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Post by MikeMusic on Feb 21, 2019 11:03:26 GMT
Taken from New Scientist, Last Word. 9 November 2013
Cheap clock radios plugged into the mains tend to count the cycles in the supply, using this to keep time.
Any interference to these cycles can make them speed up.
A dimmer switch can cause this if close to the clock radio.
If a digital display the clock can use 50 hertz as timing reference, detecting the number of times the sine wave of the frequency passes through zero volts.
Can cause disturbance generating extra "zero crossings" causing the clock to run fast.
An analogue display can distort the sine wave causing harmonic frequencies that confuse the motor.
A glimmer of understanding of what our mains tweaks solve on hifi kit.
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Post by MartinT on Feb 21, 2019 11:33:35 GMT
Switched-mode power supplies are everywhere and in virtually every wall-wart. Motors starting and stopping as in fridges, washing machines and tumble dryers. Heavy industrial machines nearby. Plug-in network-over-mains. Ad breaks causing kettles to distort the waveform when they're all put on together. There's all manner of crap that needs filtering out, it all makes a difference.
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Post by petea on Feb 21, 2019 11:33:49 GMT
Catching up with the reading I see. Only another 74 issues to go!  |
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Post by MikeMusic on Feb 21, 2019 12:05:56 GMT
Catching up with the reading I see. Only another 74 issues to go! Few more than that Pete ! Just over 5 years to catch up. At least I am going faster now skipping through some articles that are miles above my head |
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Post by MikeMusic on Feb 21, 2019 12:11:19 GMT
Switched-mode power supplies are everywhere and in virtually every wall-wart. Motors starting and stopping as in fridges, washing machines and tumble dryers. Heavy industrial machines nearby. Plug-in network-over-mains. Ad breaks causing kettles to distort the waveform when they're all put on together. There's all manner of crap that needs filtering out, it all makes a difference. Need to have a good look around again to see places for chokes. The bedroom is above the main system so that alarm clock ought to be choked I assume. All sorts of central heating motors scattered who know where, some accessible Some work to do to get to the fridge. Mains CU has cables I could access |
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Post by MikeMusic on Dec 4, 2019 11:33:38 GMT
Visit yesterday from @tonyc, the Doctor
He has always been puzzled by mains filters and conditioners all improving my sound and brought his brand new, state of the art mains measuring tool.
This measures down to tiny amounts and cost plenty.
The figures show my mains is not at all good. Parameters Tony has seen before exceeded by some margin
Voltage is high at 245 and varies more than expected.
DC is present. One thing the Audio Magic conditioner works on with the inbuilt DC blocker.
The boss was using the washing machine and later the tumble drier to great effect on the measurements.
Separate room, other end of the house, different ring to the system, but still creating fluctuations.
Harmonic distortion, yup, got that - I'll leave him to explain that as well as other stuff. I barely kept up
Buying filters and conditioners and listening to improvements was the first step.
Measuring the things not measured before shows the ears are right.
Next step is to get my sparky in to do another CU and circuit for the system and separate further from all the rubbish in the house.
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Post by julesd68 on Dec 4, 2019 12:15:27 GMT
I must say that I find all this very confusing Mike.
It's not like you have been listening to your system thinking it doesn't sound good and your mains must be shit - quite the opposite, you have been saying how happy you are with it.
So does that mean that your assortment of mains filters, cables etc are doing a good job cleaning it up?
Or do these new measurements mean that the effects of 'bad mains' are overestimated and a system can sound great?
Presumably if you get a separate circuit for the system you will be able to sell all of your mains cables etc as you will be feeding the system 'clean power' through a regen?
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Post by MartinT on Dec 4, 2019 12:28:32 GMT
A good system can sound good even on pretty awful mains, Jules. Clean up the mains and the good system will start performing at a much higher level.
Mains quality is paramount to the performance of a high end system, and I don't say that lightly. I have spent much time and money on mine.
