My Clean Power Adventures

[tmallin]

As I mentioned above, this type of device seems to take a week to settle in after interrupting the power to it. Thus, an on/off switch really won't make for a valid A/B comparison, in my opinion. It seems odd that Dave chose to put such a switch on this device; there is no such switch on the UberBUSS. Why not just pull the plug out of either the back of the unit (assuming the cord is not captured) or the wall outlet?

My Z-1 also has a switch and a very short (18 inches?) captured cord. In its case the switch adjusts the level of power factor correction applied and you can hear the difference through A/Bing that switch while the unit stays plugged in and thus powered up. The labeled "A" position is almost always the best sounding setting for it, I've found.

 

[Joe P]

I checked what the BetaBuss (it has a captured cord) does in my sustem with a Entech Noise Sniffer.

This is much better than your A/B comparison.

 

[tmallin]

I have a P.I. Audio Group BUSS Depot (fka BetaBUSS) on order. Pending its arrival I went on eBay and ordered and received one of the Monster Entech Noise Sniffers you mentioned. I left my MIT Z-1 Stabilizer and P.I. Audio Group UberBUSSes plugged in. Following the instructions, I adjusted the Sniffer to read 100 on an "unfiltered" outlet I could easily reach in my kitchen. I then tried various other "unfiltered" outlets in the house and got readings between 90 and 100. That same reading occurred on the companion receptacle in the outlet into which the MIT Z-1 Stabilizer is plugged.

However, when I plugged the Sniffer into a filtered outlet on one of the UberBUSSes in my audio room, it read 0.1. The UberBUSSes are alone seemingly doing an excellent job of filtering out whatever noise the Entech is measuring.

The final arbiter of the sonic effect of such devices is the ear, however. I'll let you know what I hear once I receive the Buss Depot and try it out in place of my MIT Z-1 Stabilizer.

 

[Marcus]

For measuring EMI garbage I use this:


Apart from numbers, you also get a sonic representation of EMI pollution. Unfiltered outlets in my place show results between 200 and 1.800, sometimes even over 2.000. Plugged into the UberBUSS, measurements fall to 40 to 200. I know this type of measurement is quite primitive by professional measuring standards and by some consequently irrelevant, but think it helps to show a basic state of your power line quality.

 

[Joe P]

My Entech also does EMI:

 

[dBe]

The BUSS-Depot switch Is there to prevent an accidental shock when it is unplugged from the wall. There are internal safety resistors, but they take a few seconds to defeat the PFC network. There is always That Guy that sticks the 9V battery to his tongue on a dare! Having exposed blades on the plug necessitates the switch. I’ll ship end of the week...

 

[tmallin]

Yes, thanks for mentioning that, Dave. I only figured that out once I read through the entire thread about the BUSS-Depot over on Audio Nervosa and saw your comment there about the reason for the switch. Safety first, I agree!

 

[tmallin]

I have now added the BUSS Depot. Some discussion of it back when it was initially called the Beta BUSS is on the Audio Nervosa forum here.

From the beginning, before full break-in had taken place, already there was an obvious further increase in three dimensionality of images and staging, an increase in the overall "ease" of the presentation, a warming up of the midbass/lower midrange, greater bass extension, and a seeming strengthening and clarification of the entire bass range as though a bit of equalization had been applied. Bass lines are stronger, richer, and yet also easier to follow. High frequencies seem yet cleaner and more relaxed.

The BUSS Depot is smallish black box with a short captive cord terminated in a Furutech three-prong electrical plug. There is also an on/off switch. Nothing plugs into the unit. According to Dave's latest thinking (contrary to some of the earlier posts in the Audio Nervosa discussion), the BUSS Depot should be plugged into an outlet which is on a "branch circuit," meaning an outlet powered by the phase of 120-volt electrical current serving your home that is NOT used by the outlets powering your audio system. That is where I have it plugged in.

It's been over ten days since installation and the BUSS Depot seems fully broken in now. The enhancements I mentioned above remain. Added are further stability of images, roundedness of images, and blacker-yet backgrounds.

I don't know what effects this device would have on a system where the P.I. Audio Group's UberBUSSes, special outlets, and Triode Wire Labs power cords are not used. But for $315 delivered, in my system, the BUSS Depot is a bargain. It works extremely well together with the UberBUSS, clearly bettering my old MIT Z-1 Stabilizer in this respect.
This $315-delivered unit seems like a stunning bargain in terms of increased performance per dollar. And this is in the context of a system which already has fairly sophisticated power purification

 

[Joe P]

I had no doubt the P.I. Audio Group's BUSS Depot/Beta BUSS would outperform MIT Z-1 Stabilizer.

 

[kach22i]

From the opening post:

All grounding and neutral wires for these up-to-six circuits were star-grounded back to the same post in the service box which holds the incoming ground wiring: there was direct copper-to-copper wire connection between all the grounds used by the audio system and the incoming ground wire. The grounds were referenced to an 8-foot solid copper post driven into the ground just outside the service entrance, and were bonded to a cold water pipe just above floor level some 50 feet away. All other unused ground wires for that dedicated 200-amp service box were disconnected and insulated from the service entrance and the circuit breakers for the unused circuits were open.

End of quote.

Why also ground to the cold water pipe?

On my roof top TV antenna, the antenna is grounded. The mast is also grounded. Each of these groundings has it's own copper post in the earth.

So I understand that multiple grounds can help, at least with TV signals via roof top antenna.

