformation of my MF cone at… the  left channel – the one that I did not use with during my DHT experiments.

I would sincerely believe that the system is terminally sick if I knew that there was nothing changed in my playback for… days, weeks and month. Today, it sounds near OK, in fact it does sound bad at all. The 12 hour of electricity change – what a difference!

What the hell is it? I truly do not interested what it is all about. It is more or less new company

http://www.audience-av.com/conditioners/

… that for the last 2-3 year made a lot of good noise in the industry. The fun part is that they never made any specific comments what they do in their conditioners and when people on their behave make some claims then the claims sound very bogus. Sure a lot of people say positive things about the sound of Adept Response conditioners but it means shit to me, not to mention that in their positive subjective comment about the positive benefits of Adept Response’s contribution I see a lot of contradictions (among what I have read)

The Audience Adept Response has good press but it hardly has anything to do with sound. That only means that the guys who run marketing for Audience know how to kiss the right assess sand to butter up right people. To promote a power conditioners that has it’s operation sponsored by Harry Pearson is similar to wire an application to a kibbutz and to have Adolf Hitler as your reference…

I do not make any negative comments about Audience Adept Response unit – I never had them, never heard them, I feel curios about them but at the same time I am a bit disappointed with expertise of analyses those units were exposed to, at least publicly available. Does anybody can point out me to the description of how those conditioners work? In the case of power devises I do not need people tell me about sound of the devises – I do not believe them anyhow. I would like to know what is done, how is done and being kind of evolved user myself I would make my own estimated how interesting it might be.

Anyone familiar with these? http://www.vertexaq.com/component/option,com_frontpage/Itemid,1/ 
I heard a demo @ RMAF; without, with, without again... 
Very effective. 
In that place, At that time, with that system, etc.  

Part of it is about electrical problem, part about vibrations getting into electrical components. 
I did try the "listen to end of wire through stethoscope while rubbing with penny, hear horrible scratchy noise, change to their wire with "magic box" and the noise went away." 
How that could affect SOUND, I don't really know, don't know if I buy all their explanation, but it sure made a huge difference. 

The typical bad electricity/good electricity difference, so I thought I'd mention it here, even though I don't understand what I heard... 

Robert