Clean power = better sound?

[listening]

Hi Ed,

I'm using maintenance free batteries for solar equipment buffered by polarized capacitors (chemicon) and some low pass filtering capacitors. The equipment and the handling is very basic because I'm using high efficient loudspeakers - alnico coax for the satellites and alnico horn for the bass. I reload the batteries every 2 weeks or so mostly

Georg 

[remco_no1]

Hi there,

First reply by myself 

Being a serious audiophile for years now & after listening to several power conditioners, I settled for PS-Audio. Their products are really something special. They really bring improvement. They have both active & passive devices. Just try them & see if you like them.

Cheers,

Remco.

[stoneman]

Yes. 

I use a PS audio Power Plant Premier on each of my Audio and Video systems, before that I had a PSA P600.

http://www.psaudio.com/ps/products/description/power-plant-premier_copy?cat=power

NB these units are not filters - they convert the mains to DC then regenerate AC.  Since I live in a tower block in Hong Kong and I also use my mains for network distribution, its an essential and very effective bit of kit.  I guess if you live in the middle of a field, you may not need it ;-)

[bhobba]

I presume you mean over and above what a well designed piece of audiophile gear would already have.  I personally have not done a lot of experimentation in this area.  But I know people who have.  One guy in particular - Hugh Dean at Aspen Audio - I respect a lot.  He recons it has a lot to do with where you live.  I live in Brisbane Australia and Hugh reckons it makes little if any difference in Aus.

What does make a big difference is the quality of the power supply in the device itself.  For example many people have reported large leaps in sound by for example replacing the switching supply found in some DAC, squezeboxes etc by a linear one.

Thanks
Bill

 

[Calibrator]

I live in Brisbane Australia .............

G'day Bill the "banana-bender", welcome to the forum 

Stick around; you've found the home of the best PC music playback program on the planet (IMESHO) !

Cheers,

Russ

[bhobba]

I live in Brisbane Australia .............

G'day Bill the "banana-bender", welcome to the forum 

Stick around; you've found the home of the best PC music playback program on the planet (IMESHO) !

Cheers,

Russ

Glad to hear you say that.  For now though it is a bit of a downer since I can't get it to work.  Confident though someone will help me.

That's the bad news.  The good news is I haven't set up my music system yet so this is just a check out.  Plenty of time to get the bugs sorted out and have a chat to guys like you about the best way to go.

First question is what kind of PC do you guys reckon is best to use.  I had heard a mac mini is the best but am not too keen on macs.  I would rather not use a notebook either because I also intend to use it as a home theater pc.  Personally I would like to get something the computer store I like dealing with can make up for me along the lines of a home theater pc.

Thanks
Bill

[PeterSt]

Personally I wouldn't make much fuzz about my audio PC. The only things to really think about is whether you want it silent (not necessary when in a cabinet) and how many SATAII disk connections you need. And do NOT make it a HTPC !! ... because that will contain just all the wrong things for audio (in fact, you couldn't do more wrong IMHO).

That's all. Haha.
Peter


PS: If you want to make it a gadget, the story is different. But then the first thing that slick looking emulated DVD devices would contain is a DVD slot. Why ?
Just stuff the audio PC somewhere out of sight, but let stick out the IR receiver somewhere. An audio PC is as nothing as possible with a large disk space and GOOD cpu capabilities (2 cores, large 2nd level cache, no power saving processor, fast FSB).

[bhobba]

Hi Peter

Personally I wouldn't make much fuzz about my audio PC. The only things to really think about is whether you want it silent (not necessary when in a cabinet) and how many SATAII disk connections you need. And do NOT make it a HTPC !! ... because that will contain just all the wrong things for audio (in fact, you couldn't do more wrong IMHO).

Thanks for the info - much appreciated.  When I came across this site I had a good feeling I would be dealing with people on my wavelength.

When I say HTPC I mean I will also be connecting the video out to my TV so I can watch the occasional movie I have downloaded from the net.  My initial thoughts were a PC similar to the ultra silent model published in the local computer magazine Australian Personal Computer.  Basically it consists of an I3, Gigabyte GA-P55-UD3 (which is supposed to be very quiet), two SSD disks to eliminate disk noise (I like them for faster boot up times as well), quiet power supply and cooler.  Since I will have it networked to my main PC (thats the one I am currently using) no DVD ROM or blue ray player or anything mechanical at all.

Thanks
Bill
 

[Telstar]

Basically it consists of an I3, Gigabyte GA-P55-UD3 (which is supposed to be very quiet), two SSD disks to eliminate disk noise (I like them for faster boot up times as well), quiet power supply and cooler.  Since I will have it networked to my main PC (thats the one I am currently using) no DVD ROM or blue ray player or anything mechanical at all.

Thanks
Bill

The specs look good (i'm particularly fond of gigabyte ud mainboards). A dvd by itself won't cause any problem. The most harmless player (i.e no codecs needed) is media player classic.