Game Changing Tweak

Ah, there's Chuck Miller showing off what he claims is his system. It changed from two weeks ago when I saw it. He must have got some better photos to Photoshop. What happened to the picture of the ruler?

He's a troll.

Ground your system.
Have good outlets
Please plug your amp directly into the outlets.
Frontend electronics could go into filter 
devices.
Dedicated lines.

"It's all in the mind, y'know", George Harrison, 1968.  

The Mayans used human sacrifice to please the gods so the sun would rise in the morning. This seemed to be a good tweak. There was not a lot of science behind it but the results were very clear. These things need to be tried first and judged second.

Id convince myself it sounded better also if  I pissed away 300 dollars on an outlet. lmao

@bemused

I wish McDonalds would do that for the special sauce on Big Macs.

I put one on my refrigerator.   Holy cow, my beer has never been colder and the refrigerator no longer makes noise.....

@bartholomew
https://www.thecableco.com/electraclear-power-conditioner.html
I found these at The Cable Company for $75. Is it what you spoke of?

@lostinseattle
Your comments to @millercarbon are right on. He is a no-it-all that likes to bully people. I think he is an insecure trust baby that doesn't have anything else to do so he comes on here and talks jibberish and offends people. It makes him feel important.

Nobody listens to millercarbon, why would anybody start now! Read some of his threads, he’s the only 1 that can say a tweak works and a tweak that has very little impact on SQ, MC claims it’s an “amazing” upgrade. MC needs to get at least a midfi system before a tweak can be used to see if it actually improves or degrades the sound, not all tweaks improve the SQ, some degrade it. IMO, most tweaks need a good resolving system to be able to hear an improvement. Same goes for cables, but not saying cables are tweaks at all. 
Power related items can have Big improvements in SQ. For example: the ps audio regenerators along with good power cables provide a big SQ improvement, same goes for using balanced power products. But if you go cheap and buy monster power conditioners, they actually degrade SQ.

Please understand that all of these formulas are much easier to understand than my divorce agreement.

Don't knock it till you've tried it.  

Thanks, Spenav! My favorite music listening experience is the live concert. Now that it's on hold due to the pandemic, my audio system is a consolation. If I can get close to the "absolute sound" of live music, I'm willing to wait until the virus passes. What other choice does one have?  I'm truly grateful for innovations that improve on my listening pleasure. Thanks again for the encouragement. 

I don’t know about the test it 50 times thing but in general if one is going to recommend a poorly understood solution of any sort, especially a pricier solution, doing diligence to verify findings can only help. Making a change and saying you hear a (positive) difference of some sort is something......but not much, especially when that is all there is for people to go on.

It’s ok to do it once and say what you hear, but not Ok to jump to the conclusion that you are infallible and others will surely hear the same thing. Even worse then is to discount others when they report something different even if based on similar low level of diligence.

@ladickinson -  You say "low frequency AC harmonic".  The signal in question is not related to the AC 50/60 Hz sine. I repeat - It is not an AC harmonic. There is no injection of an AC sine harmonic. Do you get it?

Rather, I suggest a low frequency signal, presumably a square wave, that is the result of signal processing circuit design, that is impressed upon the line. It is the square wave that is composed of a harmonic series of sine waves. 
Not "absurd" imo.

I stand by my statement of power supply filtering in audio gear.
I didn't say that a power supply cannot filter low frequencies. 
It appears you are locked into a fixed position of intellectual judgment and therefore dismiss any idea that disagrees with your intellect.

On an another note, it is up to the manufacturer /designer to reveal the complete recipe of its unique "sauce."

Once again, those who clamor most often for blind listening tests reveal they don’t have a clue about valid testing:

mijostyn

You have to be blindfolded and sitting in your listening position. Have a friend or your wife plug and unplug the unit. All he or she can say is "OK" when they make a change. You say "on" or "off" after every "OK" That person keeps a record of your responses by writing down R for right and W for wrong. Record 50 responses then determine the percentage of right and wrong answers.

Any listener would naturally score 50 out of 50 on that test, or 100 out of 100 if they could stay awake long enough. That’s because the person conducting the test is telling the listener that they’re making a change to one of just two options, so if it’s changed from one it must be the other. That’s pretty silly.

Valid blind testing requires a lot more than a blindfold. Once you understand how cumbersome and tedious and time consuming the process is, you’ll understand why such testing has so little value to the typical audiophile. Or perhaps you’ve already learned that and so have just not bothered to yourself conduct your own tests.

If I’m mistaken, please share the results of your tests. I’m genuinely interested.

