Mains Conditioner - Has anyone tried one of these with their amps. Does it work?

tk2001

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I know the difference is mostly dependant on how bad your mains is to begin with, but does anyone in this forum own one and can they comment on the improvements it makes to your amp in terms of sound?

Theres one in perticular that has caught my eye - OIson's Sound Fantastic - and HomeEntertainment gave it 5/5 stars. Before I decide on getting one, I would first like to hear from owners of a mains conditioner whether it really does make a difference to the sound coming out from your amp.
 
i apologise for answering without having one, but you have the answer yourself. If your mains is awful, you will likely hear improvements with even the most simple conditioning system. But if it is reasonably good, you could spend thousands on such units and not notice a thing.

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The coolest mains conditioners by far IMO are the various products from IsoTek . I especially like the look (and relatively low price) of their CleanLine product. October What HiFi? gave it a rave review and said it made an incredible difference. OTOH the same article (10 easy upgrades) also rated bi-wiring as a great upgrade that made a big difference and as we all know bi-wiring is the biggest load of BS in recent AV/HiFi history ;) so I'm not quite sure what to make of it.

I just got a surge protector with EMI/RFI noise filtering made by a Taiwanese company called 'Ahuko' (see here ) and I can't say I noticed any difference at all (allthough I didn't do any rigorous before/after tests).

Michael.
 
i was about to mention tnt! The guys on their forum seem to use the tnt conditioner, as a tweak. Few seem to think it makes as enormous a difference as the market affairs make out.

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I ear power conditioners may compress the sound, so I stayed away from them...

But I do have mains problems, particularly late afternoon, when everybody returns home and turns on everything, bass becomes light, and treble harsh, but mainly on CDs, DVDs appear to be less sensitive...

So I tried power cords Van Den Hul Mainsstream, on a friend´s advice, and was amazed...

With the FMJ DVD, it cleaned the signal, less compression... for instance with a Chesky recording of a large choir and organ in a cathedral, on the climaxes we heard more "notes" instead of the same note just louder...

With the Bryston power it didn´t make a noticeable difference...

Now with the TAG AV32R, it again improved the general detail and made bass go lower, and better controlled, with the same recording, I could feel the organ in my stomach, instead of just listening to it...

Of course I bought a pair, and the wife, when I played a familiar concert DVD, Sting all this time, and the TAG demo CD, noted there was a lot more and better bass...

Also, we don´t have the late afternoon "problem " anymore... :D
 
Originally posted by Lowrider


Now with the TAG AV32R, it again improved the general detail and made bass go lower, and better controlled, with the same recording, I could feel the organ in my stomach, instead of just listening to it...

i took such an asumption about the tag and was battered down by disagreeing forum members! They tell me that the tag lead is very good

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Ric,

I only had one neighbour complaining, 3 times saturday mid afternoon, he was British too ;) , he left the building, no more of those problems...

Buns,

Thats what I told my friend, before we tested, but the differences where there, and very noticeable... The Bryston has the same claims, and came through, no difference... :confused:

Well, trust your ears, maybe our mains are worst than average, or their ears... :p
 
Personally I use a PS Audio p600 power plant which generates up to 720 watts of clean power (perfect sine wave, perfect, selectable voltage, adjustable frequency).

I simply wouldn't bother with hifi/home cinema without it because otherwise it's a complete lottery as to whether I get a convincing performance from the system or not - without it the only time I even got reasonable performance was after 11 o Clock at night!

Perhaps my mains are worse than most, but I now hold the view that you simply have no idea what your system sounds like until it's running off clean power.

Some power amps do have regenerative power supplies to try and isolate themselves from the mains (Chord, Mark Levinson etc...) - but that doesn't benefit the rest of your system, including the digital source components which are the most sensitive to mains noise anyway...
 
but the specialised route is cost prohibitive, in a major way.

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