If you already have good clean power there is no need for a power conditioner. I have tried many power conditioners with the same results as Taters and Kurt_tank.
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02-05-13: MechansFor Mechans: did you ever stop to think how an AC regenerator works? The 60Hz AC (let's consider USA AC power) from the wall outlet is usually passively filtered inside the AC regen just as it enters it. This filtered 60Hz AC is converted to DC using the traditional full-wave rectifier bridge network. So, you get ripple voltage (changes in generated DC voltage as the power supply filter capacitor charges & discharges) like shown in Fig 3 of this reference http://www.bristolwatch.com/ele/basic_ac_rectification.htm This rectified & filtered DC (to reduce the ripple to a minimum) is fed into an oscillator board (this is the Multiwave PCB that Elizabeth is referring to). All electronics works on DC only & so does this Multiwave board. This oscillator board is designed to output a clean sinusoidal waveform that varies in voltage from 117V --> 120V & from 50Hz --> 110Hz). This clean sinusoid is supposed to represent the regenerated AC waveform that is then supplied to the AC outlets on the rear panel of the AC regenerator unit that your electronics connect to. So, it is easy to see that the 60Hz AC power from the wall is not what is fed to your electronics. It's the pure sine wave of the oscillator board that is used instead. The AC power from the wall outlet is used to drive the electronics inside the AC regen. That is also why the quality of the AC power entering the AC regen matters - give it poor quality power & your regenerated AC sine wave could be crappy as well! Also, it is easy to see (using Fig 3 of that above reference as a guide) that if you increased the frequency of AC from 60Hz to 110Hz, you would have less ripple amplitude (because the filter capacitor would have less time to discharge). If you supply lower ripple AC to your electronics, its performance is likely to be better. Ripple voltage has 120Hz & all its harmonics (240Hz, 360Hz, etc) that have nasty effects on sonic performance. "Digital power supplies" (as Elizabeth calls them) are what we call SMPS (switch mode power supplies). They are the kind that are used in your computer except much more compact for audio electronics to fit into that slimmer/slicker chassis. SMPS have been around since the late 1960s/early 1970s. As technology has advanced so has their implementation to the point that they are very sophisticated & they are rampant in smartphones today. SMPS are continuous-time, discrete-voltage, closed-loop AC/DC power systems that make use of a clocking signal. Thus, the harmonics of the regenerated AC signal can/will interact with the clock of the SMPS & that could have ill-effects on the sonic performance. It is very reasonable to think that the higher freq regenerated AC sine wave has higher energy content in its higher harmonics compared to the energy content in the higher harmonics of a lower frequency regenerated AC sine wave. And this interaction of the higher harmonics with the SMPS clock could be worsening the sonics.... Long answer to your question but I hope that it helps. FWIW. |
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