Is plugging a head into a power conditioner bad?

[chokeslam512]

Lol at google ads:

 

[Bob Lee (QSC)]

Also, ignore Bill Fitzmaurice. He makes speaker cabinets, which AFAIK never needed power conditioners and he cites Internet "experts".

Ignore Bill Fitzmaurice for what reason … to be ignorant? He's among the most technically knowledgeable people in this forum, and I've yet to see anything he cites to not be technically sound.

There are better arguments pro-conditioner.

I've yet to hear a good one, let alone a better one.

there's one of these in every single sound reinforcement rack out in the field.

Actually, there isn't.

 

[Bob Lee (QSC)]

your right about the scratches, but a clean vinyl certainly sounds more robust and "fat" than a CD, but does also have a darker high end. but thats totally a subjective "like or dont like" thing.

Is the master recording itself more robust and fat and possessing of a darker high end? Or is it an illusion created by surface noise, clicks, and pops? Vinyl is a more limited medium than compact disc is, so perhaps those limiting factors sound good to those accustomed to hearing them.

 

[Bluesbob]

Vinyl is a more limited medium than compact disc is...

Other than bass extension, which is not usable due to system limitations, and channel separation, which can sound phony in a stereo mix, I'd like to know how the LP is "more limited" than red-book (44.1kHz, 16 bit) CD. Maybe you could supply measurements?
Thanks for any info.

 

[Bob Lee (QSC)]

Dynamic range, signal-to-noise, frequency response, etc.

You can transcribe an LP to CD and it'll sound like like the LP.

If you transcribe a CD to LP, it'll sound like an LP recording.

 

[agedhorse]

Other than bass extension, which is not usable due to system limitations, and channel separation, which can sound phony in a stereo mix, I'd like to know how the LP is "more limited" than red-book (44.1kHz, 16 bit) CD. Maybe you could supply measurements?
Thanks for any info.

One way is the persistant challenge of acoustical-mechanical feedback that causes unwanted modulation of the entire pickup system. The limitations of isolating mechanisms is quite finite.

 

[mbrain]

Other than providing for an easy plug-in and supplying a little light for my gear, I'm aware of one good reason to have a power conditioner (and this is the reason I still lug around the one I have): a built-in voltage meter. It comes in handy in the following circumstance.

My band typically takes lights with us (typically one or two bars, each of which has 4 300-watt lamps, for a nominal draw of 10 amps per bar). We always tell people we need a couple of circuits, and they always agree to provide such, often pointing to a couple of different outlets. Suffice it to say that these outlets are often on the same line (their representations to the contrary notwithstanding), and the easy way to know is to watch the meter on my rack drop when we bring up the lights during set-up.

 

[jnewmark]

Dynamic range, signal-to-noise, frequency response, etc.

You can transcribe an LP to CD and it'll sound like like the LP.

If you transcribe a CD to LP, it'll sound like an LP recording.

So, my copy of Led Zeppelin II on cd should sound like my LP version ? Because, it clearly does'nt.

 

[Bob Lee (QSC)]

How did you transcribe it to CD?

 

[jnewmark]

How did you transcribe it to CD?

I did'nt transcribe it. I just bought a copy of it when it became available on cd.

 

[thudfromafar]

I love this thread. It seems like all the experts on the forum are in here contributing.

I'm grateful that they take the time and effort to educate people, and dispel myths for the sake of progress (and helping consumers save money)

Anything said by Bill Fitz, Bob Lee, Agedhorse, Duke LeJeune -- I take it as gold...

 

[JimmyM]

I did'nt transcribe it. I just bought a copy of it when it became available on cd.

wow j, did you miss the point!

 

[xk49w]

Voltage regulators can hunt or oscillate due to interaction between the dynamic load (an amp) and the high source impedance (long extension cord or inadequate building wiring). When they oscillate, they can fail and they can also generate zipper noise when changing taps. The big question is where to change on the AC power waveform... do you change at zero voltage crossing or zero current crossing? The best solution will vary depending on the power factor of the load.

Do you include the ferroresonant type device in that? Someone gave me one that came out of a hospital. Rated 1kVA it weighed 50 lb at keast. It was too large and too heavy for any use I might have so I tossed it. Maybe I should have sold it instead?

