Scientist73, it should not be surprising that removing your previous line conditioner actually improved your sonics.
Now that you can hear that not all line conditioners are necessarily good or created equal, you might consider looking for 'proper' line conditioning.
I would like to strongly suggest staying away from surge suppressors or line conditioners that offer surge suppression.
Among other things, you'd be amazed at how proper line conditioning on all components will, among other things, remove all negative sibilance (except that which is imbedded in the recording itself).
As for your hissing problem, I would have suggested it would be your preamp, but since you have an integrated, I have to assume it's coming from there or...
If your digital cd player is not on a different circuit/line I would suggest trying that because you want to keep the AC of the digital source as far away as possible (electrically, not geographically) so as to minimize the bi-directional digital noise injected back into the AC in the wall and potentially making its way back to the service panel and into other circuits. Another good reason for proper line conditioning because a proper line conditioner should be able to provide bi-directional filtering and most do not.
This too could be contributing to the unusually loud pink noise you're hearing.
-IMO
Now that you can hear that not all line conditioners are necessarily good or created equal, you might consider looking for 'proper' line conditioning.
I would like to strongly suggest staying away from surge suppressors or line conditioners that offer surge suppression.
Among other things, you'd be amazed at how proper line conditioning on all components will, among other things, remove all negative sibilance (except that which is imbedded in the recording itself).
As for your hissing problem, I would have suggested it would be your preamp, but since you have an integrated, I have to assume it's coming from there or...
If your digital cd player is not on a different circuit/line I would suggest trying that because you want to keep the AC of the digital source as far away as possible (electrically, not geographically) so as to minimize the bi-directional digital noise injected back into the AC in the wall and potentially making its way back to the service panel and into other circuits. Another good reason for proper line conditioning because a proper line conditioner should be able to provide bi-directional filtering and most do not.
This too could be contributing to the unusually loud pink noise you're hearing.
-IMO