The winters lessons.

Footers and shelves;
I tried the BDR pucks with the BDR cones, both Type 3 on my SCD-1, pre-amp and amp. On the SCD-1 and pre-amp the sound was dark and slow but had a bit more detail. The amp the base was good and detail was the best I'd had to date and the speed was about the same as just the #3 cones alone. I then tried it on the amp power supply and received great base, very good detail and no change in timing. The mid and high ends were not all that effected by any of this. I decided this was too much money for power supply footers and used on the amp knowing I wasn't done. I then tried a BDR shelf and found it to smooth out the high end on the SCD-1 with no lose of dynamics of pace. The stage depth increased quite a bit and the base got just slightly "bloomy" (thick base with too much color). I found it to hurt the sound on my pre-amp, slow, bloomy, dark. I moved it to the amp and was very pleased with the base definition along with the mid/high crystal quality. I used it on the SCD-1 for the time being. Now to date I can't say any of this really helped separate the instruments or added air or quieted to background. It did however add pace and quality of tone. I ended my search of shelving with a Neuance shelf . With the recommendation of Redkiwi, I let the shelf sit in place for a week before moving anything. The eventual set-up was placing my SCD-1 directly on the Neuance. (the SCD-1 has a fairly elaborate footer design and through trial and error I believe the unit sounds it's best on it's own feet) I set the Neuance on four BDR cones turned up and fastened to BDR pucks that were placed on the sandstone base. The four cones are place "exactly" in the center of each quarter of the shelves surface. I then moved the BDR shelf to the amp. The shelf sits on three BDR cones pointing down, this time two cones are at each corner of the back, and one in the center of the front edge of the shelf. The amp sits on three OB brass cones on brass disks in the opposite corners as the BDR cones and the opposite center point. This then required quite a bit of fine tuning (many hours) by moving the brass cones slightly until the best imaging and detail was achieved. I then placed the amp power supply on 3 BDR cones and pucks points down, again fine tuning increased the performance. The pre-amp got the titanium OB cones on brass disks sitting directly on the sandstone slab. It was my opinion the pre-amp benefitted the most from these unique cones and was lost performance with the BDR products. (Warning: it is my opinion that BDR is best used on a system that is on the bright side. It is my experience that these products tend to muddy warmer sounding equipment, even the #4 products) The pre-amp power supply sits on BDR cones because I had extra, the improvement is small if at all. The end result is increased pace, tight base, smoother highs, and most of all greater sound stage depth and width and imaging within the sound stage. With out question the largest footer improvement came from the Neuance shelf. Second for me were the Orchard Bay cones, The BDR pucks were a big improvement over just cones and the BDR shelf in my opinion is not worth the money. My amp power supply received a big improvement from footers where the pre-amp power supply received little to none.

Power supply:
I should start by telling you I live in a very quite suburb, (the closest commercial area is over a mile and a half away) and we're16 miles from downtown Minneapolis. We have a power sub-station within a mile and we are the last house on our line with a transformer that only supplies us at the top of the pole, within 100' of our box. The power noise level is really not an issue to the degree that some of you have. I spent a lot of time and money this year experimenting with various power supply issues. First I installed a 20 amp dedicated circuit with 10 ga. wire. I used a commercial grade Hubble hospital outlet. I still have yet to try any other outlet products. I also tried a number of power conditioners for 15 days at a time. I tried the Power Wedge Ultra 115, Audio Prism Power foundation 3, Lightspeed CLS 6400 and 9900, Monster HTS-2000, Quantum Audio Symphony Pro and PS Audio P300. It should be noted that I did not try the Equa=Tech products, but still believe they are worth considering. Each unit had different good and bad characteristics. Bass definition, sound stage and treble were altered to some degree. I have settled on the P300 because it provided the quietest background by far and had the least impact on the sound. It did improve bass definition and tempo but did not seam to artificially color the sound. For the money I believe the HTS-2000 is a fantastic unit and worthy of any system. It did not quite the background like the P300 but it did not color the sound either. I also used the Audio Prism Quietline Parallel Line Shunt Filters. At $25.00 each they are a good value. They recommend a min. of four but I found one to be a great value, two a good value and the last two I bought a waste of money. They did indeed remove a light layer of haze, hiss from the presentation. I tried a couple of tricks on my buddies where as I changed the disk I'd remove a filter, sit back down and listen. In all but one instance they perceived something had changed.. I never to this day have told them I change the filter. For me I received the biggest benefit from power cords. O.K. here we go! I have tried skillions of cords this year and have been fascinated by the results. I've used Snakes, Top Gun, Fatboys, Master Coupler, NBS, XLO, Kimber, Audio Magic and BMI. CORDS DO MAKE A DIFFERENCE. For me the benefit are quite high. This year I decided to replace the $150 Audio Magic cords I was using. I bought a Electraglide Fatboy and a Reference Standard along with a Top Gun. These became my base point. I tried friends cords, King Cobra, Master Coupler, XLO and Kimber. Two or three of us would get together and try two or three cords at a time. If a cord won it came back. I always had another cord I'd find on Audiogon to add to the test. Each cord had something good to enjoy and each seemed to have faults. The Reference Standard was first off the island, replaced for a short time with my friends King Cobra. The Top Gun was second off the reference system replaced by a BMI Whale. This cord blew away every cord it went up against on any piece of equipment to this point. I then found a NBS Statement for a great price so I tried it. This cord now had bested the BMI but only when used on the SCD-1. This is a perfect match! My system tonight still has a Fatboy on my pre-amp (this piece of equipment seams to benefit the least from power cords) the NBS Statement on the SCD-1 and a BMI Whale on the amp. The P300 posed a new problem and after a brief set of tests a second Whale was required to compare. That cord is 3/4 of the way through burn-in but out of the box it again bested all comers. I tried it briefly on the pre-amp and now will have to do more comparing, it appears ready to knock the Fatboy off the island next. That of course would require a third cord, and I'm not sure I want that much of the same properties in one system. The problem with a lot of cords is they leave a signature sound on the music. If two or three of the same cord is used it tends to over play that signature and the benefit of the cord is lost. It appears to me that the BMI has very little (none) signature. It adds no coloring to my ear. I plan to post a separate thread on this cord late once I've had more time to play. So what have I found? Well I've gotten an extremely quite background from power cords! Detail is more defined, sound stage is deeper and wider, separation between instruments both sideways and front to back is increased and very defined. Bass is stronger, midrange and highs are smooth with no glare or brightness and yet extremely defined. Cymbals are completely floating with a soft shimmer, not harsh or offensive. Drums and kettles are tight, quick and defined. String instruments are light and shimmery while brass is smoother and has no glare. Vocals to me are most important and my test disks have some harsh areas. These characteristics have been toned down with no loss of dynamics. Amazing, simply amazing that a power cord can do all this and still we have no idea how. IT SHOULD BE NOTED THAT THE COMPLETE SET-UP CORDS AND P300 CREATE THIS NIRVANA, until this set-up was arrived at it always lacked in some way. I knew it was lacking because I'd heard the lacking component in some rejected product.