@bartholomew
Good for you!  You spent your money buying the item, you took the time to let us know your impressions of it, now someone is asking you to recruit your wife to test it 50 times no less and report back to him ASAP.  You seem like I to spend more time in front of your system than behind it, enjoy it and thanks for taking the time.  Life is short. Stay safe. 

“Lets run an experiment. You have to be blindfolded and sitting in your listening position. Have a friend or your wife plug and unplug the unit. All he or she can say is "OK" when they make a change. You say "on" or "off" after every "OK" That person keeps a record of your responses by writing down R for right and W for wrong. Record 50 responses then determine the percentage of right and wrong answers.
Let us know the results.”

mijostyn, when was the last time you conducted this experiment and what was the product?

A simpler solution to the controversy is for anyone on this forum to call the company and confirm a money back guarantee from AddPowr. Then you, trusting your own ears, can decide for yourself whether to keep or return the Electraclears. I was told by the company that I could return them for a full refund. I'm keeping them.

OK bartholomew. Lets run an experiment. You have to be blindfolded and sitting in your listening position. Have a friend or your wife plug and unplug the unit. All he or she can say is "OK" when they make a change. You say "on" or "off" after every "OK" That person keeps a record of your responses by writing down R for right and W for wrong. Record 50 responses then determine the percentage of right and wrong answers. 
Let us know the results.  

There’s an account of an applicant for an opening in Thomas Edison’s research lab. Edison himself conducted the interview over a bowl of soup during lunch. The job candidate proceeded to add salt to his soup without tasting it first. He did not get the job.

"Generally, audio power supplies do not filter noise under 40 kHz, no?
You can put all the LRCs you want on a DC power supply and as many farads as you want. I will say that you will not find many supplies filtering under 20 Hz."

My goodness. Setting aside for a minute the absurd contention that injecting a low frequency AC harmonic that transmits through the supply is somehow helpful, from where comes the learning that a power supply cannot filter low frequencies? The first stage of the supply is a full wave rectifier - either a four diode bridge, or two diodes with a center-tapped transformer. The bridge does not care the frequency. When the voltage is positive relative to its bias, it conducts. When negative, it does not. It will rectify a 1 Hz sine wave just as happily as a 60 Hz sine wave. This is my last comment on this as the futility is obvious. P.T. Barnum was a smart man. If I were to spend money on Add-Powr, I would think it more beneficial to buy the company’s stock than its product.

@lostinseattle -

I'll try to explain it (ElectraClear) in general terms - 
Consider the idea of a clock and dividing its rate or frequency into slower and slower rates. Now the clock has to be a fast rising edge, like a pulse, so as to trigger the dividing process. The outputs are square wave signals.  What is a square wave? If you look up Fourier and his discovery of harmonics and transforms, you will learn that they are comprised of sine/cosine waves of a variety of related harmonics to the fundamental.

I presume that there is a situation that mirrors or reflects the pulsing action of a square wave onto the AC line however minute that may be.
This mechanism eludes me.But it must be something in the semiconductor transistor output or the small em field generated that allows this transfer. Not sure here.
Accepting this -
This is a pulsing event and not "ripple" but more of a defined square wave form of very small amplitude and lower in frequency(s) than 60 Hz. If this activity gets reflected onto the AC line then it is likely that it will not be filtered completely by power supply filters. What we're talking about is sine waves of a harmonic relationship extending to, mathematically speaking, infinity per Fourier. The frequencies of this harmonic series in the audio band will be present on the voltage reference, the DC voltage reference. This means that the DC line contains some harmonic information, albeit small. But small goes a long way.
An increase of 0.1 volt change from 1.0 v is 1.1 v and is equivalent to a gain of 0.83 dB.
Now the idea of resonance is vibrating at a similar or like frequency.
When this happens there is an energy transfer or increase in beats ala a tuning fork when in resonance with a like frequency.
Like that, the harmonic resonates with a similar or like frequencies in the audio amplifier. There are many harmonics in the square wave form so they too, will resonate with whatever frequency(s) come into the amp.
What you here will be an increase in harmonic information as the signal passes through the amplifier to speaker.

AddPowr’s explanation doesn’t make any sense to me and yes, it sounds like snake oil. Power factor correction in my Furman Elite 20PFI conditioner consists of huge inductor in series followed by large capacitor. It is designed to store energy for huge current peaks drawn by the amp. Most of the linear power supplies draw current in very short spikes of big amplitude (causing big voltage drops). Perhaps AddPowr’s device consists of something similar (inductor+capacitor), while their explanation about harmonics is designed purely to impress. It is also possible it’s just a placebo effect, but there is nothing wrong with it, as long as it lasts. Either way - if you like it then enjoy it and don’t think too much.

