Power Conditioners in store demo

tommyt21

steveinaz wrote: »

I couldn't resist at $129, I bought a PF60 as well. I've been using a Middle Atlantic power strip forever.

I have no idea how you caught it at that price but i'm glad you did, and I'm glad you shared the info. They only have 1 left.

PS. One time I picked up 6 pairs of Polaroid passive 3d glasses, normally $45 I got them for a penny each, as soon as I finished submitting my order they were back at there original price. To this day, the best deal I have ever gotten off of Amazon.

steveinaz

At first this morning, they were listing at $189!...then, when I checked after lunch, they were $124 again???!!! So I jumped on it.

bikezappa

DarqueKnight wrote: »

I don't understand your logic.

No one is saying that the filters in electonic equipment power supplies are bad or inadequate. It is just that some people are interested in higher performance alternatives.

It is the same concept as switching out the tires on a brand new automobile. Do auto manufacturers know how to choose tires that meet safety and performance standards? Sure they do. Tire design is not rocket science. Yet, there is a brisk, multi-million dollar business in aftermarket tire sales for brand new cars.

If I understand you correctly, your postition is that power conditioners are a waste of money because the component's power supply is "good enough". Is my understanding correct?

Just as most people are not interested in high performance tires, most electronics consumers, even high end electronics consumers, are not interested in tweaking to the nth degree. Therefore, most manufacturers do not tweak their products to the nth degree.

Figures 6-8 of this thread:

Tweaking Home Theater Part7: PS Audio PerfectWave P5 and P10 AC Regenerators

illustrate the performance benefit of using AC regenerators with my Pioneer Elite Kuro plasma television. The picture was spectacular with just plugging the unit into the wall. Viewing close-up images of individual pixels showed that they had more sharpness, definition and color range when plugged into a regenerator (which drastically reduced power line noise). There was even a noticeable difference between two AC regenerators with different performance levels.

You know DK I was just asking a question not trying to start a flame war. Your comparison to cars and tires is good and fair. But if I was buying a Porsche I would imagine that the tires would be very good and not much would be gained by getting even more expensive tires. The old point of diminishing returns stuff. I would also expect that high end electronic equipment would also have an excellent filter system.

Also I never said that power conditioners are a waste of money, Sorry.

And I am sorry not to spell ROCKET correctly.

tommyt21

steveinaz wrote: »

At first this morning, they were listing at $189!...then, when I checked after lunch, they were $129 again???!!! So I jumped on it.

I know I thought I was going crazy at first but yea the price seems to be roller coasting like a motha. My total price was actually $124...lol But I spent $11 shipping the PF30 back..

steveinaz

Yeah, my bad---mine was $124.

codyc1ark

steveinaz wrote: »

At first this morning, they were listing at $189!...then, when I checked after lunch, they were $124 again???!!! So I jumped on it.

I checked yesterday, got to amazon, 124.00, clicked on the link, 189.00. Damn. Buuut I just snatched the last one at 124.00! Damn prime one click ordering, time for a massage tonight!

steveinaz

I'm gonna play the lie card and tell my wife mine died. Kidding...my girl don't care what I buy, 'cause I got it like that.

I saw the same crazy roller-coaster pricing with SQBox too, 1 minute it was $229, the a few minutes later, $279.

tommyt21

Thought mine would be here on Saturday but the tracking says tommorrow:eek: I'll give my impressions tomorrow evening.

NE1410S

Dag nab it! I can't, for the life of me, find that $124.00 deal on the PF60......CRAP

gdb

This topic goes way back.

steveinaz

NE1410S wrote: »

Dag nab it! I can't, for the life of me, find that $124.00 deal on the PF60......CRAP

Just keep checking the amazon link thoughout the day, right now they show 10 available at $188.

tonyb

I need a troubleshooting paper too on how to get rid of spammers, got any ?

decal

mrendrison wrote: »

i need a step by step troubleshooting paper for power conditioners and one for heat sinks. i cant find any online and was hoping somebody could find one or make one.

