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A not sarcastic question for the power conditioner/upgraded power cord folks

And I realize that there are those that don’t believe in either

Assuming you use a power conditioner and after market power cords, do you feel that the power cord from the power conditioner to the wall might be a limiting or even a negating factor to the performance of the after market power cords that run from the power conditioner to the gear?

The reason I ask is that I was about to embark upon some more experimentation with different power cords and where I plugged them into when I discovered that the aftermarket cords I had purchased before and some recent arrivals are actually a meter shorter than the ones that came with the gear. This doesn’t matter for the amp due to its location, but when I did my last power cord upgrade I ran my CDP and pre into a conditioner so the length for those didn’t matter either, but as I was doing the musical chairs with power cords thing today, I also was intending to run the CDP and pre straight into the wall on separate dedicated circuits, but I found out that I am a tad short on those two.

Which doesn’t preclude me from moving my dedicated circuit outlets up a couple of feet, and I suppose I probably will, but I was curious as to the opinions about the limitations of a power conditioners power cord.

immatthewj
jfrmusic
291 posts
 

My experience 

Amps sound best into the wall

Digital components (DACs and Streamers) benefit from plugging into a Power Conditioner and also from upgraded power cords. So far not the case with my Amp. 

Passive Power conditioners clean up the sound without negatively affecting the imaging, soundstage and high end frequencies as active conditioners do in my experience. 

And to the OPs original question, yes the power cord for the conditioner affects the sound. 
 

I tried a PS Audio Regenerator and a Audioquest Active Conditioner but found the best performance for my system with a Shunyata Gemini 8 passive. Also I preferred the Shunyata Gamma power cable to the more expensive Theta cable.

Even though my digital components ( Aurender and MSB))   have provided excellent power regulation they benefited from the Shunyata Conditioner. 

thecarpathian's avatar
thecarpathian
4,832 posts
 

@grislybutter ,

Points for them being honest about what's inside.

ozzy's avatar
ozzy
7,537 posts
 

I realize that we all have our opinions and preferences. So, I am just adding my present arrangement to the discussion.

After many years of trial and error and upgrading 50+ years:

  1. I ran 3 10 gauge runs to my breaker box. At the end of these runs, I have 2 each Furutech NCF outlets.
  2. One dedicated line is reserved for my Video, one for my subs (4) and one for my Main system.
  3. On the Main system I have a AQ Niagara 7000 plugged into the wall with a AQ Dragon power cord.
  4. Into the AQ 7000 I have my 2 (Large) 1500 wpc mono blocks plugged into the Hi-Current outlets connected via Dragon power cords.

I have tried the amps directly into the wall and I prefer them plugged into the HI-Current outs on the AudioQuest Niagara 7000.

ozzy

immatthewj OP
2,300 posts
 

No need to apply it to the busbar connection especially since these are always electrically live and fatally dangerous!!

All the busbars- neutral, hot and ground. The breakers will snap into the busbar, you want paste between the two, so you just need to paste the breaker contacts.

Okay, I see. I don't know why my mind defaulted to the neutral/ground bar.  But why does the author say not to do it because the bus is hot?  I mean it would be done with the main breaker turned to 'off'' and at least that part of the panel would be cold with the main switch turned to 'off' and didn't the author refer to other connections to paste that are live when the breaker is not tripped?

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