Totally lostinSeattle-

When I say something seems like snake oil I am most certainly NOT saying that my mind is made up,...

Okay... will keep this in mind. Seriously. Will be used later. Read on.

What I AM saying is that when there is no rational basis to accept a manufacturer’s claim as to how something works, and they provide not a shred of what should be easy-to-provide corroborating measurements to demonstrate effectiveness, it makes me highly skeptical.

What millercarbon actually said:

These marketing stories are just that, stories.

A more succinct formulation, don’t you agree?

AC side tweaks, which have nothing at all to do with the musical signal.

Uh, but your mind, didn’t you say it was most certainly not, er I mean NOT made up?

I am most certainly NOT saying that my mind is made up,...

Okay. Well, told you it would be used later.

Unless your power quality is terrible, AC side stuff just isn’t going to make a difference.

Yeah, yeah, we know. But you’re still open minded. Right.

Previous posts:

how would a power cord make a difference?

and

Interestingly, I haven’t really read about power cords before

It would appear not only is your mind made up, but made up on zero evidence. Zero reading, even! Your own words!

What millercarbon actually said:

The people screaming snake oil are no better. They know even less. At least the people who pretend to know why might actually bother to try the stuff and listen and use it and maybe learn a thing or two some day. The snake oil people, what they are really saying is their mind is made up, you’re all suckers, and no way they will ever even try to listen and learn.

We can see now why you’re so upset: nailed it.

Oh well. Never too late.

If you really are in Seattle then you’re within driving distance of being able to hear for yourself just how incredible things we cannot explain can make a system sound. Blow. Your. Mind.
https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8367

You're entitled to your opinion and you may think and believe what you wish. These are not fantasy stories and there are many things you and I don't know. 

The ideas of resonance, harmonic series, and ideas of physics / electrical theory are worthy of scrutiny.
I sense that they are worthy endeavors to push the envelope of what is possible to achieve quality audio sound that allows you to derive more pleasure from recorded music.

@millercarbon -

"Honestly, the more I read this on this site the more it screams Snake Oil."

That only shows where you need to think more about the phenomenon because you have not examined it from other ways.
And you have not heard any of the ADD-Powr products.
You don't have any idea what you're talking about because the S/N doesn't lie and your ears don't lie either.
Just contact and ask the several pro audio engineers using the products.

Well, this thread took the expected turn...

I'm  more curious about thElectraclear than a magic fuse-they're about the same price.I don't see a money back guarantee. Did I overlook this on the website?

MY spidey senses are working, so I may have already killed any possible improvement. I use Power Plant with good results. If an electraclear enhances it, I will have super perfect power.

It has nothing to do with PF correction.
The approach you describe is not the approach here.
You are talking about phases of the AC line. That is not what ADD-Powr is doing.

Also, It's nothing to do with the peaks necessarily, but rather inducing an actual periodic pattern of very low voltage oscillating "bumps" on the line. It is kind of similar to how an old LED digital clock (very low frequency square wave perhaps) might affect the AC line. 

Again, this is not about addressing power line issues per se.
It is an approach using a specific low frequency waveform signal type and resonating vis-a-vis its harmonic series, other signals whether the means is through the power supply or by a coil antennae. The essence is getting a harmonic series to resonate with like frequencies,

"...that shows a frequency response of an amp's noise floor." i.e. no signal, full amp gain setting.

It's not Rocket Science or maybe it is. I can think of lots of worse things to spend your money on. If it works for you well enough.Remember just because your paranoid, doesn't mean they're not after you. Yes, I am sceptical but only when I'm not wearing my tin foil hat.

@lostinseattle -
I was told that the pro audio world folks are the only group interested in such data. There is virtually no business there, and it is very difficult to break into and be profitable. 
That low frequency signal is below 100 Hz I presume.
I think that they have some tests that were done by a tech at Harmon that there is spectrum graph looking at frequency versus noise floor of an amp. There were some interesting results, I'm told.

@terry9 -
Yes. I have measured a.5 - .75 db increase

@bemused--  You wrote:
"From perusing the web site, ADD-Powr is appears to be about increasing "energy", or the voltage of the audio signal through the generation of harmonics on the reference supply that are too low in frequency to be filtered away by the component power supply. They more or less resonate with similar frequencies in the audio signal. If the fundamental signal is low enough, then its resonant affect will be evident throughout the audio band. The driving fundamental must be a complex function composed of sines and cosines in various phases - that is the Fourier series. Or...perhaps it can be simply be a square wave!

