Indeed, for my Entreq grounding I've had to give my CDP its own dedicated ground box, so delitirious is sharing the rest of the system on my original box.
Visit to Marc C.'s (SpiritOfMusic's) House in England
- Thread starter Ron Resnick
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Well, it regenerates power and thus smoothes out fluctuations. I could be (likely) wrong on that. Maybe all it did is make my previous fluctuations "higher quality", lol.
An audiophile without demons… how would we recognise such a beast??I What would be left of Marc without his gremlins ?
Fairly sure prior to possession (of the chapel) Marc would have had the space smoked and tastefully desanctified.
Somehow I don't think we could have based an episode of Game Of Thrones on this subject.
More to the point, do these devices introduce issues, even if they purport to solve (others)?
The comment from my guest who knows more than just a little about power, is that despite my 8kVA Westwick 8K unit being designed for recording studios etc, David Gilmore apparently being a customer, it's too industrial for high end use.
I suspect he's right, certainly I look at alternatives from the likes of EquiTech that Mike Lavigne uses, and the Z-Axis Symmetrica made and used by UK Paul on this forum, and there's a lot more audiophile going on with these.
Yep, buyer beware (ironic with the kinds of sums we spend in this hobby) and YMMV (they'll write that on all of our gravestones after we bite the dust).
It’s definitely also about system generated internal noises as well as the more obvious external challenge with power. Waging a war on two fronts and not seeing it as just upstream and downstream with power and conditioners… it’s probably like room treatment and as much about not overdoing it as well. It’s a bit of a double edged sword balance between suppressing noise and dynamic suppression as you said earlier for sure.
Actually Graham, this property has a fantastically positive vibe, no scary Hammer Horror aspect to it at all. Indeed an eminent WBF member visited who says he has psychic powers that run in the family, and declared it free of malign spirits. Otoh, he said my sound had nothing but bad karma about it, so you can't win them all!
Nice! Poltergeists are much harder to get rid of than hum. A place with a great vibe can make the listening better as much as any other good component.
Marc lives in the country now, when he listens to music his neighbors are all sleeping, they have to get up in the morning and milk the cows, his wife is mostly using battery operated devices when he spends his alone time with he Zu's in he attic !
That's pretty much it. My previous room was just awful for power, and acoustics, and I took to large and costly audio Elastoplasts.
First a Burmester 948 conditioner that benefitted transparency and 24/7 consistency, but was a liability on dynamics. Then a cheaper Airlink balanced 3kVA power transparency that helped with dynamics but introduced somewhat of a bass thin and edgy sound.
Then Entreq which ameliorated noise issues, no downsides.
Finally the 80kg+ Westwick balanced 8kVA transformer, which seemed to combine the positives of the Burmester and Airlink, addressing their shortcomings, and adding a couple of other advantages as well.
And other than the change to a dedicated Entreq box for my CDP, Sablon cable loom, and here in the chapel a fairly major job of dedicated radial circuit with six dedicated lines to six duplexes in my loft space, that's been my journey.
Switching out the Westwick and not replacing it with another box, conditioner or otherwise, is a pretty major step in context of what I *always* thought was right.
You are basically describing nirvana for all ageing audiophiles MilanMarc lives in the country now, when he listens to music his neighbors are all sleeping, they have to get up in the morning and milk the cows, his wife is mostly using battery operated devices when he spends his alone time with he Zu's in he attic !
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You went through and de-entreqed a while back and then later reintroduced them… I figure it is a good plan to periodically review and at times cycle treatments in and out to confirm that they’re still being beneficial. It’s pretty easy to take what is a good change at the time for granted and as permanence and become entrenched with infrastructure but change obviously can create potential for more ongoing change.
Indeed Graham. The effects of Entreq are still audible, just a lot less dramatic than in London. I'm not calling it yet for the transformer being out, need to see how my system settles down over a couple of weeks. But the change that my skeptical visitor predicted is immediately apparent, and certainly that attribute was present in the friend's system I visited yesterday, where this advice was offered to me.
My mate who got me to take this big step of removing the balanced transformer is now egging me on to install a 16A or 32A fuse in a dedicated Klangmodul or Hi Fi Tuning fuse holder to go in the MCB downstairs which supplies my loft. He's convinced it'll transform things here.
Third day into life sans balanced power, this is one of the best decisions I've made in my system. I've been running balanced or a conditioner for nearly two decades now. It's certainly new territory for me not to rely on anything to manage my power.
Third day into life sans balanced power, this is one of the best decisions I've made in my system. I've been running balanced or a conditioner for nearly two decades now. It's certainly new territory for me not to rely on anything to manage my power.
Marc, I learned the same lesson three or four years ago. And getting rid of stuff just expanded from there.
I've also learnt that every situation in audio requires individual analysis, no generalisations. So, I've removed the transformer, but my Entreq still has worth.
What this episode has taught me is that what *may* have been useful or positive once, may very well not be a few years down the track.
But that doesn't mean suddenly everything that was useful isn't.
I salute you for stripping it right back, to the basic core (best source, near unique horns and tubes that mesh well with them, and purest power delivery).
But trying a variety of different cheaper cables and footers hasn't proved successful, and I'm not about to strip out my acoustic panels that were shown to be so good when I installed them just two years ago.
The balanced transformer is just one misstep from me that is a good example of how a big step doesn't always work out long term for the best.
Confirming that improvements still work over time is a great move ... you may have previously corrected by limiting something that treats the symptom but is not the cause. Acoustics is a great example. If you remove early reflections you achieve greater clarity.. your transformer might have done partially done this by rolling off the transients.
Having said that I would be surprised if a balanced transformer doesn't improve the front end gear as one thing that's common around the world is noisy mains power and although all designers claim they have fixed that in the psu design, cleaning up power seems to help... assuming no limiting.
In any case changing tweak combinations around is cheaper than buying new ones and it satisfies our neurosis
Phil
I agree a big part of this hobby is the analysis of individuals on this forum - especially this thread
