Mating power cords with APL 3910

Balanced power can work with some gear, on others, it makes a mess. I'm not a fan of toroidal based PLC's and somewhere in the archives, there's a thread where i explained why going into technical detail with a full explanation.

To sum things up, toroids suck compared to a good "iron core" type old school transformer. The figures that BPT provides for the 3.5 as seen in the review at Six Moons confirm the figures that i posted in that thread. Sixty to seventy dB's of noise suppression with a toroid as compared to one hundred twenty to one hundred fourty five dB's of noise suppression with an ultra-isolation iron core transformer isn't hard to figure out which is best. Granted, ANY noise suppression is a good thing, but if you're going to spend that kind of money, why not get something that REALLY works???

Either way, you should contact the manufacturer of ALL of your components and find out if they are compatible with a balanced AC input. Assuming that all of it will may be a mistake. Then again, the gear that won't work with balanced AC is gear that already has polarized noise suppression built into it and there ain't much gear like that made nowadays. That's because it requires design skills and money to produce. Sean
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Has anyone tried isoclean stuff?

Tvad,
I am using a Electraglide Ultra Khan statement 2 20 amp version for the Hydra 8.

Sean,
Actually you descibe exatly my feelings about how can power cords improve sound quality when looking at the construction. Until I tried a quality Power cord , no one could convince me there would be an improvement.

Your discription about the insides of Hydra 8 is probably correct, I really don't know.
The APL sounds better plugged in to the Hydra 8 than straight into the wall. Perhaps the stardust is doing something or some other hocus pocus, but, it does sound better.

Sean,
Although I started this thread with the aim of determining a short list of PCs for the APL 3910, the related subject of power conditioning is also of immediate interest to me. So, I appreciate your expertise.

Your comments regarding Hydra's design seem reasonable. Is there a power conditioner on the market that incorporates all three major design elements you suggest? If I understood you correctly, those 3 elements are: 1. central junction point to provide "equal" availability of voltage and current for all outlets, 2. parallel line filter at the central point to clean up the incoming AC, and 3. parallel line filters at each outlet for addditional filtering and for back filtering. If no such unit exists in the market, what are the alternatives for the here and now?

One reasonable alternative is the approach Ozzy (above) took: separate Hydras for the major components. This is suggested by the Shunyata's website: "The Hydra 8 can be used in conjunction with other Hydras if there are multiple dedicated lines available. This allows for the complete isolation of high-current and low-current electronics on separate lines, while still benefiting from the performance and protection that all Hydras deliver." The drawback (for me, not for Shunyata) to this approach is the added expense for the additional Hydras and power cords.

I'm hoping you can suggest a more economic solution to conditioning the power for my four major components: (upcoming) APL 3910, two Jadis JP80 mono amps driving the Wilson Watt/Puppies, and one Krell amp driving the subwoofer (Wilson Audio WHOW). I do have three dedicated 20 amp AC lines to work with.

The only solution I came up with is a compromise. The Shunyata's website states: "All four of the Model-8's silver-plated duplex outlets are isolated with their own buss and passively filtered, allowing each duplex to be interchangeably utilized for either high-current electronics or noise-sensitive digital equipment." According to this statement there should be little or no duplex-crosstalk and inter-duplex contamination. Although there may be crosstalk and contamination between the 2 outlets in the same duplex. If that is true, then I could plug in each of my 4 major components into outlets in 4 separate duplexes to eliminate or reduce crosstalk and contamination, as long as I don't use the remaining 4 outlets. (Essentially, use 4 for the price of 8.) Also, as Tvad pointed out, Hydra's Venom Filters provide some back filtering. Therefore, that should reduce the pollution coming from the components. What this single unit solution does not address are the shortcomings you suggested that are inherent in a daisy-chain topology, namely, the availability of voltage and current may not be the same for the 4 outlets I will use. Any suggestions for an economic solution?

Also, are the above Shunyata claims achievable in their units? Or, is this just marketing fluff? It seems to me, and I may be wrong, that you are questioning a part of their claim when you stated "...there's nothing stopping internally generated noise from within a component from feeding back into the outlets that it is directly tied to via the buss bars." Did I misinterpret your statement? Or, did you mean to use the singular "outlet" instead of the plural "outlets"?
John