POWER: conditioners vs filters vs cords

All of these items are subject to "your mileage may vary." I recently added a Richard Gray's Power Company unit and it has helped to open everything up and increase the palp factor. But a word on ground loops: in my system, neither a Chang Lightspeed unit or the RGPC were of any help with a nagging ground loop problem. My dealer recommended using "cheater" plugs, but I had to lift almost every ground in the system for that to work -- which just didn't make sense to me. The thing to do is to find the source of the hum, which can be done by a fairly tedious but worthwhile diagnostic, essentially disconnecting the entire system & reconnecting each piece, component by component, starting with amp to speaker cable, then pre-amp to power amp, and then adding the various inputs until you isolate the source(s) of the hum. In my case, the hum came from the interconnect running from my TV (with apologies to purists) and, in particular, tracing it back further, from the CATV cable from my wall. Inserting a Jensen ISOMAX isolation transformer (cost $49) between the CATV cable and my VCR eliminated the hum from my audio system -- no cheaters. Go to www.jensentransformers.com for more than you'd ever want to know on the subject. Jensen also makes an isolation transformer for stereo audio use, but it's more expensive. For a less expensive audio isolation transformer, check out the JK Audio "Pureformer" isolation transformer. I ordered one and it looked like a quality product, but I didn't need it because the Jensen piece did the job. Good luck.

Spend your money getting a good powerline to your system - put a spike in the line and save your money on these items.

Ljgj: What is a "spike"?

Excellent question. I don't think you will know without trying some in your system's environment. Here is a link to a review of one of the Blue Circle conditioners. I use the model that is one "down" from the reviewed piece, (I have the BC 84 and use all of BC's "bottom line" power cords and have a reasonable investment for the improvement.) But it is also a pretty good discussion of conditioners for different systems. Good luck, and let us know what your experience is. Charlie http://www.soundstage.com/das_bc83.htm

I have never been happy with any conditioner or filter my system or in any other systems that I have heard. The only exception was with a friend's system when he lived in the city in a building that also housed a large amount of computer gear. I accept that others have had opposite experiences and so conclude that we are either in different circumstances (I live in New Zealand) or have different musical values. For me, the biggest improvement is getting good power cords. The next best thing is to provide a dedicated mains, or better still one for analogue and one for digital, or better still, one for each component. The next best thing is dedicated earths. There is a lot in the archives about doing this. One thing to watch out for is that if you use dedicated mains, but use stock cables the sound can get worse - specifically it can get gritty and bright. So good cords are always necessary. Another thing to watch out for is that dedicated mains is really about minimising the noisy connections on the line, so your key focus should be on ensuring the best integrity of every connection that you can get control over. The point about lines that are not dedicated is that they go through many connections as they weave their way from wall outlet to wall outlet - picking up noise as they go.