Second question: what would happen if each dedicated audio circuit was grounded not only to the main panel ground, but to a stand alone copper rod in the earth?

 

[Marcus]

I have a P.I. Audio Group BUSS Depot (fka BetaBUSS) on order. Pending its arrival I went on eBay and ordered and received one of the Monster Entech Noise Sniffers you mentioned. I left my MIT Z-1 Stabilizer and P.I. Audio Group UberBUSSes plugged in. Following the instructions, I adjusted the Sniffer to read 100 on an "unfiltered" outlet I could easily reach in my kitchen. I then tried various other "unfiltered" outlets in the house and got readings between 90 and 100. That same reading occurred on the companion receptacle in the outlet into which the MIT Z-1 Stabilizer is plugged.

However, when I plugged the Sniffer into a filtered outlet on one of the UberBUSSes in my audio room, it read 0.1. The UberBUSSes are alone seemingly doing an excellent job of filtering out whatever noise the Entech is measuring.

Have you tried measuring with the BUSS Depot plugged in? Would be interesting to see results.

 

[Verastarr]

I also do something similar with the Verastarr AC Distro block Its a passive power strip with 3 x Furutech NCF R receptacles. I use mineral Goo as well, Quartz, Tourmaline and 4 others in a high performance compound. Its faraday shielded inside and has a ground lug on its chassis The wiring scheme inside uses pure solid silver bussbars that make a home run to every individual socket, with other pathways to make sure current delivery is fully equalized, NCF R IEC inlet as well and Ive run my Rig AC as a feed off the meter box outside the house to a secondary panel in my listening room closet wall, and Ive run 4 separate 8 foot long high purity 101 OFHC solid copper rods plated in pure silver just on the outside of the wall where the rig sits , so the actual Rods are no more than 12 feet from the rig. I have them paired off and isolated , so 2 and 2 rods, one pair for safety or chassis ground and the other pair for signal ground. all the feeds out of the panel are 10AWG Silver plated copper in PTFE and every feed has its live and Neutral twisted and inside conduit pipe and beside it is the ground wire in its own conduit pipe. I am about to test with dual massive 7Kva Isolation transformers that came out of Bel Labs in New Jersey . I will most likely put them behind the main diuplex receptacles feeding the rig as ive got 6 circuits on that front wall behind the rack. 4 of them are 240V because I like to run my mono amplifiers at 240V for more efficient lower current operation and ultimately balanced AC. 2 receptacles are 20A for everything else on the rig split in to dual Verastarr AC Power Distro blocks, one for digital gear one for analog. Im guessing 30 to 60 days from now I'll have employed all aspects of this config and I'll post my results on my OCD HiFi Guy Youtube channel.
So Marcus, You have Botticelli ? How many pair are even in the USA ? Ive had my eye on them for years and know Daniele. For now its Analysis Audio Amphitryon and current Jeff Rowland class A/B along with some NAT Audio Class A SET . You ought to try your Alsy ribbons with ribbon speaker cables they respond very well over round wire..
So I can second what Tmallin is stating here. Very effective methods...

 

[tmallin]

From the opening post:

All grounding and neutral wires for these up-to-six circuits were star-grounded back to the same post in the service box which holds the incoming ground wiring: there was direct copper-to-copper wire connection between all the grounds used by the audio system and the incoming ground wire. The grounds were referenced to an 8-foot solid copper post driven into the ground just outside the service entrance, and were bonded to a cold water pipe just above floor level some 50 feet away. All other unused ground wires for that dedicated 200-amp service box were disconnected and insulated from the service entrance and the circuit breakers for the unused circuits were open.

End of quote.

Why also ground to the cold water pipe?

On my roof top TV antenna, the antenna is grounded. The mast is also grounded. Each of these groundings has it's own copper post in the earth.

So I understand that multiple grounds can help, at least with TV signals via roof top antenna.

Second question: what would happen if each dedicated audio circuit was grounded not only to the main panel ground, but to a stand alone copper rod in the earth?

The key to why the electrical service box is connected by a heavy copper wire to the incoming cold water pipe is the concept of bonding. Bonding is required by the electrical code in my area and most, I think. See this Wikipedia discussion of electrical bonding.

On the grounding question, all items fed electricity from the service box should be grounded to the service box and that box should in turn be grounded to a single stake in moist ground very near the service box. Multiple grounding stakes would be counterproductive and possibly unsafe since they might have slightly different potentials to ground.

 

[alfa100]

Took time to read and I will reread. I can imagine how long it took to painstakingly implement. Must have taken many a sleepless night . Thank you tmallin

 

[microstrip]

The key to why the electrical service box is connected by a heavy copper wire to the incoming cold water pipe is the concept of bonding. Bonding is required by the electrical code in my area and most, I think. See this Wikipedia discussion of electrical bonding.

On the grounding question, all items fed electricity from the service box should be grounded to the service box and that box should in turn be grounded to a single stake in moist ground very near the service box. Multiple grounding stakes would be counterproductive and possibly unsafe since they might have slightly different potentials to ground.

Connecting to the incoming cold water pipe is illegal in Europe since long. Here every house must have a grounding point connected to a grounding rods or other types of low resistance connection to earth. Multiple rods are benefic and can be mandatory in some cases but must all be connected to the same grounding point - we can have separate ground lines in the house.

Grounding is a simply a safety issue - our aim is simply to make it the less detrimental as possible to our audio systems. Most times its wiring structure will interfere with noise - unfortunately due to inconsistent grounding systems used by manufacturers the safety and the noise minimization are conflicting requirements.