Using power conditioners with Guitar amps?

[Steve Conner]

Well, according to Wikipedia, it was just a plain electrical fault caused by wires with damaged insulation. But harmonics are known to overheat neutral wires in 3-phase systems, and I guess fires have started that way.

[Jazz P Bass]

When I sent it back fully functional - he told me he could'nt tell any difference.
I'm accordingly a bit sus about claims that a power conditioner can make a big difference.
Cheers,
Ian

AAhh, but a negative does not necessarily prove a positive

[tedmich]

As per RG's "handmade sine wave" inverter strategy





Kemp Elektroniks: KE Power Station 75

Finally, after thousands of hours of research and development, the KE-POWER STATION is available! What it all started, was our wish to improve the performance of our reference, POWER SOURCE. Of all three problems, the POWER SOURCE can solve two of them perfectly, it can filter DC-voltages as well as high frequency distortion from your mains.

However, the third problem, distortion of the sine wave itself, cannot be solved using a passive circuit. No line conditioner or isolation transformer can do that. The mains is loaded at its peaks only, causing heavy distortion of the sine wave. This load on the mains causes the peaks of the sine wave to flatten, causing the sine wave to be permanently distorted.

The only solution to this problem is, to create a new sine wave from the scratch, with a so called regenerator.

The KE-POWER STATION is such a regenerator. This means, it rectifies the mains, and uses the DC-voltages obtained to create a new AC-voltage. The benefit of this method is, the new AC-voltage is a perfect sine wave which is highly independent of distortions on the mains!

In contrast to other regenerators available, our POWER STATION is very small. Front end sources (all equipment that is prior to your power amplifier) are the most sensitive to distortions on the mains. Our philosophy is, that every single front end source should have its own regenerator, in this way, a mutual influence of the sources is excluded. This also explains the relatively modest maximum power of 75 Watts. Under nearly all circumstances, this is sufficient. The power stated, is the output power instead of input power, like all competitors do.

This way, a digital source can't distort a sensitive analog one, by cutting off the (common) line to feed the disturbances to all other sources. This common line would still be there, if more than one source would be connected to one (more powerful) regenerator.

The sizes of the POWER STATION are kept to an absolute minimum, so you can put three of them next to each other, creating the standard audio-size of about 16" to 17". Due to the fact, that no fan is used to keep the POWER STATION cool, you won't suffer noise, and dust won't be collected.

After extensive experiments and listening sessions, we finally came up with a user-friendly unit. For example, it features adjustable frequency and Crest Factor. The higher the frequency, the more details are hearable, and an overall improvement of all audiophile properties will be noticed. This is due to the fact, that the transformer as well as the other parts of the power supply are working more efficiently. The Crest Factor determines the increase in energy in the output by adding the third harmonics. By doing so, the area of the sine wave becomes larger. At maximum position of the Crest Factor control, you will be feeding the power supply of the source fed by the POWER STATION with a plus of 13 % in energy! After these listening sessions, it was clear to us, that a frequency of about 90 Hz was our favorite, and that the maximum of 10 % third harmonics should be added to the sine wave. By increasing the Crest Factor you will experience a more powerful, warmer, (tube-like) sound

In contrast with competing designs, the sine is generated totally analog, so there are no remnants of digital synthesis. A Wienbridge oscillator is used as a base for the generation of a very clean sine wave. Another unique property of the POWER STATION is the complete absence of any output transformer, this to prevent degradation of the excellent properties of the regenerator. The problem with these output transformers, is their limited capability to transform the power without distortion, when operating at the limits of power. Thus, an enormous distortion is introduced, together with great limitations in dynamics, due to the insufficient peak power capability of these transformers.

The POWER STATION is equipped with DC-offset correction circuitry, in order to keep the DC on the output at absolutely zero. You will notice a complete absence of hum in the source fed by the POWER STATION, as far as the transformer in this source is free from mechanical defects.

Without DC on the mains, the transformer can do its job with greater efficiency, it will warm up less, and, last but not least, will supply greater and undistorted peak currents with ease!

The output of the POWER STATION is true balanced. Balanced voltage means, both legs are "hot", and carry a voltage of 115 V, out of phase. Together, these voltages combine to a single 230 V voltage. This 230 V is a regulated voltage, even if the input voltage is as low as 200 V, the output voltage will still be 230 V. Note: the UK-version has 240 V, US-version has 110 V output respectively.

The POWER STATION is equipped with a switch: listening position is "regenerate power", when the front end source connected is not in use, it can be put it in the "bypass"-position, the source will be connected to the mains directly then, and the electronics inside the POWER STATION will be shut down to prevent energy waste.

When you want to listen again, you throw the switch to put it in the "regenerate power"-position, the electronics inside the KE-POWER STATION will be switched on again, and the source connected to the KE-POWER STATION will be fed regenerated power again.

Due to the fact, that no fan is used to keep the KE-POWER STATION cool, you won't suffer noise, and dust won't be collected, as is the case with all fan-cooled equipment.