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Post by John on Dec 4, 2019 13:15:25 GMT
I think the clue is just how many filters Mike has to use
I am not to bad these days but the factory close by certainly does not help
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Post by julesd68 on Dec 4, 2019 13:22:41 GMT
A good system can sound good even on pretty awful mains, Jules. Clean up the mains and the good system will start performing at a much higher level. I understand your point Martin, but I am surprised that Mike's mains isn't already cleaned up given his investments in various bits of mains related kit. If he has a new dedicated mains supply feeding 'clean power' to the hifi I am wondering how redundant all these bits might be. |
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Post by MartinT on Dec 4, 2019 13:28:24 GMT
They won't be redundant as everything counts towards good performance. No matter how good the consumer unit and radial that you have installed, you are still subject to noise from neighbours and industrial plants. Remember my experience before and after my village substation transformer was replaced? It was considerably better afterwards, yet I still use lots of filtering and my regenerator. None of that investment is gone to waste.
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Post by MikeMusic on Dec 4, 2019 13:42:05 GMT
I must say that I find all this very confusing Mike. It's not like you have been listening to your system thinking it doesn't sound good and your mains must be shit - quite the opposite, you have been saying how happy you are with it. So does that mean that your assortment of mains filters, cables etc are doing a good job cleaning it up? Or do these new measurements mean that the effects of 'bad mains' are overestimated and a system can sound great? Presumably if you get a separate circuit for the system you will be able to sell all of your mains cables etc as you will be feeding the system 'clean power' through a regen? System has sounded great for a while. Every time I add another filter or conditioner the sound improves. Tony thought this very strange. Take out the filters and conditioners and the sound quality will go down as they are doing their best to get over the bad mains. A separate CU and circuit should improve the sound. Maybe some filters or conditioners can go. Assume all the mains cables will stay My regenerator was swapped out for the Audio Magic conditioner |
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Post by MikeMusic on Dec 4, 2019 13:47:45 GMT
A good system can sound good even on pretty awful mains, Jules. Clean up the mains and the good system will start performing at a much higher level. I understand your point Martin, but I am surprised that Mike's mains isn't already cleaned up given his investments in various bits of mains related kit. If he has a new dedicated mains supply feeding 'clean power' to the hifi I am wondering how redundant all these bits might be. This house will still have poor mains coming in. Hopefully the washing machine and others will be at least interfering less. Watch this space ! |
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Post by julesd68 on Dec 4, 2019 14:06:07 GMT
If you have a new mains spur with your conditioner I'm not sure how the upmarket mains cables can help further. A question more than a statement ... When is mains deemed to be completely clean?
Incidentally, which regen unit were you previously using?
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Post by Deleted on Dec 4, 2019 14:33:00 GMT
Mike was using a PS Audio P10 before.
My curiosity about the amount of mains filters Mike has in his listening environment exceeds even the most hard core audiophile's leanings!
For example if I use one or two of the different filters Mike's uses in our listening room, the sound quality drops off! in another environment it improves. Think of what each of these units is actually doing.
Mike's Vthd (total harmonic distortion) is pretty bad, I haven't measure one at this level at all even one very near a industrial unit.
However this is not the whole story, that is but one parameter that may have an effect on the sound.
What was pretty obvious is that Mike suffers from a lot of harmonic ingress, stretching way up to the 50th harmonic, the device I use has a industry leading bandwidth for measure harmonic noise up to 1Mhz.
Voltage swings were quite interesting from 239 to 248 over a 90 minute period, again this depends on where you are and what time of day.
Also the amount of internally generated electrical noise from within the house is quite large, given that the music room is on a separate consumer board and dedicated feed from the meter.
We also measured the supply after going through the conditioner and a single mains cable, and took a file from both before and after, yes there are measurable / repeatable differences.
I did measure one of the little noise harvesting devices, it actually ADDED more noise than it took away, though I suspect that could be due to the US<>UK adapter that was used.
The bottom line is there is way to much electrical noise floating about more than it should be (based on readings taken from over 25 residences of similar size and at similar times of the day)
Last point, I also visited another customer after Mike he lives 6 miles away from Mike, yet his Vthd was at most 2.45%, though his voltage was virtually identical, frequency pretty much the same. Though his Athd (Ampere total harmonic distortion) was much higher!
Sound effected in a different way.
This helps identify problems with clients incoming electrical supply and can offer a very accurate diagnosis.
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Post by mayebaza on Dec 4, 2019 14:47:01 GMT
My personal theory is the steady growth of IOT is adding more muck to the mains supply in general, degrading performance significantly but incrementally, so normally, it is not that noticeable.
