Power conditioning

[danosol]

Anyone using power conditioning?  I'm hearing a very faint 60 cycle hum static type sound when I have the volume up 3/4 of the way up and no music on.

Is this normal I wonder?

[Paul Birkeland]

How loud is the music when the volume control is up that far?

-PB

[danosol]

Plenty loud but I just figured out the interference I was getting was the dimmer in the room it's in.  Removed the dimmer and no issues.  Weird thing is that i got no interference with my O2 amp and I was using the same DAP. 

Removing the dimmer seems to have taken care of the problem though.

[Grainger49]

   .  .  .   I'm hearing a very faint 60 cycle hum static type sound when I have the volume up 3/4 of the way up and no music on.  .  .  .   

This is a bad test, i.e. unrealistic.  If the surface noise of an LP would cover the hum, it is acceptable.  I'm glad you didn't say, Volume all the way up and no music on.  That is the unrealistic "TEST" given us by reviewers.  Their point, poorly made, is that in a totally unrealistic situation the $20,000 piece being tested is still silent. 

I don't listen that loud, in the high 70 to mid 80 dBA range.  Lots of people listen louder but I find it uncomfortable.  At my listening level, 9:00 to 1:00, I don't hear noise at the listening seat on my Eros, much less my CD player.

I guess I am asking the same thing as Paul, what point on the volume pot do you typically listen.  If it is 3/4, then do you hear anything between songs?  If so maybe it just needs the tubes to settle in.

[Laudanum]

I use a conditioner/regulator but not because of noise.  I use it because of line voltage swings, especially in the summer.  It will swing from below 105 volts to near 120 volts. And because it was a spare from when we upgraded the unit for the TV/HT system.  I havent measured all the gear during low and high voltage swings but the swings in heater voltage in Seduction were fairly signifigant, relatively speaking, when line voltage was below 110 versus up around 120.   I dont hear any difference in sonics but I feel better about the voltage regulation and the decent surge suppression.  It's just an APC unit, nothing fancy.  Again, I couldnt recommend buying one to improve sound or kill noise.  But seems like you got the noise figured out.

[Paul Birkeland]

  It will swing from below 105 volts to near 120 volts.

That's brutal!

A fully upgraded Reduction should handle that with no dropout (certainly the Eros and BeePre will). 

For what it's worth, if we used 10dB of feedback on the Crack, you could turn the volume up all the way and probably hear nothing, but I think it ruins the amp.

-PB

[danosol]

I typically don't listen to it that loud.  However some recordings don't have the volume in the recordings so It may creep up that loud on select tracks.  I was getting some that 60 cycle hum sound at all volumes and it would drop out so I would turn up the volume to 3/4 to see if i could isolate the issue.  I know I didn't state that in the initial post.  I was actually turning it up to see if the power Cord I made was causing it.

I then decided to turn out the lights and then it went away.  So then I knew it was the dimmer.  Glad It happened cause i was able to eliminate the problem, and now it sounds much better too.

[Paul Birkeland]

Yeah, I have three of the same dimmers on the same circuit in my listening room, but only one will cause noise problems.   

Go figure...

[4krow]

  I lived in a remote spot up in the mountains a few years back. Voltage swings were also common there. The power company usually tried to keep the voltage a little higher(right at the limit of the acceptable range). All I could do was buy a couple of products from Tripp-lite. I'm not gonna claim much for them except protection of the equipment itself, keeping a steady 120V to the equipment.

[danosol]

I have a couple of furman PL 8 pluses which I could use, but if I don't need it then why use it.

[4krow]

   Now that's an interesting statement, "why use it if you don't need it?" And, I agree with the notion prescribed. It depends on your electrical enviroment as a whole, i.e. one set of problems may persist at one location but not occur at another. This boils down to the power companies service to your area. If you live in an industrial part of town with lots of equipment bleeding grunge into the line that's one thing. Or, maybe as you stated, there are voltage problems. These are two different things and require different approaches to begin with. On the other hand many modern day circuits seem to have all kinds of junk going on, and few of us are exempt. There was a bige difference when I lived in Tucson North side compared to Tucson downtown. I have ended up considering some kind of power conditioning in most places that I have lived. Again, the prescription must serve the need/prognosis.

[Grainger49]

Since you initially asked about conditioning that might be one thing that would help with the noise put onto the power line by the dimmers.  An isolation transformer might reduce or eliminate the switching noise.  Try borrowing one first, they are not usually cheap.

[Laudanum]

  It will swing from below 105 volts to near 120 volts.

That's brutal!

A fully upgraded Reduction should handle that with no dropout (certainly the Eros and BeePre will). 

For what it's worth, if we used 10dB of feedback on the Crack, you could turn the volume up all the way and probably hear nothing, but I think it ruins the amp.

-PB

Yep, it's pretty bad.   There wasnt much around here when we moved here and then the area just exploded.   I was alerted to it when I was having a heck of a time trying to bias tubes in an old amp about a dozen years ago.   They actually did some upgrading a while back but it's still pretty bad in the summers.  Atleast we dont have a power outage with just about every moderate thunderstorm like we used to.   I still see it drop to 110V frequently enough and seen it as low as 107 last year.   The APC unit does a good job keeping it between 114 and 120.   Better than 105 - 120.