Very interesting and thought provoking posts. I only want to share, after spending far too many thousands of dollars on gear upgrades, that power and room acoustics are the most important aspects of building a great sounding audio system. We will never hear the potential of our components without first getting them as right as possible. Most of us are not able to dedicate a room to our listening where the benefits of paying attention to 1st, 2nd and 3rd reflections as well as comb filtering are realized but at least we should consider the golden "rule of thirds" when setting up our gear and listening position.
My living environment seems filled with high frequency noise whether from major appliances, Wi-Fi, or digital products. I found that regenerating that power from the outlet gives me a clean 120hz sinewave to start with but power cords still provide a major benefit. To my ear the cords/conditioners that focus on removing high frequency noise without reducing dynamics are the best. Examples that work for me are Lessloss, Shunyata Research, and Transparent. Others just "change" the sound but don't necessarily "improve" it.
Once I got sucked into the black backdrop that cleaning up line noise gives me I became addicted to it. The visual analogy is a professionally calibrated Panasonic VT50 plasma TV that makes 2D look almost 3D. Gotta love those blacks!
My living environment seems filled with high frequency noise whether from major appliances, Wi-Fi, or digital products. I found that regenerating that power from the outlet gives me a clean 120hz sinewave to start with but power cords still provide a major benefit. To my ear the cords/conditioners that focus on removing high frequency noise without reducing dynamics are the best. Examples that work for me are Lessloss, Shunyata Research, and Transparent. Others just "change" the sound but don't necessarily "improve" it.
Once I got sucked into the black backdrop that cleaning up line noise gives me I became addicted to it. The visual analogy is a professionally calibrated Panasonic VT50 plasma TV that makes 2D look almost 3D. Gotta love those blacks!