New Dedicated Line - Almost No improvement
Hello,
Newbie here and electrical idiot. Just moved to a new to us house in Tampa. Before we moved in I had an electrician put in a dedicated line (has it's own breaker switch) which is 10 gauge and two Furutech GTX-D outlets - Rhodium.
When I hooked up the EMI meter in my old house, which didn't have a dedicated line, the reading was usually around 26 or so IIRC. At the new house the outlets are 89 usually and the dedicated line is usually around 82 - so not much help for the cost of the "project" and pretty noisy.
Also, when the ac /hvac is running the meter reads about 100 points higher (!) for both the regular outlets and the dedicated Furutechs. Not good.
Thoughts? Does the dedicated line need it's own breaker box?
I'm also considering a line conditioner but wanted to see what could be done here. Thanks.
Isn't it against code to put 240V outlets in most rooms in the home? If so a good electrician won't do that for you.
I have my doubts a cheap sine wave inverter will be noise free. That's a giant switch mode power supply. Audiophiles are obsessed with perfect AC sine waves. It makes no sense. My system sounds exactly the same at any time of the day when I am on holidays. When I am not it swings with my mood. |
@carlsbad Don't be so negative. With most amps engineered to run on AC, one issue is the need to convert from DC. But apart from this, I doubt there would be difficult problems once suitable batteries are sourced. Far less difficult than getting rid of noise on the mains. And less costly probably. But no I haven't implemented. I've thought about it and am doing so more currently (sorry!). Dedicated battery power supplies for pre-amps and phono amps have been around for years. Running only them certainly improves SQ by eliminating noise on the mains at a stroke. Certainly turntables can and some do run on battery supplies although, unlike some, I very much doubt mains noise finds its way to the stylus. Having wrought some big improvement already at cheap cost, that leaves us with power amps. I have read of powering single-ended flea-power valve amps on batteries, reporting positive results. But up to now running my big Class A Krells has put me off researching battery power because suitable batteries have not been in the mainstream. But now I am guessing they are readily available given booming power tool and car applications No-one could deny a car battery could easily run a big amplifier. With my Krells it is noticeable the big draw is on switch on when the big capacitors are filled within a few seconds. That dims the room lighting momentarily. But once full, the topping up process draws a lot less amps. @carlsbad you have strengthened my resolve to start serious work. Eliminating mains noise is certainly a very attractive proposition. |
If I were you I would get the outlets burned in first before spinning your wheels looking for possible AC mains power problems. If you only use your audio equipment AC loads to burn in the outlets it could take a year, or more to burn them in... You need to connect a load(s) to the two outlets 24/7 for at least a week or two. You need a load that draws some current. At least 3 or 4 amps if possible. The greater the connected current load the better. . |
@clearthinker those pre and phono amps used batteries build into the units or connected to a DC power inlet. That is different from using a cheap AC inverter running from batteries. I could word that differently. A cheap, high powered switch mode power supply. The conversation has degraded to burning in AC power outlets. I think we have lost the plot on the conversation already. The op has not even verified there is a problem yet, but everyone is rushing to solve it without even knowing if there is a problem, or what it is. This is what the inside of one of those low cost inverters looks like: http://www.kerrywong.com/2017/10/01/teardown-and-testing-of-an-800w-puresine-inverter/ It is a high frequency switch mode power supply that generates the high voltage (~170V) and then a PWM stage, and then a filter. I don't see a lot of capacitors or filtering on the DC side, so there could be RF coming out. I don't see any FCC on most of these. YMMV Old school ones with the big huge transformers are probably not as noisy.
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