Clean power and it's affect on sound quality


Been reading quite a bit about how clean power can affect sound quality by segregating the system from the dirty grid with power conditioners, high-end power cables, isolators, and even off-grid battery-powered systems.

I've noticed some changes in sound quality with regards to better power supply, especially with regards to the older house I was in vs. the newly built house I'm in now. The older home had a warmer tone due to 50 years of copper wiring being burned in. My new house is brighter because the copper wiring hasn't been burned in yet.

But one thing I also noticed is that when I recently changed the batteries in my remote controls from your typical Duracell batteries to the solar-rechargeable batteries I use now. The sound quality really improved. Dynamics were improved across the board, tonality was warmer...more golden, like a sunset vs. mid-day bright. The soundstage opened up as well with more airiness and clarity to the instrumentation regardless of my media source. I highly recommend using solar-rechargeable batteries for your remotes vs the standard OEC batteries that came with the remote. I think you'll notice a vast improvement in sound quality - being cleaner and warmer. 

bipod72

Well, the OP’s posting was long overdue. People just don’t understand the physics underlying power delivery to handheld remotes. It’s easy for the proudly ignorant to pile on, but the OP raises real issues that, FYI, have been the topic of research published in the Stanford Journal of Electrical Engineering. This may all sound incomprehensibly counterintuitive, but there is solid physics behind the OP’s observations. I’ve clearly heard the same sonic transformation in my own house. Google w/broadly general search terms along the line of "dielectric filtering and electroacoustic intermodulation in free-air transmission of battery-powered control signals."

Related: Without electronic assistance, I’m completely deaf. But I found that switching to solar-powered batteries in my left-side hearing aid restored my ability to perceive a truly holographic soundstage from my Wilson Alexx V’s. This was especially impressive considering that I still could not hear a large portion of the nominally audible spectrum, say, from 60Hz through about 9KHz.

But even more remarkable was the fact that, when I swapped in the Tesla X-Series photovoltaic batteries, my left ear’s response became ruler flat from around 9500 Hz through 40KHz (no, not a typo!). In fact, when listening to 192/32 recordings, the imaging became rock-solid, despite my being able to detect sound in only one ear.

So don’t mock until you can fully duplicate the OP’s test conditions. I hear rumors that Synergistic will soon be marketing modestly priced inverterless-solar handheld-remote batteries for well under $1000, an expense within any audiophile’s reach.

This has been a truly remarkable conversation.

 

The power grid supplying my house is fed from a nuclear plant.  No wonder, regardless of how I upgrade my power supply or cable, the effect is not notable.   

The only gear I have that uses a remote is the CD deck, but it (the remote) has been setting in a drawer, sans batteries, for 20+ years because I do not like remote controls.

Will that remote be OK, or should I purchase other/additional remotes and stuff them with solar-rechargeable batteries?

If more "stuffed" remotes are better have you performed a "stuffed remote" shootout to blah, blah, blah?

 

DeKay

Post removed 

+1 to all the great recommendations on how we can objectively improve the the subjective goal of our objective - great sound.

I think we have some opportunities to explore:

Will sound quality in your system improve with age time as the house wiring "burns in" and do breakers vs fuses affect that. My uncle’s home is completely off-grid and I would be interested in testing my system on his full solar powered home vs the nuclear vs the fossil fuel. As we all know the grid can be dirty especially when those electrons travel into our systems unabated.

As with all tweeks suggested in this thread...try it out

As @emergingsoul suggested with his golden vs black dog experiment. Would a golden doodle be better than a retriever? Does a brindle mutt result in muddy listening or a "best of" typology that pure breds can’t duplicate?

My one caution in all of this is not to smack your head as Deep_333 suggests as that may cause increased tinnitus flaring and deep cranial ringing.