why balanced power last before component?

Hello Sabai. "Block" is an interesting company. I think of quality when I think German made and they reinforce quality in their literature. Just reviewed one of your posts and agree with you entirely "not everything that can be measured matters and not everything that matters can be measured" but I also think science is moving fast in learning to measure more and more phenomena.

Ptss,

I am all for measuring. The more the better. But there is more to audio than science.

I agree, but I might suggest add "knows now". Although not at all scientifically inclined I believe eventually there is a "scientific" answer; even if it's not known for a few centuries. The explosion of knowledge in the past 25 years seems to lead to an increasing learning curve that I don't see abating. Hopefully giving us enhanced listening at home :-).

Ptss,

The learning curve does not affect what my ears hear. For me, important as science is in high end audio, this is just an intellectual thing. If one day a testing machine can tell the difference between Roberta Flack's voice and Dionne Warwick's voice that will not affect my appreciation of their music. If testing helps indicate certain things about equipment, that may or may not help in decision making. IMO, the ultimate arbiters are the ears. I hope there will never be a scientific answer for everything in audio -- or in life. That would turn everything over to the left-brain, reducing the spiritual plane to the physical plane.

I've always been curious about the idea of balanced power. Funny thing is though, the balanced transformer systems I have seen use a center tap which goes to ground.

Its very well known that this will degrade its noise performance. If there is noise common to either side of the AC line it will get though easier if there is a grounded center tap.

This is because no center tap is truly a center tap- they are always off by just a tiny amount. This is why in most balanced systems no center tap is used.

I have read the PDF from the Furman site; it appears that there is likely a better way to do this than use a center tap. It could yield another 20 db lower noise...