Tweaks:
I've tried a few this year, the Audio Additive Vibration Control panels (anti-vibration sheets) recommended and sold at Music direct did nothing that I could hear. Cardas Caps, well... if you've done everything else to quite your system .... O.K. they did nothing, but hey they look cool! Audio Prism CD stoplight, it had an effect but for $18 it's not enough for me. Elevating cords and cables off the floor/shelf. Cost was almost free for me and it does have an effect on my system. Audio Prism Quiteline Filters, the first one or two were well worth the money, for my power anything more is a waste. I have two BDR cones and one BDR puck with cone all pointing up over the vibration points on my tube pre-amp. I located these points with a thin metal dish with water and moved it around to find the most disturbance. Moving the cone location under the equipment can have a dramatic effect, try it just an 1/8 at a time. Next; room acoustics!

My,My,Jadem...
...you've been a very busy boy:^)
For my information ,if you'll pardon my asking-
Do you think that you'd have heard the benefits of the BMI cords and P300 as easily or as clearly if you hadn't used the shelf and footers?Did you audition each tweek/experiment independantly or were they done in groups,chronologically,etc.?Thanks.

Best,
Ken
GreaterRanges/Neuance

Good question Ken, and I'm not sure I can fully answer it without some assumptions. The P300 was the last component to arrive and therefor has had the benefit of all the footer tweaks. I have however played with the stock cords and P300 alone and of course the custom cords without the P300. For my system the stock cord on my pre-amp would have been adequate. The cords on my amp and SCD-1 are must haves! The SCD-1 seams to be the most influenced by the cord selection and that might be attributed to the quality of the power supply. (that is pure speculation) The P300 has more influence on how quite the background is where the cords have greater effect on bass definition (I might want to check this statement, the P300 does indeed tighten the bass beyond any cords work), sound stage and separation of instruments. Interesting to me that the P300 benefits from power cord selection almost as much as the SCD-1, and with the right cord will increase all the components performance a notch, maybe making this the first component and not the last like I did?
Now as far as footers, every time I received a new cord I found the footer placement required revision. The cord seem to either place it's signature on the equipments performance or bring out a certain aspect of the equipments performance. Sometimes a whole sale change was required, most times a very small relocation. (It's highly possible these small relocation tweaks are psychological and not factual, but for my system there indeed needed to happen) That line of thought and my experiences are for a follow-up book, "How My Stereo Drove Me Back To Drinking". I guess what I'm thinking is that they work together in a synonymous relationship along with the equipment itself. I'm not sure there is a right answer, this footer with this cord equals... It should be noted that the reverse was not true, or not tried I should say. When I received a different footer to try, I didn't feel compelled to try other cords. I think it's because the cords tend to have such significant impact in comparison to footers. Cones and the like are final tweaks in my mind. Now for your benefit or input (and I realize your not comfortable plugging your product), I found my Neuance shelf straight out of the box to increase space on the sound stage and open the entire presentation in a way no other product had. I would say the Neuance does indeed have a large impact, rated close to the power cord benefits. The tonal qualities as noted by Redkiwi do indeed change over time, and in that the time required for those changes I have only set the shelf up as recommended and not played with it. Summer is on it's way and my listening time goes way down, so that's when I intend to try some things. I also would like to find enough money after my friend Uncle Sam is done with me next month to buy a second shelf for comparison. For now I am fully reliant on Red and his fantastic advice. J.D.