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Post by julesd68 on Dec 4, 2019 14:54:27 GMT
Mike was using a PS Audio P10 before. My curiosity about the amount of mains filters Mike has in his listening environment exceeds even the most hard core audiophile's leanings! For example if I use one or two of the different filters Mike's uses in our listening room, the sound quality drops off! in another environment it improves. Think of what each of these units is actually doing. Mike's Vthd (total harmonic distortion) is pretty bad, I haven't measure one at this level at all even one very near a industrial unit. However this is not the whole story, that is but one parameter that may have an effect on the sound. What was pretty obvious is that Mike suffers from a lot of harmonic ingress, stretching way up to the 50th harmonic, the device I use has a industry leading bandwidth for measure harmonic noise up to 1Mhz. Voltage swings were quite interesting from 239 to 248 over a 90 minute period, again this depends on where you are and what time of day. Also the amount of internally generated electrical noise from within the house is quite large, given that the music room is on a separate consumer board and dedicated feed from the meter. We also measured the supply after going through the conditioner and a single mains cable, and took a file from both before and after, yes there are measurable / repeatable differences. I did measure one of the little noise harvesting devices, it actually ADDED more noise than it took away, though I suspect that could be due to the US<>UK adapter that was used. The bottom line is there is way to much electrical noise floating about more than it should be (based on readings taken from over 25 residences of similar size and at similar times of the day) Last point, I also visited another customer after Mike he lives 6 miles away from Mike, yet his Vthd was at most 2.45%, though his voltage was virtually identical, frequency pretty much the same. Though his Athd (Ampere total harmonic distortion) was much higher! Sound effected in a different way. This helps identify problems with clients incoming electrical supply and can offer a very accurate diagnosis. All interesting stuff Mr C. Just to be clear, are your measurements taken before or after going into Mike's mains conditioner? It's not clear how good a job the mains conditioner is doing at cleaning everything up ... It's also interesting that one of those plug in jobs was actually adding noise in spite of being previously considered beneficial to the overall sound. |
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Post by MartinT on Dec 4, 2019 15:51:33 GMT
My personal theory is the steady growth of IOT is adding more muck to the mains supply in general, degrading performance significantly but incrementally, so normally, it is not that noticeable. ...and powerline ethernet and other mains-borne communications, something I have banned from my house. |
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Post by naim1425 on Dec 4, 2019 16:08:07 GMT
My personal theory is the steady growth of IOT is adding more muck to the mains supply in general, degrading performance significantly but incrementally, so normally, it is not that noticeable. ...and powerline ethernet and other mains-borne communications, something I have banned from my house. I banned them ages ago the power lines sent so much interference through the mains it was unbelievable,i was getting crackles and pops through the speakers,i thought it was the phono boards or the cartridge had gone caput,i even got every component on the boards replaced and it was still there.it was a mate that mentioned about the power lines he said it was a radio ham`s worst nightmare ,distortion.i now have all rooms hard wired with Ethernet cable and a separate mains c.u to the system |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 4, 2019 19:19:06 GMT
All interesting stuff Mr C. Just to be clear, are your measurements taken before or after going into Mike's mains conditioner? It's not clear how good a job the mains conditioner is doing at cleaning everything up ... It's also interesting that one of those plug in jobs was actually adding noise in spite of being previously considered beneficial to the overall sound. Jules Just to be clear, I measured the raw mains direct from the wall on the same circuit as Mike audio as with the noise remover device, then measured after the conditioner the results described as above. We also tried the said device AFTER the mains conditioner same result. Never have I come across any systems that responds to so many devices connected ON the main ring supplying the listening room, the devices are plugged into vacant sockets NOT directly in the path of any conditioning devices. The amount of conducted emissions that were clearly evident on that circuit is way above anything I have seen before. Therefore something is causing this effect to happen. Now it could be a loose connection in consumer unit / wall socket large distribution block etc. Could be a number of other factors, you will all notice differences in the power when large current draw items are operating to varying degrees. Everyone who owns an audio systems will pretty much categorically state my rig sounds better after 10.30pm at night this is due to quite a few factors, however the result is pretty much the same universally 'It sounds better!' One of the projects that I will be investigating is to map out mains emissions at various times of the day I can remote monitor over upto a 7 day period, can do this in various locations. This will enable collection of real world accurate data of what crap is seen /when /how much and any direct correlations can be worked out via the data. |
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