Have your say & ask the experts

having been sceptical about mains conditioners, i tried one of the ones recommended by what hifi and was very impressed.sound quality was exceptional hearing sounds i didnt know where there.expecting mains cables soon copper audioline dont expect mega gains,but the 60 day money back guarantee persuaded me to give them a try.

Good news clown. What conditioner have you got, what is your system and any idea what your mains supply is like (old wiring, new wiring, are you in a flat, is it a purpose fitted spur, that sort of thing)? All evidence accepted regarding the worth of such products.

Yes, they do work, they have to, there are laws in place, after all. They can also cause deterioration in sound, so plug your amplifier direct into the wall socket, not the conditioner.

A separate mains spur for your HiFi will allow your amp and components to work optimally and is recommended by some reputable manufacturers.

Did you test your mains to see if it needed conditioning?  I get the feeling most don't, just assume for some reason it is bad.

I live in a semi-rural area and about half a mile from an electricity substation, so my mains is relatively clean.  And during the night when not much is happening in the village and people are in front of their TVs etc, the mains conditioner I have (see signature) does not really do very much.  But during the day, especially at weekends when washing machine, PCs, tumble dryer, dishwasher, hair-dryers etc etc are on in the house and neighbours are cutting their grass with electric mowers or washing cars with jet washes, the conditioner makes an audible difference.  I have A/B tested this over several weeks and the results confirm the above.  So the conditioners do work and are desirable when there are lots of electrical activities all over the place.  The paradox is that even with the conditioner cleaning the supply to my system, it is not the ideal time to listen to music when all the machines above are making their own non-musical noises, unless I shut all windows and doors to the listening area!

hi, i have got a tacima cs929 mains conditioner 6 block, onkyo sr605 amp,pioneer bdp51fd and panasonic th50pz80b. bluray player and amp connected using qed quenex hdmi cables.not sure about house wiring eg spurs and so on maybe the mains interference is bad in my area and using a normal £9 connector block which looks pretty poor quality has something to do with it as well.the outlay of £26 for the tacima was worth the money,ill judge picture quality when i get audioline mains leads.oh speakers are 5.1 eltax with 2 built in active sub woofers. 

Tarquinh:

Yes, they do work, they have to, there are laws in place, after all. They can also cause deterioration in sound, so plug your amplifier direct into the wall socket, not the conditioner.

I tried that for a week and last night switched back to the amp being after the conditioner and the sound is better. I suspect that the difference is explained by how much power the amp needs (Tacimas in particular are reported to suffer from overload, if that is the right word). My amp needs a mighty 1.3 watts.

I'm willing to bet I could improve the sound of many systems no matter where they are on the power grid without recourse to mains filters, conditioners, fancy power cords or spells from the HiFi book of magic.

Tarquinh:

I'm willing to bet I could improve the sound of many systems no matter where they are on the power grid without recourse to mains filters, conditioners, fancy power cords or spells from the HiFi book of magic.

 

Im intrigued Tar ~ by doing WHAT exactly? Mine are already on a solid hifi rack. My speakers are completely solid and slightly 'toed in' for best effect etc. Where would you go from here?

Some conditioners restrict the power being supplied to Hi Fi components (and can strangle the sound dynamics as a result), hence many people say you should try not to use the Tacima with heavy duty components like power amps.  Others say that their conditioners can handle enough power throughput to give plenty of headroom to power amps and therefore will not strangle the dynamics.

Here is a simple question from someone not learned in these things -- if a conditioner can handle max current of 10 amps continuously, can it give enough headroom to a power amp which puts out up to 150 Watts of power normally and up to1,500 Watts peak transient power?? 

And will that conditioner give enough headroom to handle TWO of those power amps??  I have in mind my Isotek Minisub conditioner which has two outlets capable of handling 10 amps, and 4 outlets capable of handling 6 amps.

I know I am mixing current (amps) with power (watts) and the two aren't the same, and I know Watts = Volts x Amps, but can anyone answer the two questions above??  Trevor79??  Anyone?

 

Morning AKL

The point you make is spot on!

However it is not as simple to answer. Besides filtering out RFI and stray Voltage on the neutral path, for dynamics not to be strangled Mains conditioning needs to address headroom in its supply to power amplification.