A status-LED is provided: if it lights blue, totally clean energy is fed to the source connected, if it lights red, the output is overloaded, and the source connected can't function properly. If the LED doesn't light at all, the switch is in the bypass-position.

PRICE: £978.72+vat+p&p

[soundguruman]

Well, according to Wikipedia, it was just a plain electrical fault caused by wires with damaged insulation. But harmonics are known to overheat neutral wires in 3-phase systems, and I guess fires have started that way.

Well according to NFPA, which writes the National Electrical Code, after a multi-year investigation, the fire was caused by power harmonics, in undersized neutral conductors.
The insulation failed because it overheated.
The principle source of harmonics being: electronic lighting ballasts, digital slot machines, computers, speed controlled ventilation motors, etc...
And now there is a major trend to over-sizing neutral conductors, based not on load, but on estimated harmonic content. Previously this harmonic content was ignored by electrical engineers, until this fire occurred. Now we are thinking that the neutral could be oversized by as much as 300% or more, for a main building power feed, when these types of devices are utilized.
But as far as us electricians are concerned, we are no longer installing one neutral for two hot circuits, as had been the tradition. We were previously taught that in a balanced load, the neutral current was minimized. Not any more folks.

[soundguruman]

Looks like one of those Hartke amplifiers.
But anyhow what you are seeing is REAL power conditioning / regeneration.
Not the pretend kind for $149.00.
The last regeneration I installed was made by Liebert, 20KVA, and it cost $20,000 for a refurbished unit.
OK that's a real power conditioner.

[Steve Conner]

You're an electrician moonlighting as an amp tech?! I hope you don't use wire nuts inside your customers' amps. Do you have a link to the NFPA report?

[soundguruman]

No, I am an amp tech moonlighting as an electrician, almost right.
I really am a licensed electrician, yes.
the reports are published in the NFPA magazine, and probably on the NFPA website.

[tedmich]

Looks like one of those Hartke amplifiers.
But anyhow what you are seeing is REAL power conditioning / regeneration.
Not the pretend kind for $149.00.
The last regeneration I installed was made by Liebert, 20KVA, and it cost $20,000 for a refurbished unit.
OK that's a real power conditioner.

I posted the pretend kind for $1500+ ! but point taken... what is really needed is a hydro system which pumps water to a tank using dirty commercial power and then makes PURE AC with a dedicated water driven HiFi generator!

[soundguruman]

I posted the pretend kind for $1500+ ! but point taken... what is really needed is a hydro system which pumps water to a tank using dirty commercial power and then makes PURE AC with a dedicated water driven HiFi generator!

Yes regeneration is really what you want.

[Alan0354]

[QUOTE=soundguruman;247951]

Big speaker cable do make a difference. You don't need monster cable, you do need big cable with fine strang.

I will replace your big fine strand speaker cable with 18 GA lamp cord from radio shack. And you will never know the difference.
I will replace it with coat hanger wire, and you will never know the difference.

I don't know about guitar amp as the frequency is quite limited. I am referring to Hi-Fi system, I can assure you it make a day and night difference for Hi-Fi. I don't believe this before either, but I was convinced. If you don't have a good system, it don't matter, but if you are getting into audiophile, it is very very important. Before I had a pair of Kef that is about $1300, I could get away with cheaper cable. But when I bought a pair of JM Lab that is close to $5000, I put it on and it did not sound much better. I experimented and the cable really open the sound up. I don't use Monster per say, I use 12 gauge fine stranded wire. I use 4 pairs per speaker to get the best result. Believe me, every pair make a difference until the forth pair. Before you say I don't know EE, I was an EE for close to 30 years and I designed a lot of analog electronics. I laughed at people that talked about monster cable before.

[soundguruman]

True story that I will tell again:
A triple blind test was conducted using several types of expensive speaker wire, in a professional environment.
Several highly regarded professionals were participants. Professional listeners.
What they did not know, is that during the test, coat hanger wire was used to hook up the speakers.
The vast majority (unknowingly) voted that the coat hanger wire sounded the best of all speaker wires. Yes they did.
That just goes to show you...(insert your own conclusion here).

Personally, for high wattage PA, I use marine grade rope lay wire. And that has been up to 22,500 watts, etc...RMS.
And for stereo, if the wire is short distance, I see nothing wrong with lamp cord. BUT we have to comply with building codes, for wires that are located inside walls.
True silver plated wire has lower resistance, and is suitable for very long wire runs.
But unless I can buy it at a garage sale, I'm not that impressed.

[Alan0354]

True story that I will tell again:
A triple blind test was conducted using several types of expensive speaker wire, in a professional environment.
Several highly regarded professionals were participants. Professional listeners.
What they did not know, is that during the test, coat hanger wire was used to hook up the speakers.
The vast majority (unknowingly) voted that the coat hanger wire sounded the best of all speaker wires. Yes they did.
That just goes to show you...(insert your own conclusion here).