That explanation makes sense."

It does not make sense to me.  Can you explain it?  What frequency levels are we talking about, exactly?  Power comes in at 60Hz.  What low level AC frequency will resonate through a DC power supply?

@millercarbon--

Please refrain from obscene generalizations about people. When I say something seems like snake oil I am most certainly NOT saying that my mind is made up, that everyone else are suckers, and that I am not going to listen and learn.

What I AM saying is that when there is no rational basis to accept a manufacturer's claim as to how something works, and they provide not a shred of what should be easy-to-provide corroborating measurements to demonstrate effectiveness, it makes me highly skeptical.  There are a thousand tweaks out there and my time is limited, especially I am going to spend it listening to things that have a reasonable chance of making a difference. Especially regarding improvements from AC side tweaks, which have nothing at all to do with the musical signal.   Unless your power quality is terrible, AC side stuff just isn't going to make a difference.  Running your system off a quality UPS will give you perfect sine wave power, stable voltage, and no harmonics.  Problem solved.

For goodness sake, would you not be skeptical of, say, an amplifier designer who says their amp sounds better because it's inhabited by quantum level musical pixies?

Hey, if someone else hears a difference, more power to them, though, with the ever present caveat of awareness of confirmation bias.  If you don't do double blind testing, how do you know you actually heard it?  By all means, go by what you hear - I certainly do - but don't you want to be certain that you really heard it?

These marketing stories are just that, stories. Which is not to say there aren't improvements from using this stuff. Very likely there are. Its just to say the improvements are not for the reasons we're being told.

In fact the one thing I am most certain of is that they are NOT for the reasons we're being told.

Why am I so certain? Because a thin coat of Total Contact on the outside of a wire, AC or signal, makes no difference,  makes all the same great improvements people are talking about, and for certain it is not generating or saturating anything, and absolutely is not doing anything active. All its doing is somehow improving transmission. Somehow. We don't know.

People hate not knowing. Lotta people rather believe utter nonsense than admit WE DON'T KNOW! Oh, the horror!  

Me, I kind of welcome the not knowing. Because the minute you can convince yourself you know why, then you stop thinking about what if? Look around. Look how often it happens. Look at all the people trying to buy cables, and all kinds of stuff, based on what are nothing more than cockamamie stories. Only they won't call them that. Oh no. That's a big part of the delusion, to call your cockamamie stories theories, principles, facts, measurements, anything but what they are: narrative. Fanciful tales. Fables. Myths. Stories. 

The people screaming snake oil are no better. They know even less. At least the people who pretend to know why might actually bother to try the stuff and listen and use it and maybe learn a thing or two some day. The snake oil people, what they are really saying is their mind is made up, you're all suckers, and no way they will ever even try to listen and learn. They're the lowest of the low. They truly need a new hobby.

Of course, none of this really matters - unless you really are interested in building an exceptionally fine sounding system. Because then if you are serious about it you will go and listen and keep trying and learning, and maybe even one day realize that just like mahgister keeps saying the tweaks matter at least as much as the components.

Go and listen. You will see.

@pragmasi
Your scenario doesn’t account for the fact that the distributors always have a money back guarantee and always give sufficient time to evaluate a product and return it if not satisfied. If we had to be persuaded of the theory before we buy a product, none of us would own a high definition TV model because we sure don’t know how it works. Most airplanes would be empty if the airline had to explain to all the passengers how it works. We try things, if they work we keep them, if they don’t, we return them. If there is a life or death probability, we let someone else try it first 😀

One other thing ADD-Powr says in describing their technology:  
"

• They generate and propagate low frequency signal information to affect harmonic change to audio signals.  

• They super saturate the AC line voltage with harmonics to affect a 1 to 5% increase of the voltage peaks delivered to the power supplies of system components."

Why exactly would you want to increase voltage peaks?  Stable voltage is extremely desirable, peaky voltage not so.  The vast majority of PQ problems are voltage related, either a sag or a surge, and those can mess mightily with electronics.  Also, how does super saturation with harmonics increase voltage?  Harmonics are undesirable.  Now, if you are doing PF correction, that will slightly lower voltage by lowering current flow, but they also specifically say, "

     ADD-Powr products are

    Electronic harmonic resonators.

    They are not AC power line conditioners".

Honestly, the more I read this on this site the more it screams Snake Oil.

Geez, where were you guys on the thread about improvements from AC power cords?