 

[jnewmark]

wow j, did you miss the point!

I guess I must have. I would assume when the cd came out, whoever released it would try to make it sound like the LP. So what am I missing ?

 

[JimmyM]

I guess I must have. I would assume when the cd came out, whoever released it would try to make it sound like the LP. So what am I missing ?

the fact that they tried to make it sound BETTER than the lp. well, at least the remasters...the first zeppelin cd issues are horrible and noisy and sounds like they took the lp masters and just transferred them, which as we all know now is a recipe for disaster.

but the point was the lp was the lowest common denominator in the sound chain, and recording an lp digitally then putting it on cd is still going to sound no better than the lp.

not sure what it has to do with power conditioners, but there you go

 

[xk49w]

I guess I must have. I would assume when the cd came out, whoever released it would try to make it sound like the LP. So what am I missing ?

(from what I've read) Vinyl has about 45dB dynamic range, CD maybe 65+, other digital 90+. They are mastered differently, compression, filtering etc. to account for the dynamic range of the different media. CD masters are ready to go. Not so vinyl.

After the vinyl cutting engineer gets the master he does some more stuff to it to get it to fit on the vinyl, less treble toward the center of the record, mono bass, more I don't know/care about. This sort of processing is what separates mediocre cutting engineers from good ones. The vinyl-prepared audio was never captured on another medium AFAIK but was done direct to the lacquer masters. All these reasons are why CD versions sound different than vinyl ones.

 

[JimmyM]

In general your standard MOV based surge protection won't stop lightening. It'll jump right across the burned MOV.

Whole house system work significantly better.

agreed, but you can also get surges from lightning that aren't direct hits that waste everything in its path.

 

[BassIan]

I guess I must have. I would assume when the cd came out, whoever released it would try to make it sound like the LP. So what am I missing ?

Bill's point was that if you were to sample YOUR LP and burn the result to a CD, that CD would be an indistinguishable image of the LP. Of course, as the LP wore out, the CD would remain a capture of how it sounded on that particular player, that day.

Your Zeppelin II CD was mastered differently for the CD than it was for the LP. "Digital remastering" adds another issue there, where the original masters were reworked in an effort to demonstrate and use the enhanced fidelity of the CD.

<subjective> Often, if the remaster isn't done tastefully, I find this reveals a lot of artifacts (clipping, noise) that were not audible on the original media. </subjective>

 

[billfitzmaurice]

I did'nt transcribe it. I just bought a copy of it when it became available on cd.

Read Bob's original post on the subject. Assuming they were mastered from the same tape the difference between them is that between the colored sound of a record versus the uncolored sound of a CD. If you prefer the colored sound that's a matter of taste. And if the CD is fairly recent then they didn't come from the same source, as recent reissues were re-mastered anyway.
As alluded to by agedhorse the limitations of a record are similar to the limitations of tape, in that they both are as much mechanical devices as they are electronic. Those mechanical aspects end up influencing the final result. There are no mechanical aspects to digital media, so the sound is far more pure. Some people don't care for pure, just as some prefer the coloration added by tubes in the signal chain. Neither is necessarily better, but they are different.

 

[Bluesbob]

Neither is necessarily better, but they are different.

But which sounds more three dimensional, has more realistic timbre, better treble extension and superior imaging?
None of these things can be measured (except treble extension), but they are what makes the LP better.
Of course a $100 CD player is going to sound better than a $100 turntable with a 10-year-old cartridge playing a dirty and scratched old record, but a good analog system, with a new or well-taken-care-of record is going to sound closer to the master tape. There are problems inherent in the Sony-Phillips redbook standard, such as jitter, pre-ringing, and of course the brick-wall filter in most DAC's.
A digital recording, digitally mastered by someone who actually cares about the music, can sound close to, but will never equal, the openness and imaging of good vinyl playback.
Hi-res (96kHz 24 bit) recordings get pretty close, though.
But to me it seems as though a number of people on this board have their stories down, and they're sticking to them, even in the face of the imminent demise of the CD format. Soon CD will be just another low-res recording medium, like mini-disc.
If you've never heard a true hi-res format like LP played back through a modern analog system, you're in for a treat.