Current demands (draw) made off the both the music and its transients (up to 10x higher than the stable draw (volume)).
A normal house Mains supply on a 20A ring circuit struggles to deliver this, that's why reservoir capacitance is built into internal power supplies. The size of them and the recharge rate determines if they run out or not. For amplification to work effortless they need to be able to cope and deliver transient demands.

Now this is the interesting bit, apart from custom built, or highly modified power amps the capacitance in almost all equipment is lacking by at least a factor of 2 and often by 4!
So they are already marginal in following music at decent outputs. If the Mains conditioning slows down the supply it has an audible effect.

Whilst I don't have personal experience on the Isotek Minisub it doesn't appear to have any in built capacitance to it. The bottle neck I see is it plugged into a 20A ring main, by a 13A fused plug, which then feeds the unit with 2 x 10A rated outlets. (2 x 10A = 20A loading on the ring main wiring)
In reality you have a loading that is capped by the 13A plug fuse divided by 2 = 6.5A per power amp!
Are you disappointed with the music dynamics by any chance?

AKL:

Some conditioners restrict the power being supplied to Hi Fi components (and can strangle the sound dynamics as a result), hence many people say you should try not to use the Tacima with heavy duty components like power amps.  Others say that their conditioners can handle enough power throughput to give plenty of headroom to power amps and therefore will not strangle the dynamics.

Here is a simple question from someone not learned in these things -- if a conditioner can handle max current of 10 amps continuously, can it give enough headroom to a power amp which puts out up to 150 Watts of power normally and up to1,500 Watts peak transient power?? 

And will that conditioner give enough headroom to handle TWO of those power amps??  I have in mind my Isotek Minisub conditioner which has two outlets capable of handling 10 amps, and 4 outlets capable of handling 6 amps.

I know I am mixing current (amps) with power (watts) and the two aren't the same, and I know Watts = Volts x Amps, but can anyone answer the two questions above??  Trevor79??  Anyone?

 

will try plugging my amp into mains rather than tacima conditioner, to see if any difference in sound.

Tarquinh:

Did you test your mains to see if it needed conditioning?  I get the feeling most don't, just assume for some reason it is bad.

How would you go about that? We've had the house rewired recently with a new distribution box etc, but before I got the hifi bug. So I know it is up to standard, but I'm curious as to how i'd test it. 

clown:

AKL:

Some conditioners restrict the power being supplied to Hi Fi components (and can strangle the sound dynamics as a result), hence many people say you should try not to use the Tacima with heavy duty components like power amps.  Others say that their conditioners can handle enough power throughput to give plenty of headroom to power amps and therefore will not strangle the dynamics.

Here is a simple question from someone not learned in these things -- if a conditioner can handle max current of 10 amps continuously, can it give enough headroom to a power amp which puts out up to 150 Watts of power normally and up to1,500 Watts peak transient power?? 

And will that conditioner give enough headroom to handle TWO of those power amps??  I have in mind my Isotek Minisub conditioner which has two outlets capable of handling 10 amps, and 4 outlets capable of handling 6 amps.

I know I am mixing current (amps) with power (watts) and the two aren't the same, and I know Watts = Volts x Amps, but can anyone answer the two questions above??  Trevor79??  Anyone?

 

will try plugging my amp into mains rather than tacima conditioner, to see if any difference in sound.

I put my amp directly into a spare mains socket & although it was good i did however prefer it plugged into my block with the silencer connected aswell.

zzgavin:

Tarquinh:

Did you test your mains to see if it needed conditioning?  I get the feeling most don't, just assume for some reason it is bad.

How would you go about that? We've had the house rewired recently with a new distribution box etc, but before I got the hifi bug. So I know it is up to standard, but I'm curious as to how i'd test it. 

 

Hes talking about a general test that electricans do. No one here has  sensitive enough equipment to detect the small changes that conditioners will rectify (Sometimes at a cost as explained above)

trevor79:

The bottle neck I see is it plugged into a 20A ring main, by a 13A fused plug, which then feeds the unit with 2 x 10A rated outlets. (2 x 10A = 20A loading on the ring main wiring) In reality you have a loading that is capped by the 13A plug fuse divided by 2 = 6.5A per power amp!

Trevor, thank you as always.  If I do have 6.5 amps per power amp (which each outputs up to 150 watts continuously, with peak transient at 1,500 watts), do those amps then have enough "headroom", or enough current from the conditioner without being "slowed down" even at peak level ie, 6.5 amp x 230 volts = 1,500 watts.

 Or have I missed your point? (probably!)