^^^^ reported ^^^^

DarqueKnight

bikezappa wrote: »

You know DK I was just asking a question not trying to start a flame war.

Understood. I was just providing some additional perspective on why some people seek small performance gains in already high performing equipment...since you asked the question.

bikezappa wrote: »

Your comparison to cars and tires is good and fair. But if I was buying a Porsche I would imagine that the tires would be very good and not much would be gained by getting even more expensive tires.

I can understand why the performance benefit would not be of interest to you. What I don't understand is why someone would question the desire of someone else to seek that very real benefit...however small. Some people would change both the tires and the wheels on a new Porsche for the additional performance benefit.

No matter how good something is, there is always room for improvement.

tommyt21

I just got mine in have not had a chance to hook it up yet. This thing is much bigger than I anticipated it feels exstremely solid. It has one of the thickest power cords I have ever seen. If it performs as it looks I will be a very happy camper. :cheesygrin:

bikezappa

The issue of using power conditioners is confusing to me because for just a little extra money the extra electronics, if there are any, in the power conditioner can be added to the original electronic equipement. If these parts are added to the original equipment you don't need the extra power cord, switchs, plugs, metal box and lights. These parts are already in the original equipment and must be duplicted in the power conditioner.

Has anyone opened the power conditioner and determine what's inside?

The other issue is that the power supply in the original equipment is designed to A remove the noise in the 120 volt line and B convert the 120 AC voltage to a noise free DC voltage to run the solid state equipment. I'm therefore not too concerned with the extra noise in the 120 volt AC line but very concerned with the noise in the DC output of the power supply in the original equipment. I used to call this B+ voltage in the old days. If I had noise in the B+ then we may have a broken power supply or at least a poorly designed one. Measuring the difference in noise in the 120 voltline before and after the power conditioner is interesting but a better measurement is to compare the noise in the B+ voltage in the power supply with and without the power conditioner. My guess is that if the power supply is well designed there will be very little if any difference in noise in the B+.

A final thought is in the design of preamplifiers. Why not use a auto battery to supply the B+ to the preamplifier? A small battery chagrer could be set up to charge the battery when the preamplifer is off. When you turn on the preamplifier the battery in connected and the charger disconnected. Pure DC with ZERO noise. The best.

WilliamM2

bikezappa wrote: »

A final thought is in the design of preamplifiers. Why not use a auto battery to supply the B+ to the preamplifier? A small battery chagrer could be set up to charge the battery when the preamplifer is off. When you turn on the preamplifier the battery in connected and the charger disconnected. Pure DC with ZERO noise. The best.

Already been done, and with more than just pre-amps, I've also seen battery powered DAC's, phono preamps, headphone amps. I'm sure there's more.

bikezappa

WilliamM2 wrote: »

Already been done, and with more than just pre-amps, I've also seen battery powered DAC's, phono preamps, headphone amps. I'm sure there's more.

Thanks, I thought there were products that used batteries.

Anyone make a power amp that worked off batteries? Grin. Tube power amp? Grin grin.
There are some electric cars that have some serious batteries.

WilliamM2

bikezappa wrote: »

Anyone make a power amp that worked off batteries?

I have a 5 channel Soundstream amp that runs off batteries. 50x4 and 220x1 if I recall. The charging system uses a 4 cylinder gas engine.

BlueFox

bikezappa wrote: »

The issue of using power conditioners is confusing to me because for just a little extra money the extra electronics, if there are any, in the power conditioner can be added to the original electronic equipement. If these parts are added to the original equipment you don't need the extra power cord, switchs, plugs, metal box and lights. These parts are already in the original equipment and must be duplicted in the power conditioner.

Has anyone opened the power conditioner and determine what's inside?

Obviously, there is more to the task than the above. Shunyata specializes in this area. Their products get rave reviews, and are measureable.

http://www.shunyata.com/Content/products-PowerDist.html

bikezappa

By the way I use a large, 50 pound, isolation transformer in my system. But i got it for free and I don't know that I would pay $500 for a new one however.

