A couple of insights from last night!

dkg999

During a little experimentation last night with the HT setups I had a couple of insightful learnings:

I bought some 12awg speaker wire off of eBay from a place called KnuKonceptz. It looked like pretty decent stuff, and wasn't super cheap, but not real expensive at $60 for 150'. After doing some direct comparisons with Monster XP, Canare Star-Quad, Belden 5000, and some Sound King wire, this stuff sounds pretty good. Very high strand count compared to the others. It also comes in a cool blue color, which the Significant Other said looks very high-tech and is ok with it being out in the open. Bonus!

My bedroom HT with some RTi6's I picked up at the CC sell-off just wasn't sounding very good! I had the RTi6's running off of my 2 ch rig for a while, so I knew they sounded pretty good. Once in the bedroom they just didn't have any openess and sounded choked! I started swapping out everything last night trying to find the problem. I now agree with the posters on this forum that say that power conditioners hold back the performance of amplifiers and receivers. I was just using a basic AR surge suppressor/power conditioner I picked up, and as soon as I plugged the Yamaha HTR-5660 directly into the wall - problem solved. Wow! I didn't figure the little Yamaha would be that impacted, especially at the low volumes it gets run at.

Frank Z

Live and learn! Seems like you did the things the right way. It makes sense to fiddle around with what you have before automatically buying new goodies.

gidrah

Very interesting. I don't usually use them on my amps. I won't spend the money on a quality conditioner and believe that suppressors are just that, suppressors. I'll use them on source or auxillary though. Anything with a motor could probably benefit by being on a suppressor and anything like an EQ or such probably wouldn't be harmed by it.

I've seen those KnuKoncept auction (adds) and had always wondered. I'm glad to hear you had positive results.

dkg999

Stopped and got a surge suppressor (no power conditioning!) from Radio Shack and tried it with my Yamaha HTR-5660, and all is good! I would not have thought the $19.95 AR surge suppressor/power conditioner from BB would of had that kind of negative impact! Live and learn!

PolkThug

Originally posted by dkg999
I would not have thought the $19.95 AR surge suppressor/power conditioner from BB would of had that kind of negative impact!

Are you sure it was a real 'power conditioner', I've never seen one that cheap?

dkg999

Well it says "power conditioning" on the package, and it has text describing the power conditioning features! I was really looking for just a straight surge protector and figured that having power conditioning also couldn't hurt! Boy was I wrong!

Mike682

Now you got me thinking......I have the same AR surge protector from BBuy. I bought it because it was a really good price $19.99 (the first monster protector w/clean power was $79) First, this thing is really light and cheap feeling. Second, I did notice a difference in sound but thought it was gold banana connectors I bought (also AR). When I get home, I'm gonna unplug my receiver from the protector and see how it sounds.....

Thanks for the info..too bad I can't return this thing but like another poster said, I can use it for other components that don't need much power.

I don't think I will purchase any AR products in the future......

dkg999

I have had pretty good luck with the AR interconnects (both the ones BB has and the AR Master from accessoriesforless.com) and there other cables. Not too bad at their price point, and definetely a better value than Monster. Every product line has a couple of weak points.