Why do I need power management if I have a great power cord?

 

@holmz "I assume that I do not need one because I have a lack of any noise/hiss etc when it is on, but not playing any music."

Thank you Holmz, brilliant point, assuming you run it loud.

I do when I am assessing whether or not there is a noise issue.

You are quite lucky if you hear nothing at all at top volume setting. My system and most others has a little low level white noise at that level. One can measure how far down it is. And test if a $1500 power cord removes or reduces it. It won’t, so try a $15,000 cord. A mains conditioner might …

…

I have had some issues in the past.

• I recall once a slight ground hum that was cleared up with rerouting wiring and star grounds.
• I had a bad hum on the that was the result of the lighting circuit in the ceiling above that room
  • But only affecting the TT
• Most of my gear is still on a 230–>115v transformer, so maybe that acts like a choke to limit noise or harmonics?

Or is my current preamp or amp just an odd ball low noise case?

It does make a hum on the TT input, with that starting at about 2-3 o’clock on volume (6:30 to 5:30 is the total swing of the volume… so starting ~ 3/4.)

I usually never run it past ~1 o’clock as that is about 95 dB(A) in the slow setting… depending on the music.

However on other inputs there is no hiss even at max volume.
This is with the head down in front of the left speaker.

The inside SPL is ~40-45 dB(A) with the front door shut, and the refrigerator running in the other room is the majority of the humming background sound.

With the front door open is 52 dB and the with the AC on is ~55dB ambient SPL background noise level.

I can hear the buzzing of the outside insects n such. But relatively quiet.

Why do I need clean water if I have good quality copper pipes? 

It‘s not a question of removing audible hum hiss and noise. I have no such issues yet have garnered definite audible improvements with the use of a PS Audio P10 and an industrial 1KW isolation transformer (used individually) upstream on certain system components.

@ghdprentice "High end audio is a very complex endeavor… full of ambiguity and complexity."

Well said. The problem is not "trying to prove a negative," as someone else said, the problem is to hear something that one does not yet know how to hear. Hearing is mostly interpretation and only partly physical. One needs to know what to listen for.

I think of the days before OLED TV’s. People would say, "This IS a black background." Then, much blacker blacks came along and people could now see that they had been missing something. And it was not just the blacks. It was everything on the screen. Everything gets better -- and the whole experience gets better.

So, the first reaction -- "This is just 'up-selling' or 'snake oil' -- turns out to be wrong. What folks came to learn was that quieting visual noise (making backgrounds blacker) changes the foreground by changing the background. That is very hard for people to understand, because they are focused -- almost exclusively -- on what is in the foreground. The fundamental mistake they make is to disconnect foreground and background. They are entangled for both perception and conception. @mahgister makes this point very well when he tries to direct attention to the room's acoustics. But his point applies very well to the technological devices' designs and their power sources, too.

This point about the "blacker background" applies pari passu to other things besides background noise; the way highs, mids, bass registers are expressed by speakers, the way transients and dynamics are shaped. And the technologies that make all these areas better are often not easy to grok, which is why your suggestions of resources like Robert Harley is so appropriate.

It‘s not a question of removing audible hum hiss and noise. I have no such issues yet have garnered definite audible improvements with the use of a PS Audio P10 and an industrial 1KW isolation transformer (used individually) upstream on certain system components.

• Which “industrial 1KW isolation transformer”
• Which “certain system components”