Personally, for high wattage PA, I use marine grade rope lay wire. And that has been up to 22,500 watts, etc...RMS.
And for stereo, if the wire is short distance, I see nothing wrong with lamp cord. BUT we have to comply with building codes, for wires that are located inside walls.
True silver plated wire has lower resistance, and is suitable for very long wire runs.
But unless I can buy it at a garage sale, I'm not that impressed.

As I said, I am referring to Audiophile, not PA sound system, guitar amp. I did A B comparison, I even had my wife listen and she can tell easily. Hi-Fi system is very sensitive to environment and every thing else. It is not about highs and lows only. Any decent system can give you good bass and clear treble. A high quality system give you almost a 3D effect that you can actually hear separation of different instruments in different position. It almost give you the feel of a sound stage. These are what I am talking about the the big cable open up the sound. Nothing to do with the bass or the treble quality etc. As I said before, it all depends on the quality of the stereo system. If you have those Good Guys' special like the Polk Audio or Klipch, it really don't make a lot of difference.

In electronics theory, it has something to do with skin effect. At 10KHz, the depth is only about 0.6mm, most of the current are on the surface. fine strands give more surface area. In your case, the coat hanger made of quite large diameter wire and it is short if you just use the coat hanger. So the inductance is lower and resistance loss is low also. These made up the difference. When you run 10 feet or more, difference will show up. This is not black magic, you are driving 8 ohm load and reactive at that, cable inductance come into play, the larger the surface, the lower the inductance. A fraction of an ohm reactance will change the sound of a highly sensitive audiophile system. People cannot hear above 15KHz, but the skin feel it. That is the reason you can record the voice, the guitar, but you cannot record the crashing of the symbol, the sexaphone that precise because it has very complex frequency components and it got loss in any recording.

[soundguruman]

From now on: only the finest, pure crystalline structure, oxygen free, coat hanger wire.
Does that come in rolls?

[Steve Conner]

It is technically possible for the impedance of speaker cables to make a difference. Especially since high-end speakers can present extremely low impedance loads. Some electrostatics are practically a short circuit at high frequencies.

This also makes them extremely difficult for amplifiers to drive, hence partly the "amplifier sound" debate.

The "cheap" speakers tend to be easier to drive. An ordinary moving coil speaker with a simple crossover has a gently rising impedance (due to voice coil inductance) that can be several times the nameplate "8 ohms" at 20kHz. So, the amplifier and cables matter less. I personally think this is a sign of good integrated design, and high-end audio is more like "insane end".

http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/HFN/SCAMP/scamp.html
http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/HFN/Cable...rovements.html

[Alan0354]

It is technically possible for the impedance of speaker cables to make a difference. Especially since high-end speakers can present extremely low impedance loads. Some electrostatics are practically a short circuit at high frequencies.

This also makes them extremely difficult for amplifiers to drive, hence partly the "amplifier sound" debate.

The "cheap" speakers tend to be easier to drive. An ordinary moving coil speaker with a simple crossover has a gently rising impedance (due to voice coil inductance) that can be several times the nameplate "8 ohms" at 20kHz. So, the amplifier and cables matter less. I personally think this is a sign of good integrated design, and high-end audio is more like "insane end".

Beware of The Society for Cruelty to Amplifiers!
Cables 1 - Ohm Improvements

I have not done detail analysis as that is not my interest. But I think the impedance of the cable does play a part of it as a small fraction of an ohm will change a lot at the higher frequency range. As I said I was surprised the skin depth calculation gives on 0.6mm at just 10KHz. Human can feel to about 20KHz so the current of the most of the important frequency components really flow on or close to the surface. It is not the resistance of the cable, I think it's the inductance of the cable that has more effect.

Also think about the cross over, there is always a cap in series with the speaker, speaker has inductance, cable has inductance, both in series with the capacitor will make a series resonance circuit.

I heard one high end audiophile cable company use smaller insulated cable in parallel to make up a big cable. This make the most sense as this will give maximum surface area that you get lowest inductance and resistance. Best is to use something like a 24 Gauge magnetic wires and bundle they to make a big cable. 24 gauge is just small enough that there should have no skin effect problem.

I don't believe in black magic, that is the reason I post the SS vs tube not to get person opinion, but to look at how people emulate tube with SS and the theory behind it. But still end up a lot of opinions. I believe everything has a reason, not just because some guru said so. I was so skeptical when monster cable came out and I laughed at it. It was really after the new pair of speakers got delivered, no exchange and return and didn't sound anything close to in the showroom then I started to get panic and open to experiment.

Yes, audiophile speaker are made to be very low efficient. The reason is because unlike instrumental speakers, audiophile speakers have to be low distortion. This means the magnetic field inside the voice coil has to experience absolutely even field throughout the whole path it travel. One of the ways is to make the gap very wide so the field is not localized. This will bring the efficient way down. Instrument speakers are design exactly opposite, they make the gap as small as possible to get strong field, they intentionally make the field uneven to make the speaker distort and compress.