Everyone's electricity quality is different, and the components sensitivity to dirty power varies as well. In AV systems, It's fairly common for better power (filter/conditioner, AC cords) to show an improvement.
AV receiver, power cables and conditioning
I feel pretty dumb. I have been building power cables for various applications for at least ten years, and buying and using after-market PCs for nearly twice that long. I have been using the first PC I ever assembled with unshielded bulk Nanotec cable and fairly rudimentary Furutech gold plated connectors to plug my Arcam AVR400 directly to my wall socket for about 8 years and kind of forgot about it while I repeatedly upgraded everything else in my system including PCs for other equipment. This choice was made more on theory that unshielded cables work better on amps, and power conditioning robs amps of transients and dynamics than on any extensive testing, which is not how I generally operate. Replacing this cable is also a hassle because it requires moving bookcases. I have a dedicated 10 gauge supply wire from a dedicated 20amp breaker, so I thought I had pretty good isolation. Everything else in my system is supplied by my power conditioner.
I have been upgrading my office system and one of my kids two channel systems recently and noticed that my 3X more expensive but older receiver was sounding a little dull in comparison. I thought maybe it was wearing out and perhaps not functioning to spec. I was also getting some very high frequency “noise”, but only when music was playing via analog or digital front ends. It then occurred to me that the integrated amps in these other systems used a later generation of power cable I had built and both had the supply to the amp running through power conditioning.
So, I replaced the power cable to my receiver with a different shielded single crystal copper cable with rhodium connecters and immediately got better dynamics, slam and detail across the frequencies. Plugging this cable into my Shunyata Venom PS8/Defender power conditioner resulted in a lower noise floor, more detail and if anything even more distinct transients. I picked this receiver in the first place because it measured very well in two channels, and had a very detailed and airy presentation compared with other big boxes of its generation. These characteristics were now here in spades, and doubly rewarding with recently ungraded sources. Just really happy with the result these two fairly simple but transformative changes.
Wondering if anyone has had a similar experience with power conditioning on an AVR or two channel integrated with digital processing? This seems to fly in the face of convention, at least for dedicated amps. When listening to two channel music, I turn off all of the digital circuits so the Arcam is basically functioning as a two-channel integrated amplifier. I thought these changes made a more positive difference on two channel reproduction than on multiple channel, and perhaps there is even some current limitations when driving five channels rather than two. But I spend more time enjoying two channel, so I can live with that.
kn
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Thanks @kennyc, I was unaware that AV receivers were more likely to benefit from power conditioning. In my case that seems to be true, even though I usually operate it in two-channel analogue mode with all the digital sections shut down. kn |