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Is plugging a head into a power conditioner bad?

#161
Check this out!
It's a review of the power conditioner that I use for my stereo, from [Invalid or Expired Link Removed].

"While I know that turntables can be very sensitive to the quality of the AC being fed to them and I've heard the not-too-subtle improvements that high quality power supplies like the Linn Lingo can have on the Linn LP12, I wasn't quite ready for the sonic improvement that I heard when my LP12 was conditioned by the Power Wedge. Listening to Paul Simon's You Can't Run But from the Rhythm of the Saints LP on the conditioned LP12, I was amazed at the improved palpability of Simon's voice and the ease with which I could follow the distinct rhythmic instruments employed on this track. The sonic differences I heard between the conditioned and non-conditioned LP12 were so dramatic that I had to employ a neutral third party to verify that I wasn't having some kind of audiophilia-induced hallucination. An informal blind test conducted on my wife confirmed that the improvements were real, as she consistently preferred the sound of the conditioned LP12 and, like me, was quite awestruck at the magnitude of the improvement. Frankly, after hearing the conditioned Linn it was hard to go back to listening to it being fed from vanilla AC.
After hearing the Power Wedge's positive impact on the Linn LP12, I expected similar improvements to my digital front end, but alas, it was not to be. While I noticed that well-recorded female voices were surrounded with a tad more air with the conditioned front end, the benefits of the Power Wedge in this context were subtle at best."

What do you guys have to say about that? :smug:
I guess I kind of forgot what this thread was about - but for the OP:

Go ahead and plug into your Furman - it's not really a power conditioner anyway, won't harm your amp, might do some good and your rack will look cool with it.

mini-rigofdoom.jpg


See? :bassist:
 
#165
Calaverasgrande said:
uh, no. I am surprised that you cant hear the difference. Really. Records just plain sound great. It isnt a matter of how much lower or higher CD's go (in theory, actually you can't get right up to the nyquist point because the lowpass filter has to start rolling off before you get there) Also not a matter of SNR or dynamic range.
There is a certain immediacy and thickness to the sound that comes out of records that I have yet to hear in CDs. Maybe it's because LPs have so little channel separation, or the compression of the lathe, or the RIAA transfer curve. All of the above? But saying Cds are better than records based on specs is so 1985.
BTW I am not an anti digital snob, I have done dozens if not hundreds of digital recordings of other peoples music, and literally hundreds of my own songs/bands. A few analog ones before digital got cheap. Little demo for a band called Rancid once?
High sample rate/bit depth digital is pretty damn spiffy. But you gotta watch your headroom and make sure the tones are good going in.
16 bit 44.1k is kinda gross in comparison to 24/88.2.
And heck cheapo implementations of good converters with crappy op amps can have worse SNR than an LP. Regardless of what the CD's dynamic range is!
Click to expand...

I'm not saying that you can't hear a difference. I'm saying that the CD medium is less restricted than the LP. Records can indeed sound great, and if you want to preserve the sound of a vinyl recording against future wear, scratches, and other noise, transcribe it to CD, because the redbook CD medium can well contain all that the LP has to offer.
 
#166
Jaco who? said:
So were off the vinyl mojo finally? Die thread, die.
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Good luck. The cable debate threads on Head-Fi have been going on since the dawn of time, and will probably continue for all eternity. :p

Regarding vinyl, you'll find a large number of people on that forum singing vinyl's praises--but these are usually people who have a significant amount of money invested in their setups.

Let's get one thing straight, folks: There are plenty of bad vinyl pressings out there. There are also a lot of bad CD masterings out there (and I use the term "masterings" loosely). Not to mention a huge disparity in reproduction equipment. One of the reasons these debates rage on and on is because people generalize about the entire format without taking these simple facts into consideration. We've gotta lot of apples being compared to oranges, here. :rollno:

I've read that one of the causes for vinyl's demise is that the demands of mass-production caused a notible loss in fidelity around the time CD's came into their own. CD's may have their own problems, but mass production isn't one of them.

Now you can see there's a resurgence in "audiophile" pressings--inexplicably even in mainstream stores (I saw 180g audiophile pressings at a local chain store of all places just a couple months ago). Some of these are legit, and some are likely pure snake oil. There is simply no substitute for a well-informed buyer.

Enthusiast's forums can be helpful, for sure. But better yet is finding a friend who has a decent set-up and auditioning it for yourself. Find a quality pressing of something you like and have them spin it up for you.

Now, to bring this all back on-topic *ahem* ...The best answer I have for all of these debates is: If sounds better to you, has (even non-aural) features you find valuable, or even if it just makes you feel better having it in your rig, and it's within your means, by all means get it.