Current harmonics occur on power lines due to non-linear loads, of which there are many.  Do they affect the sound coming out of your system?  I read through ADD-Powr's website. They claim,
"A complex wave "disturbance" rides  along the AC line. Since it is a low frequency signal, it is not filtered away by power supplies, such as a/v component power supplies.  Instead, it passes through the filter stages and becomes part of the DC reference supply voltage."

What low frequency signal are they talking about?  They don't say. This claim seems bogus to me, if for no other reason than they don't publish any actual data.  I couldn't find any product specs.  And, if it were a real thing, it would be easy to demonstrate.  Specifically:

1.  Show me a frequency graph of incoming A/C power (both the 60Hz  and whatever harmonics you want to include) and the corresponding frequency graph of amplifier output.  

2. Now introduce the "device" and show me the same graphs.  This kind of before and after will show both the frequency domain and the scale of the impact of the high pass filter.

Nada.  Nothing.  A picture says a thousand words, but only if there's something to show.

Bemused, have you done this experiment? What was the result?

There is no "bad" anything.
In fact, 

The ADD-Powr idea is not about filtering noise.
It adds signal, and does not filter  nor address noise.
Do you remember the term signal-to-noise ratio, or S/N?
If you increase S what happens to the ratio?
My math says the ratio gets larger.

Go get yourself a dB sound level meter.
Play pink noise or white noise into your system.
Send it as mono or stereo feed.
Take said meter locate and position and point it at:
1 - 2 feet from each speaker
Repeat from 5 feet.
Repeat from the sweet spot between speakers 
Record the measurements.

Plug in an ElectraClear or any ADD-Powr product, and repeat the above.
End of story.

Bemused, I think that you will find that it's a matter of degree. The equations for filters are well known, see for example a Radio Amateur's Handbook from the 50's. You will note that EVERY LRC filter filters EVERY frequency - the question is, how much.

Sure you can use a single phase motor to drive a three-phase motor backwards to get three phase, making filtering easier - but you choose your poison. I chose brute force LRC with single phase. YMMV

prag,

It’s the only argument one has when there is nothing concrete to substantiate a claim. Why people choose to spend money on things that apparently work by magic rather than for some good reason is beyond me. It’s a personal matter mostly. People spend money on all kinds of things, some crazy, some not.

My theory is obsessive personalities cannot stop themselves from pursuing their obsession.  Figuring out what can be done to make things sound better is not easy.  But at some point it becomes grasping at straws if not reeled in. 

Mijo, do I see ghosts in my closet? Not any more.

My ’unit’ does not have a bad power supply - at least by my standards. The DIY power supply for my DIY amps has ripple which is lower than the noise floor of my test instruments, and calculates to be comparable to the intrinsic noise of a MAT12. Your standards are perhaps higher?

Generally, audio power supplies do not filter noise under 40 kHz, no?
You can put all the LRCs you want on a DC power supply and as many farads as you want. I will say that you will not find many supplies filtering under 20 Hz.
Sure, make the AC as quiet as you can.
That will make the ElectraClear work even better.

Why not play with the medium of AC single phase 90 - 240 VAC and explore what how it can be exploited to do more.,,?

Why not explore what is possible using basic ideas of physics?

The medium is the message.

only the ones who have tried it should have a say on whether it works or not

I really don't get this argument... 
So to to take a completely imaginary scenario: Someone has a product and is unable to provide any evidence that it works, they can make any claim they want about how great it is and put a big price tag on it. If they were really cynical they could create an account on this forum and pretend to be a customer that's 'seen the light'. And then everyone else gets told to buy one before they can have an opinion on whether it stands a chance of working... like I said, a completely imaginary scenario.

Nice to see a few sane people here. All is not lost.
Terry9, do you see ghosts in your closet? If your unit has a bad power supply ditch it and spend your money on something built well. 

I have my very own Lawn wart. The Power company made me buy it because of my workshop. They thought I would dim everyone's lights.
The ultimate power conditioning. Four 3 grand I get to brag:)

And that assumes clean AC power. Add a lower frequency carrier wave ...

@ladickinson

Agreed about confirmation bias. But this may be something more. Power supplies filter, yes - but as you know, it's a matter of degree, and the devil is in the details.

An LRC filter removes a percentage of the ripple present in a DC supply. The first LRC stage takes its DC from the rectifier, the second stage takes its DC from the first stage, etc. Bigger reactances increase that percentage, as do more stages - but have you ever calculated how much inductance and capacitance you need to reduce that ripple voltage to the intrinsic noise of your active devices?

Well I have, and it took most of a full size rack to contain the hundred pounds of transformers, the hundred kg of inductors, and the Farad of capacitors to provide 2 KW of good DC.

The result? My system is BLACK. Worth it? YMMV