Opinions on Power Regenerators and Tube Amps

I had a buzz in my Barons which didn't entirely go away when I used the Barons ground lifters (BTW - if you haven't already done so, try lifting only one ground, alternating channel to channel, that might help). Mine went dead quiet when I plugged them into a seperate dedicated line and an old power filter made by Power Wedge especially for amps but I never did get rid of a buzz when the amp was in pure pentode mode - should have sent the thing back to Mesa.

Art, You've got to get out more. At least on my 91db speakers I have 2 tube ams which don't buzz at all - ear next to the tweeter. I've got 2 tube and one SS that do, not counting the MB which I no longer use. :-)

Nsgarch.....those items on the floor are mouse traps. Actually there are less of them now than there was when I took those pictures :) Currently, my amp and cd player (with VH Audio Oyiade shielded cable) are in the 20A circuit. VPI, phono stage, and active Synergistic speaker cables and interconnects, are plugged into an Isobar which is plugged into the 15A circuit. I think my power is pretty good.....my house is served by it's own transformer since I'm off the road a bit. My main thing was whether or not the Mesa would benefit from any conditioning or regeneration......or if it is actually detrimental with a tube amp. So, Electroid, you can feed 115V and 120Hz to a cd player and it likes it?

So I'll bet the mice are laughing at you too!

If you MUST use a regenerator, get an ExactPower. They don't work the way the (lowish output) P-300 and others do (which is to throw away the whole AC signal and re-build it). Consequently, the ExactPower can offer 1650 watts from 120V wall current, more than enough to power your entire system. But I still don't think you need one.

Conditioners (any kind/brand) are old technology and bad for sonics. STAY AWAY!

After looking at your system again, I would recommend you plug the amp directly into the the 20A circuit all by itself, and get a used ExactPower SP-15A balanced power unit (plugged into the 15A circuit) for everything else.
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A bit of news. The little buzz is only when the preamp is on phono, and the phono stage is turned on. Preamp on CD = dead quiet. Ground switches on the amp don't seem to have much effect. So the VPI is grounded with a wire to the ground on the phono stage.....is that good or bad.

I don't know enough about the VPI chassis to really advise you. Typically, the tonearm leads have five connections: two signal leads (from cartridge left and right) which each consist of a hot and ground conductor, covered by a braided shield connected (along with the ground conductor) to the "ring" of the RCA connector at the phono preamp end. In addition, there is usually a black ground wire bundled with the two RCA signal leads that you connect to the ground lug on the phono preamp. This wire goes into the tonearm and is usually connected to the armwand (if it's metal) in order to shield the internal signal wires inside the tonearm.

If the TT chassis is electrically connected to the tonearm, that should be enough, but if it's separate, then you should run another wire from the TT chassis to the phono preamp ground lug.

What kind of tonearm, cartridge, and tonearm cables are you using, and how do the tonearm cables connect to the tonearm?
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