Don't be swayed one way or another by opinions of those who have completely different needs and sensibilities--make sure you ask the right questions in seeking advice so any counsel you get is relevant to your situation.

There, now you did it...you guys dragged me into this whole silly thing....noooo! :rolleyes:
 
#167
fourstringburn said:
Funny thing , Furman recently discontinued the I wonder why?[/I][/B]
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My guess is that since Furman was sold back in 1999, the bean counters are more in charge than the engineers. I know when it was owned by Janet Furman, she cared about the product. I believe that they are being made back in the US now, but I know for a while they were Chinese. Money money money, honey!
 
#168
okcrum said:
Understand. I'm just surprised the amps didn't trip from the sag in the power, or that no other gear failed from the transients. I think you dodged a bullet there.
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If the amps are well designed, they are already well protected.
 
#169
Bluesbob said:
What if it wasn't? Huh? Then what? All your hopes are dashed?
We are players of the most fun-to-play instrument in the world. I feel pretty smug about that. How 'bout you?
Everything makes me smile. :)
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The reason I said "I hope you're joking" was not to indicate that my hopes matter to anyone, but rather to indicate that quoting reviews from audiophile magazines is a sign of inability to tell truth from fiction. So if you were posting it ironically, for a jest, then I would share in the smiles. If you posted it in seriousness, though, that's just sad for you.
 
#171
bongomania said:
The reason I said "I hope you're joking" was not to indicate that my hopes matter to anyone, but rather to indicate that quoting reviews from audiophile magazines is a sign of inability to tell truth from fiction. So if you were posting it ironically, for a jest, then I would share in the smiles. If you posted it in seriousness, though, that's just sad for you.
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Oh lighten up. Don't you understand? Nothing is sad for me. I play bass! I'm always happy.
What's sad is people like you, bong, who have never heard good vinyl playback, let alone high-end, pontificating as if you know what you're talking about, just because you read the opinions of someone, trying to sell something, in a thread here on TB. There is no doubt that a turntable hooked up to a line conditioner will run more smoothly. I would hope that's something everybody would realize.
But if you must know - yes, I thought it was ironic that an article like that would have been printed, and I wanted to share it as an afterword to what was being discussed.
So there! :spit:
 
#173
Bluesbob said:
Oh lighten up. Don't you understand? Nothing is sad for me. I play bass! I'm always happy.
What's sad is people like you, bong, who have never heard good vinyl playback, let alone high-end, pontificating as if you know what you're talking about, just because you read the opinions of someone, trying to sell something, in a thread here on TB. There is no doubt that a turntable hooked up to a line conditioner will run more smoothly. I would hope that's something everybody would realize.
But if you must know - yes, I thought it was ironic that an article like that would have been printed, and I wanted to share it as an afterword to what was being discussed.
So there! :spit:
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Don't feed this troll....
 
#174
Bluesbob said:
Oh lighten up. Don't you understand? Nothing is sad for me. I play bass! I'm always happy.
What's sad is people like you, bong, who have never heard good vinyl playback, let alone high-end, pontificating as if you know what you're talking about, just because you read the opinions of someone, trying to sell something, in a thread here on TB. There is no doubt that a turntable hooked up to a line conditioner will run more smoothly. I would hope that's something everybody would realize.
But if you must know - yes, I thought it was ironic that an article like that would have been printed, and I wanted to share it as an afterword to what was being discussed.
So there! :spit:
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Technical backup or not interested. Although, if you're happy and you feel your money was well spent, more power to you. Just don't get evangelical about it.

A well designed turntable will condition its own power, just like any other electronic device, with its power supply. Otherwise, I would argue that it is not well designed.
 
#177
BassIan said:
Technical backup or not interested. Although, if you're happy and you feel your money was well spent, more power to you. Just don't get evangelical about it.
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It's hard to keep quiet when others are just as "evangelical" about their opinions. I'm just trying to keep a different point of view from being drowned out.

BassIan said:
A well designed turntable will condition its own power, just like any other electronic device, with its power supply. Otherwise, I would argue that it is not well designed.
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I can't argue with that. But that doesn't change anything.
 
#180
okcrum said:
Yes, from the ordinary faults.
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Generally, any fault that will damage an amp will also damage the typical power "conditioner" also. Usually, the power conditioner and the amp will fail at the same time if there's going to be any failure.

We test our amps with 2500 volt spikes, both to the chassis as well as to the power conductors and it must pass. We are not the only ones who design to these standards either.
 

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