Volley, the conditioner is a passive type. It has 4 digital outlets. 4 preamp outlets. 2 amp outlets. 5 duos in all, 2 digital, 2 pre, 1 amp. These r the orange, hospital grade type that offer a good solid copper connection. Nothing too exotic. It is divided into two input sections. The digital
and the preamp sections r fronted by their own CMCs, (common mode chokes).
Each input has its own ground. The amp section shares a ground w/the preamp, but is not fronted by the CMC. Those chokes must be properly sized for the amplifier used... If the CMC was too small it effects the amps performance.
The 'bypass' you mention, is simply to connect the capacitor on the outlets from
neutral to ground. The Yamaha A-S2000, & CDS-2000 floats the ground. There r no ground pins, only hot & neutral, so by filtering the neutral to ground on the input, the amps only see a clean, filtered neutral.
Whatever 'type' of cap one uses, you can easily id its 'signature' sound downstream. Frankly to an astonishing extent. The conditioner offers an easily
accessible test bed to rotate & test this out. I have 3 dedicated 10g lines from
a subpanel for my audio system. So I use two of these to feed each the digital &
the amp/pre sections of the conditioner.
Cautions apply. Use caps that are rated high enough for the voltage required.
Foil type caps, like the CuTf & Dueland r supposed no-no's, as they won't 'fail'
properly. If one attempts to filter, from hot to neutral, & one uses a cap 'too large', anything over 'somewhere' around 3 or 4uf (take your pick), heat can become an issue and a cap can 'fail', explode. Filtering neutral to ground you don't have this problem, & quiet frankly sounds more effective. Do this & I would not think you would have any problems. It's easy & the impact upon ones
system is pretty dramatic... in a good sense. Blacker backgrounds, wider & deeper soundstage, more separation of instruments, more focus, less 'hash', ect... I started out using .22s I had rolled into my pramp over the yrs.
Caps 'colour' ones system in a similar way as different tube type 'colour' ones
components. Flavor to taste. What led me down this road, was borrowing a
conditioner from a friend & putting the unit on my mac mini music server downstairs on a different floor from my main rig. Within a day or two, the system developed a 'metallic oil sheen' throughout the whole frequency range.
When I brought the conditioner back to my friend & we opened it up, there was
a large oil in metal cap following the CMC to the outlets. So a music server, on a
different floor, connected wirelessly to the Transporter, effected everything downstream in the listening room. That, for me, was quite a 'rabbit hole' to tumble down.
You get the idea...
After that I opened up the larger conditioner on the main rig upstairs &
removed the little .01uf caps I found on the outlets & replaced them w/the
larger, various caps on hand, a bunch of .22s. Results; one can easily change the character of say, a dac, pre, or amplifier by rolling the appropriate cap, on the outlet, that feeds the component. Go figure...
As 'Uncle Jerry' said, "... what a long strange trip it's been."
