Reevaluation can be a good thing

Every now and again, I like to revisit a tweak or change I’ve made to ensure that it’s doing what I thought it did in the first place. As I’ve discovered with experience, the first blush of a change to a system is usually the sweetest and strongest—and it can color our perceptions. Sometimes a little time and distance, and a reevaluation, is needed to put things into their proper perspective.

For a while now, I’ve plugged my Coda S12.5 amp (along with the rest of my very simple system) into a PurePower AC regenerator. I’ve gone back and forth a couple of times, and thought that the regenerator was having a beneficial impact on the amp. These weren’t extended comparisons, mind you, just quick-and-dirty A/Bs. My initial thought was that backgrounds were a little blacker and that the presentation “popped” a bit more with the amp plugged into the PP.

Now, I’ve heard plenty of horror stories about amps—particularly decent-sized SS units--being plugged into regenerators, and that regenerators frequently limit dynamics, but I didn’t think I really heard that effect, so I just kept the amp plugged into the PurePower and was happy as a little clam.

Fast forward to about two weeks ago, and I again had the urge to reevaluate things. This time, I decided to do a more extended listen, over the course of a number of days and many hours, with the amp both into the wall and into my Jena Labs line conditioner. I used a lot of my most familiar recordings.

To make a long story short, I’ve definitely come to prefer the amp OUT of the regenerator (but into the conditioner rather than the wall). The music has a freer and looser feel now, with better overall dynamics and a still-very-black background. The PurePower is great for my source components—there, it makes a pronounced difference—but, thanks to my decision to revisit things, I’ve discovered that in my system, this particular amp doesn’t like being plugged into my regenerator.

So, anyway, the moral of this tale is, it’s sometimes a good idea to reevaluate a system change after some time has passed. What you thought was a beneficial change six months before might not strike you the same way now. Of course, one doesn’t want to get paranoid about it and second-guess themselves into the nut house, but you get the idea. Who knows, maybe I’ll plug the amp back into the PP after six months or a year, and see if THIS change I’m making was as beneficial as I think it is now. But after doing some truly extended listening, I think it will be.