WilliamM2

I'm still curious what brand was being demoed in the store that the OP saw?

tommyt21

WilliamM2 wrote: »

I'm still curious what brand was being demoed in the store that the OP saw?

It was this one http://www.monstercable.com/productdisplay.asp?pin=4885
However I chose to go with a brand I was more comfortable with and just recieved the Belkin PF60 at lunch today.

WilliamM2

tommyt21 wrote: »

It was this one http://www.monstercable.com/productdisplay.asp?pin=4885
However I chose to go with a brand I was more comfortable with and just recieved the Belkin PF60 at lunch today.

Probably a wise choice. Like I said, Monster has been known to rig demos in the past. My Monster power conditioner certainly had no big difference in picture quality, and it ia a higher model using Clean Power Stage 3 v.2.1. That model only claims to use Stage 2.

tommyt21

I set up the new PF60, this is a very robust piece of equipment that feels and looks very well built. The volt and amp LCD are very cool. I thought I was drawing more power than I actually am Plugged in a few house hold items to see how much current they draw and found out that my wifes portable space heater is costing me a freaking fortune:redface:. If my maths right it draws 11amps X120v = 1320 watts X .09 cents a KWH = 12 cents an hour she runs that thing nearly 10 hours a day almost every day equals approx $36 dollars out of our average $80 electric bill:eek::eek:

Performance of the PF 60 for my HT gear is as follows

HD Cable- There was a signifigant jump in picture quality via this source, crisper picture and much, much better contrast, deeper blacks and richer colors. I did a couple straight power strip vs PF60with my Brother in Law and we both concluded the same increase in picture quality.

SD Cable- Increase in contrast and deeper colors, however its SD it still sucks really bad.

Blu-ray- This seemed better but could not put our finger on it. This was much harder to tell a difference with

Xbox- Same as the Blu ray player results.

Audio- Not sure this is going to take some time to notice for me my ears are not as trained as many on the forum. It will take me some time to figure out what diffrences if any there are.

Overall I am very happy with this purchase. Another shout out to Steve for finding it at a great price and then sharing the info. The better pic for HD Cable and piece of mind are well worth the $124 spent.
Consider me a Power Conditioner convert

steveinaz

No problem; pics man, pics. Mine will be here Thursday.

I always find these devices a little confusing. For instance, the first 2 banks are for "digital" components---yet the banks for "analog audio" show a "CD" labeled outlet? "Video" bank shows TV/VCR, and the 2nd digital bank shows HDTV/Sat??

Looking at the internals below (from left to right) the first 2 banks are "digital." The next bank is "Video", the next 2 banks are "Audio", and the last bank for "Power amps." The "video" bank appears to be exactly the same as the "audio banks." The front convenience outlet is tied to Bank 1.

tommyt21

I didnt really understand that either. Ill take some pics now but I sometimes have issues trying to upload them from my mac

CoolJazz

bikezappa wrote: »

By the way I use a large, 50 pound, isolation transformer in my system. But i got it for free and I don't know that I would pay $500 for a new one however.

I hope you've configured that to provide balanced power!

Also keep it far enough away from all electronics so the magnetic field doesn't effect anything.

CJ

FTGV

steveinaz wrote: »

No problem; pics man, pics. Mine will be here Thursday.

I always find these devices a little confusing. For instance, the first 2 banks are for "digital" components---yet the banks for "analog audio" show a "CD" labeled outlet? "Video" bank shows TV/VCR, and the 2nd digital bank shows HDTV/Sat??

Looking at the internals below (from left to right) the first 2 banks are "digital." The next bank is "Video", the next 2 banks are "Audio", and the last bank for "Power amps." The "video" bank appears to be exactly the same as the "audio banks." The front convenience outlet is tied to Bank 1.

The first two banks appear to have an extra stage of filtration so I assume in theory to reduce further the posibility of digital hash being dumped back into the AC.

CoolJazz wrote: »

I hope you've configured that to provide balanced power!

I'm convinced balanced AC has a lot of merit.

tommyt21

Steve here are some pics, the flash really brings out finger prints:redface: