Running Springs vs Shunyata

One needs to keep in mind that the power cable feeding the conditioner is at least as important as the conditioner itself.

I have gone down the power conditioner 'rabbit hole'. Tripoint Audio has a remarkable conditioner that would make the differences between Shunyata or Running Springs seem trivial. I can firmly attest no compression or restriction with my amplifiers. Based upon your system, you would very likely appreciate the effect.

Shunyata, Running Springs, Synergistic Research all seem decent. Pick one out of a hat?

TRIPOINT AUDIO SPARTAN $35,000 MSRP

"Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast" said the Queen...Alice in Wonderland.

No kidding!

es347 said:

TRIPOINT AUDIO SPARTAN $35,000 MSRP

"Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast" said the Queen...Alice in Wonderland.

No kidding!

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Blimey, that is rich! For that kind of cash, I would think that the first port of call would be an Equi=Tech balanced panel. Those things are SERIOUS!

look into the weishi conditioner. audition whether you're planning to, or not.

note: it will not save your gear in case of surges or anything. but it sounds great.

vinylphilemag said:

Blimey, that is rich! For that kind of cash, I would think that the first port of call would be an Equi=Tech balanced panel. Those things are SERIOUS!

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Why do you think the Equi=Tech is superior?

What's inside the box that makes it worth $35K?



Also, if I have my amps next to my speakers and my source equipment near the listening position, why would I want this box?

That's as awfully pretty wooden case. I wonder how many of these things have been sold. Kinda hard to believe that they would have sold any at that price.

es347 said:

That's as awfully pretty wooden case. I wonder how many of these things have been sold. Kinda hard to believe that they would have sold any at that price.

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I have no doubt they will sell a few ... They will likely recoup the money invested in marketing these wooden boxes ... and if they sell enough of these, they will come later with an improved version with a treatment with "Quantum" or "cryo" in the name for even better sound and of course more money...

devert said:

What's inside the box that makes it worth $35K?

Also, if I have my amps next to my speakers and my source equipment near the listening position, why would I want this box?

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FWIW, I have heard a system with Tripoint Spartan. The Tripoint Troy grounding unit was also part of the system. They disengaged one (of 6) amps from the Troy grounding unit, and a slight haze appeared over the music. Whether anyone wants to pay $9K for a grounding unit for the whole system...that's a personal choice...but it did remove a haze which very much surprised me.

This was already a system with dedicated power feeds, full power conditioning and some of the best electronics...all Tidal reference monos (3 pairs of them), Tidal ref preamp, ARgento's best cabling, etc, etc.

lloydelee21 said:

FWIW, I have heard a system with Tripoint Spartan. The Tripoint Troy grounding unit was also part of the system. They disengaged one (of 6) amps from the Troy grounding unit, and a slight haze appeared over the music. Whether anyone wants to pay $9K for a grounding unit for the whole system...that's a personal choice...but it did remove a haze which very much surprised me.

This was already a system with dedicated power feeds, full power conditioning and some of the best electronics...all Tidal reference monos (3 pairs of them), Tidal ref preamp, ARgento's best cabling, etc, etc.

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What I find interesting is when you find the right PLC, differences between components (and wires) shrink dramatically. (that's saying something very important!) That's why when everyone starts hammering about room acoustics, how do you know it's a problem with the room and not the AC? It's pretty amazing how the bass tightens up, becomes more detailed and the sound is less muddy/more transparent with top flight PLCs. Not to mention how all of a sudden images just pop!

MylesBAstor said:

What I find interesting is when you find the right PLC, differences between components (and wires) shrink dramatically. (that's saying something very important!) That's why when everyone starts hammering about room acoustics, how do you know it's a problem with the room and not the AC? It's pretty amazing how the bass tightens up, becomes more detailed and the sound is less muddy/more transparent with top flight PLCs. Not to mention how all of a sudden images just pop!

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Mmmhh let me see Myles

So you think the problems introduced by an AC lines are superior in magnitude to those brought in by room acoustics, where the variations from frequencies to frequencies can be tens of dB.. Come on man! Images will pop once your speakers are well positioned ( I suppose that anyone considering acquiring this exquistely crafted item would have speakers capable of the utmost performance ... They tend to do well whether one uses a PLC or not ... in a bad room image won't "pop" as well and they won't sound their best even with the use of this uniquely priced contraption..

FrantzM said:

Mmmhh let me see Myles

So you think the problems introduced by an AC lines are superior in magnitude to those brought in by room acoustics, where the variations from frequencies to frequencies can be tens of dB.. Come on man! Images will pop once your speakers are well positioned ( I suppose that anyone considering acquiring this exquistely crafted item would have speakers capable of the utmost performance ... They tend to do well whether one uses a PLC or not ... in a bad room image won't "pop" as well and they won't sound their best even with the use of this uniquely priced contraption..

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Just saying Frantz. Hearing is believing. For me, and every situation is different, I'll take minimal sound Rx and spend my money on the AC.

As far as popping, one hasn't really experienced the full feeling of an instrument's three dimensional radiating surface until the noise floor is dropped.

Anyway you slice it, one can come up with plenty of scenarios for either approach. But yes I do think they're on equal footing.

BTW can you say that room treatment helps maintain the sytem's consistency of sound from day to day. Power line RX will and outside of CA, can't think of any other cities/states worse than NYC, help your system sound it's finest every day.

YMMV.

Myles

The thread is about a very expensive and to me amusing piece of equipment. One I would not deign pay attention to, if it weren't for its presence on WBF so ludicrous and irrational its existence is to me... thus I would answer your last posts.
No way that a PLC effects on a system can be as serious as those of a room, unless the PLC is plain bad or underpowered… I am supposing a well performing PLC ... If the room is bad the sound will be bad and there is no way around this. The equipment (unless it is a DRC and even so) will not magically produce great sound regardless of its/their intrinsic quality. I would have thought this, self-evident or at least learned in the past decades since we know that the room messes up with the sound more so than any other thing in the chain, even maybe more so than speakers ... It is to me incredible that Room treatment is still not considered essential by an audiophile.. To me it is almost a self-evident truth just like water ... hydrates … then again some people still believe dinosaurs never roamed the earth.
The distortion brought in by the rooms are different from that of a PLC both need to be addressed. As in anything the solution can be worse than the cure and there can be bad room treatments as well as bad PLCs.. The points of your post however are different and do suggest that a PLC should take precedence over addressing room issues and you are wrong on this. Just in passing I remain likely the most vociferous proponent of serious AC treatment on this board and in my former system addressed in a so far unique fashion with a Two stage UPS system composed of a Telco grade DC rectifier with batteries followed by a Telco-Carrier –grade AC inverter capable of providing 10 KW continuous and (15 KW for 6 hours or an “overload” of 20 KW for 30 mins) of crystal regulated 120 VAC 60 Hz with less than 3 % of distortion, and better than 3% AC voltage regulation at all rated power output. A ferroresonant beast that weighed about 600 lbs (not exaggerating) and that was housed in the backyard ... I haven't seen anyone go to that extreme … yet so I am clear on the befits of clean AC but the differences were not of the order brought in by treating my room and they couldn't be
Now as for the all-pervasive notion of noise floor it has become another buzzword in the increasingly fuzzy audiophile jargon... I will not expound on it , not necessary. I can tell you that a well treated room seems to lower the noise floor, consistently and measurably. Treated room are more silent… you know , lower noise floor
I will also address the fact that Room treatment is reliable it works, reliably all the time 9assuming that it it well done). If your room is well treated the benefits are repeatable day to day seconds to seconds. It doesn't change. I have yet to hear room treatment that changes from day to day so I am not sure I get your point. AC do vary whether the effects are audible is debatable but in my case it was necessary to address the quality of my AC line and will always approach a system with the cleanest AC I can get. I will not address in this post, grounding a necessary aspect of AC quality and a complicated one ..
It is for me surprising that audiophiles still continue to get in those PLC that can’t work. Very few tackle the AC correctly.. They will go into cryogenically treated outlets rather than a real solution such as the Equi=Tech, for the record I prefer AC regeneration to the Equi=Tech and actually think the best would be a combination of both. There are good Power Line Conditioner out there and some are better than others as in anything. None can do a better job than a two stage UPS however, of the kind used in Data center and as I have often mentioned they are not that expensive. An APC double stage UPS capable of 5 KVA is about $4,000 a small amount in the context of $30,000 Speaker cables and the (to me) amusing $11,000 Norshost Odin Power Cord that can’t clean up AC. With the Odin Power Cord (or any power cord) if the voltage sags 20 Volts (which happens quite often ) the Odin will faithfully carry this sag, the APC, will simply continue to work delivering 120 VAC steady and not sagging even if the AC power mains is cut off!!! Yet no one on this board use such UPS .. Interesting? You bet .. AC does change no doubt... Thus my often repeated point ( and one that seems to not have landed in audiophile ears) of the futility of the "dedicated lines with its own breaker". It is better than a one of those power distribution outlet boxes but ...
This $35,000 PLC is one of those “Audiophiles” products whose performance is at least suspect. AC Power Quality is not an audiophile concept. It is a real issue that many faces from household to Communications carriers. There are ways to address it .. This one will address the financial status of its makers .. I am not too sure about real AC line Problems

Frantz-it's really not even worth discussing because it's just another in a series of instances here with one side not having heard the piece under discussion!

Shoulda, woulda, coulda and speculation doesn't cut it. Nor does saying what works for me works for you.

I don't think you can ignore either the room or the electrical power. My preference, in both contexts, would be as little 'treatment' as possible. In the context of a room, I mean a room that sounds good in the first place. Granted, those are rare, and yes, you probably do have to do some degree of diffusion, absorption, take account of reflections- but I remember the room i had two houses ago- 110 year old heavy real plaster over lathe (horsehair, i think, behind that), heavy wide beam floors, high ceilings, great dimensions. That room just sounded fab. My current room is all odd angles, not really big enough in any dimension, and I have the fully panoply of corner bass treatments, diffusion and absorption panels. Ideally, my next room will be purpose built and I will have to do a little, but not a lot of 'treatment' to get it right. I'd like it to be 'right' in the first place to the fullest extent possible.
AC power- I've tried a few conditioners (not the latest crop) and other than doing a dedicated subpanel and dedicated lines with hospital grade receptacles, proper phase, etc. I don't use any and go straight into the wall. No power conditioning. I bought a big Equi=Tech wall cabinet for my next room, and I hope that's all I'll need to keep the vagaries of AC power to a minimum.
So, I guess where I come out is- Franz and Myles are talking about two things that are both important- but that in an ideal scratch- built listening environment, less may be more?
As a footnote, I will post in a separate thread regarding another 'tweak' I'm playing with that does not directly bear on either power conditioning or room treatment, but more philosphically, relates to the overall sound of the system and its 'tuning.'

Jack, I certainly am in the camp of using a proper isolation transformer. I do not know that anything following, other than the outlets and internal wire you choose, will really be necessary.

Equi-tech is a fine choice. I do not know that I would buy their entire box, just the isolation transformer.

I do have experience with Shunyata and Running Springs and if you run dedicated lines, I would not waste your time or money. The big problem is everything you run into a line conditioner is all on one dedicated line / circuit. They defeat the benefits of dedicated lines.

Hi

When one runs a "dedicated line" how dedicated can it be? such a line has only "dedicated" to it its own breaker. Noise and the likes do get to the equipment courtesy of the common trunk it shares wit the rest of the household noice-producing items ... It is only a beginning. I prefer a generator as I have said countless of times... the Equi=Tech is a fine solution and so is a good isolation transformer of the proper rating .. Don't drop two class A 1000 Watts amp on a 2000 VA Isiolation tansformer and call it a day... then go complain that isolation transformers compress the sound ...
Also care should be taken to the return path for a ll thenoise aka ground.

As for many audiophiles PLC including the subject of this thread the less said the better ...