Any one measured the EMI/RFI attenuation performance of audiophile power conditioners?


Hello,

I was looking for a very good/robust power conditioner which will clean up reliably very noisy/dirty power supply that I have in my aprtment. While looking for one I went through catlogs of AudioQuest, Shunyata Research, Synergestic Research etc. but no one published charts showing attenuation performance over frequency range like you get for EMI filters from Schurter or Schaffner etc. which are in the industry for EMI/EMC compliance.

Since audio is very subjective, but contrary to audio reproduction Power and EMI/RFI reduction is completely objective and can be clearly demonstrated via attenuation charts.

Hence I am asking if anyone has measured the actual performance of these audiophile power conditioners. I am not denying someone saying they hear improvement after using XYZ product, but since I am talking about power conditioning or EMI reduction it's as objective as it can be.

I am not at all surprised to see all the manufacturers not publishing the performance data, else it would be used in other industries and research fields where it's far more critical and have far more stringent requirements on the performance of conditioner/EMI filters. But I am shocked to see even products ranging above 5-10K are following the same practice of not publishing the results.

Please note I am not a measurement fanatic, but I know where I can chase the measurements and where I can rely on my hearing to gauge the difference.

Regards,

Audio_phool

128x128audio_phool

@tvad though I have tech background, I don't want to purchase something for just couple of measurements, it will be waste money.

 

Looks like the trifield device is being used by many though I cannot exactly makeout how it's measuring and what to make out of it except some number increasing/decreasing

 

Audio_phool

My experience with a TriField device is at the wall I may measure 395 and on the output side of my Puritan 156, I measure approx 95. So it indicates a 4x reduction in "noise".

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@12many As per your experience I can only conclude that a well built/designed electronic component will take care of all EMI/RFI, which is the case for your 2 Ch system. Since AVR are ussualy built with less care as compared to electronics for 2 ch, you are able to hear the EMI from Washing machine. As far as the DC is concerned theoretically there would be zero EMI on DC, but in reality some till gets transffered even to DC, thats the reason why in AVR you are able to hear the washing machine as all those electronic components work on DC. So in short we might be overreacting to the need of a power conditioning from the point of it's impact on SQ.

@tvad I had a look at the meter you mentioned, looks like pretty basic meter with not sure how it's arriving at the values (it must be averaging, but not sure how), still it's a meaurement which is better than no measurement at all.

Audio_phool

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Of the technical reviews and test I have read, the filtering applies mostly to very high frequencies outside the audible band.  Keep in mind that the power supply inside the audio device should block or remove the EMI/RFI as it converts the AC signal to a DC signal.  That being said, I can hear our washing machine running through my AVR (but not my two channel system) and unless I am imagining it, I think my two channel system sounds better when there are no major appliances active.  I would think it would be possible to block everything but the 60 Hz signal with proper filtering, but there is probably a technical reason why it is difficult that is beyond my technical understanding.  

@tvad Thanks for the reply. Just curious how did you measure the EMI/RFI? It's supposed to across the range o frequency, so did you use any sophisticated tool to measure it?

Also it's quite interestig that you did not hear any difference in your system after using the Cleansweep filter. Idealy one would expect some difference when EMI/RFI is removed from the power, so did you search for any answer as to why there was no chnage inspite of the product being very effective at doing what it's supposed to do?

Audio_phool

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