scott22-
OK time for a new guy with limited audio knowledge to ask a stupid question or two to try to get some elementary understanding as I am obviously missing something.
if you turn up the volume to the max while not playing music and hear nothing -0- from your speakers I would think you do not have a noise problem. Further, when playing music at various volumes and you hear no noise I would think you do not have a noise problem. I say this as I just did it and that’s what I heard lol. So given the above how does the electrical noise negatively affect the sound if you can’t hear it? What is it affecting negatively, the dynamic range, imaging, soundstage, etc.? What’s the science say.
Right. You will never hear the AC line noise I am talking about, not like you think, not at any volume. It is not noise like record groove, or hiss or white noise. You will only hear it at all if it is super bad, like static from flourescent lights or an appliance or something.
The vast majority of AC line noise is not like that. Some of it, a lot of it probably, is RF riding on the AC. RF is everywhere, and every wire is an antenna. Also everything connected to the power grid is connected to every other thing. Electric motors mostly, but everything else as well to some extent, generates a sort of reflected wave called back EMF. The combined upshot of all of this is a lot of low amplitude high frequency distortion riding on the 60Hz sine wave.
Also there is this thing called micro-arcing. No connection is perfect. On a micro scale it is craggy, with microscopic arcs sparking across the gaps. We want a smooth steady flow but instead we get all this static type flow.
If you were to zoom in on this with a scope or something you would see all this as tiny squiggles riding on the huge 120V wave. Running a direct line eliminates a lot of micro-arcing. It also eliminates a lot of opportunities for RF getting in.
Every power supply has the job of converting AC to DC. They all do this with diodes, caps, and transformers. The goal is to produce perfectly flat even and steady AC current and voltage regardless of the demands of the music. Because otherwise, if the power supply wavers at all this fluctuation will wind up in the signal. No power supply is perfect. Whatever imperfections are in the incoming AC, some of that will make it through even the best power supply and into the music.
This is the noise we are talking about, and this is the reason things like a dedicated line, power cords, and conditioners can make so much improvement. It affects all of those things you are asking about- imaging, dynamics, etc.
If you want to hear for yourself what I’m talking about, simply go flip off all the breakers except for the system. You will hear a big jump in clarity and detail, with a much lower noise floor. This is because cutting the breakers disconnected all those wires that were antennas bringing RFI into the system.
See guys, it is easy to get a sincere answer- simply ask a sincere question. Don’t make up no fake crap about how you been asking everywhere and nobody even tried to answer.
