An interesting day...

Tony (wadia-miester) paid a visit to Technobear Towers today to listen to some fine tunes and play about with a few 'alterations'

My system is:
Arcam Alpha 9 CD player
Van den Hul D102 mkIII interconnect
ATC SIA2-150 integrated amplifier
QED Qudos Silver Anniversary speaker cable (bi-wired)
Castle Conway 3 speakers

It is fed by:
Olson Sounds Fantastic mains block
Audusa Eupen GNLM 05/04
Trichord Research Powerblock 1000
Audusa Eupen GNLM 05/2.5 (x2)

You'll notice I didn't mention the sub. That's because it's broken again :-(
Now I have spent some time assembling this system and it does all the things I like pretty well. Tone of course had other ideas, so we set about making some changes.

We changed the interconnect for an Omiga one, not sure of the name. For me the difference was slight to unnoticeable depending on what we listened to.

So we went back to the Van den Hul and changed the speaker cables for an Omiga one. OK, some improvements but not night and day.

We left the speaker cable in and changed the mains lead going into the Trichord for an Omiga one, missing out the Olson board altogether. Hmmm, now that woke things up a little bit. Interesting.

So we changed the mains lead going into the CD player. I think my face became what is known as 'a picture' at this point :lol: Swipe me sideways with a wet kipper The sound had so much more of, well, everything really. This was not a subtle change. Bigger deeper stage, more groove, more impact, instruments sounded more like the real thing, musicians sounded more like they were playing together and the sound just had more 'life'. It was much more involving.

I still felt the low bass was missing something and mourned the loss of the sub. So we changed the mains lead going into the amp - to a different one, not the same as the one in the CD player. The lowest octave asserted itself nicely. And there was more impact again. OK, so maybe I don't really need a sub after all.

Well, at this point I was quite surprised by what I was hearing and though it pretty amazing - but Tony was not finished! He brought out a box of foo-foo dust. He wouldn't tell me what was in it but it replaced the Trichord Powerblock. Wow! Everything I said before, only more again. Good grief!

At this point we just played a few tracks and the sound was really good. Much better than I'm used to. The word 'analogue' was mentioned more than once. And it was true, there wasn't a trace of digitalitis. At this point I remarked that we were still listening to an 800 quid Arcam Alpha 9 and we had a good laugh. Some people have said that the Alpha 9 is not 'high end'. I have news for them

We played with interconnects some more but I couldn't hear much if any difference between them.

As time was getting on, we started removing things. First to go was the speaker cable. So we were back to QED SA and the Van den Hul interconnect. That didn't make much difference to my ears. It still sounded extremely good. Then we removed the foo-foo dust and the mains cables and put the Eupens back :cry: Everything shrunk! It still sounded good, but nowhere near as good as what we had before.

So we put back one mains cable, on the CD player. As before, bigger deeper stage, more groove, more impact, instruments sounded more like the real thing, musicians sounded more like they were playing together and the sound just had more 'life'. Then we put back the other mains cable on the amp. As before, the low bass grunt returned. Magic!

Another effect we noticed - just by changing the mains cables - was that the speakers interaction with the floorboards diminished dramatically. In fact, the whole room interaction thing improved considerably. I will be experimenting with more isolation under the speakers.

So to sum up, my system was relatively immune to trick interconnects and speaker cables (I think that equates to a big thumbs up for the Van den Hul and the QED). The mains cables on the other hand transformed my system into something altogether more special. The Eupens are a step in the right direction and a bargain at that and of course the trick mains cables cost many times the price of the Eupens, but boy are they worth it. There is no box swap I could do for the same amount (or anywhere near it) that would do what these mains cables do. Oh dear, I'm beginning to sound like an advertisement I'll shut up now

 

Well done, I dont have a powerblock and my mains block doesnt have any filters, but my three Van Den Hul Mainstreams do something like you describe connecting player, pre/pro and power...

My latest upgrades where Stillpoints under the player and the power + Soundcare Superspikes under the speakers and the subwoofers, significant improvement again, go for it...

You can imagine the faces of the audiophiles that visit my lair when they hear an Arcam DVD playing music... :MILD:

 

What do you keep doing to it? It's not a PA bass bin you know

 

No I've got a pair of those

Glad to see WM's mains tweaks are doing the business - I guess I'll have to let the unwashed one in to play on my system soon, he seems to be creating quite a stir.

 

How long have you had this sub Chris, methinks they should be replacin it rather than repairing it.

 

Sadly Tone didn't bring the Stillpoints with him but he did leave me some ceramic cone thingies which I will play with sometime soon.

As for the sub, it wasn't played loud the last time it was used but it was left on afterwards and I came home from work one day to find it making scraping noises to itself. I wonder if the electricity supply did something that caused it. Like a momentary power cut or something. The circuitry in the REL looks fairly primitive. It doesn't have relays to prevent switch on thump - or switch off thump for that matter. It has probably suffered the same fate that my Alpha 8 power amp suffered (must fix that some time).

 

The sub is about 18 months old. It has a 3 year guarantee. It's annoying because it is quite expensive to keep shipping it back to REL. It would be cheaper to forget the guarantee and just replace all the capacitors and resistors myself. Like I said above, it's a fairly simple circuit.

 

This is an interesting point. I have a feeling that the last metre of cable into a CD or amp has the most effect compared to what went before. The quality of the house wiring seems to be of little importance providing that the last metre is the right stuff.

For instance, today, we replaced the cable from the wall socket to the Trichord but left the Eupens in place from Trichord to CD and amp. This made a small improvement but not very dramatic.

When we added better cables first to the CD and then to the amp, the effect was immediately obvious and it was dramatic.

Later, when we again inserted those two cables but the Trichord was fed by a Eupen, all the good effects remained.

So how can it be that

Wall->Eupen->Trichord->Omiga->CD/Amp

sounds dramatically better than

Wall->Omiga->Trichord->Eupen->CD/AMP

According to current teaching on electricity, it makes no sense. I think it demonstrates that there is a lot wrong with current electrical theory (starting with the idea of a 'current') but lets leave that for the quantum physicists to sort out. It makes my brain ache

 

Leaving the sub on shouldnt bother it at all, and it would have to be quite a mains spike to do something like that, and I think your fuses would go first, as for a power cut, that would be just the same as you turning the switch off, powers there-powers not there.

From your description of it making scraping noises to itself, it may be a device in the filtering section or somewhere else in the signal path breaking down and oscillating to create the noise your hearing.

I've come across it before and think it's a similer thing to when old tv sets used to make a humming or high pitched tone. Not what your hearing but its a different device.

Tell them if they dont get it right this time they can put a new amp board in there.

Hope you get sorted, well done to Tone's and his cables btw.

 

Yes, I see what you mean and it has indeed been left powered on for the last 18 months without problems. So probably something has deteriorated - a capacitor most likely.

What I was getting at with the mains is that the sub takes some time to power down before that final 'thump' - about 15 seconds. If the power came back on part way through that cycle I don't know if that might damage it. My Alpha 8 power amp was damaged by a similar mains occurrence. I was here at the time it happened. The mains voltage dipped and made the lights flicker for a few seconds. It made the integrated amp buzz. The power amp was being used bi-amped and I think it got fed the nasty hum from the integrated whilst only partly powered and that fried something inside - probably a resisitor or capacitor.

 

Noticed exactly the same when Tone helped with my system, cant explain it at all but i like the effects

The foo-foo box is great innit!

 

Penance,

Now that you have tweaked your system how are you getting on with the amp? Are you happy with it now?

 

Gotcha, an occurrance like that could certainly cause a circuit to blow somewhere. Maybe you should turn your kit off when not being used if your supply is prone to that sort of thing.

Unless anyone knows a way to protect it? a trip device that has to be reset manually perhaps.

Mart

 

Robbo,
It's getting there, as and when funds allow. I'm also still building my TT so have to plan spending between them.
At the moment i have 1 Omiga power cord and IC. It has certainly helped, but not what i heard before. That isnt a problem though, as at least i know what it is capable of now.
So yea, i am happy with the Rotel now, and best of all i have a clear upgrade path no more helpless box swapping in the effort to get somewhere

 

So TB, the $64000 question is have the aforementioned items made enough of a difference for you to open up your wallet?

 

Both the Arcam and the ATC have standby modes which I use. I never leave them fully powered. They seem to be immune to this problem.

Indeed it is. Not quite as startling here since I already have the Trichord and that sets a high standard to start from, but yes it is an interesting device. It will be interesting to see what it costs when it goes into production. It could make the Trichord Powerblocks irrelevant

 

My two REL Strata III have been on for almost 3 years, we have many power downs, and no problems so far, fingers crossed...

Unless you have silly mains, I believe the last meter or so is what really matters, and the reason, as far as I understand from what I read, is that the more damaging garbage comes out of the equipement, not from the wall...

 

I'm still waiting to see what my system will make of the foo foo box!

 

Errrrm :shame:

:lol:

 

Let me put it this way. If you already had a £2500 amp and had heard a £2500 CD player and a £2500 pair of speakers and then someone showed you that with a mere £500 of fancy cables your existing system (£800 CD, £900 speakers) could sound just like that (good enough to make vinyl freaks wet themselves) what would you do?

I just saved £4500

I'll leave Tony to jump in and give his considered opinion on my boxes.