[OzarkTom]

Can someone explain in layman's terms how an 1800 watt power conditioner would limit the current (and I assume "dynamics") to a system that draws only 3 or 4 hundred watts? How about 6 hundred?

Can someone explain in laymen's terms how a parallel power conditioner would do the same for any system?

That is a very good question, it is way beyond me. I just listen.

But I am not the only one. I have seen several audio reviewers complain about the loss of dynamics when using power conditioners.

[roscoeiii]

But I am not the only one. I have seen several audio reviewers complain about the loss of dynamics when using power conditioners.

Oh yeah, clearly the most common complaint about power conditioners.

[Waker]

"Can someone explain in layman's terms how an 1800 watt power conditioner would limit the current (and I assume "dynamics") to a system that draws only 3 or 4 hundred watts? How about 6 hundred?" 
   Hopefully, the answer you are looking for is, "It would not."  In layman's terms, a plug-in device that is supposed to supplement or boost your existing, "stock" power should exceed that stock supply of energy, it would seem, or else the new device will create even more of an energy deficit in respect to the demands of your system.
   The experience of the "Sunday night/Monday morning, or 3PM/3AM differences in sound quality seems a fairly common experience and is well-documented. Fine--let's all concede for a minute this one point--power for the masses is usually not adequate power for the most demanding standards of the audiophile hobby. Once this premise is accepted, it becomes something of an organizing principle--agonizing thoughts about the need for bigger amps and bigger speakers dissipate--replaced by the realization that, instead of needing more power from bigger gear, more power in needed to the gear you have. 
   Once a system is operating in an ideal environment, one where it has all the stable and pure energy it needs, it will perform much closer to your expectations.  Addressing the fundamental needs of our systems, not our own misguided needs, created by wish-lists and dreaming, will bring out performance previously unheard, which is not to say addressing power is cheap--it is not when done well, but it beats spending another 10K-20K on a bigger system that will be even more starved for energy than the one you have. 
         

[OzarkTom]

"Can someone explain in layman's terms how an 1800 watt power conditioner would limit the current (and I assume "dynamics") to a system that draws only 3 or 4 hundred watts? How about 6 hundred?" 
   Hopefully, the answer you are looking for is, "It would not."  In layman's terms, a plug-in device that is supposed to supplement or boost your existing, "stock" power should exceed that stock supply of energy, it would seem, or else the new device will create even more of an energy deficit in respect to the demands of your system.
   The experience of the "Sunday night/Monday morning, or 3PM/3AM differences in sound quality seems a fairly common experience and is well-documented. Fine--let's all concede for a minute this one point--power for the masses is usually not adequate power for the most demanding standards of the audiophile hobby. Once this premise is accepted, it becomes something of an organizing principle--agonizing thoughts about the need for bigger amps and bigger speakers dissipate--replaced by the realization that, instead of needing more power from bigger gear, more power in needed to the gear you have. 
   Once a system is operating in an ideal environment, one where it has all the stable and pure energy it needs, it will perform much closer to your expectations.  Addressing the fundamental needs of our systems, not our own misguided needs, created by wish-lists and dreaming, will bring out performance previously unheard, which is not to say addressing power is cheap--it is not when done well, but it beats spending another 10K-20K on a bigger system that will be even more starved for energy than the one you have. 
       

Or switch to a system that runs off of batteries.

[jtwrace]

Or switch to a system that runs off of batteries.

We've been down this road before. 

[OzarkTom]

We've been down this road before. 

Yep, come on down to the Ozarks in the Show-Me state and take a listen. You will be astounded too.

I guess we all like to rant about something Jason. Me batteries, you Ncores and Gedlees.

[*Scotty*]

The question

"Can someone explain in layman's terms how an 1800 watt power conditioner would limit the current (and I assume "dynamics") to a system that draws only 3 or 4 hundred watts? How about 6 hundred?" 

is easy to answer.
 Remember, what is being reported on by people is their subjective impression of the of the effect a power conditioner or filter had on the sound of their system. The power rating appears to have little or no relationship to how an individual will judge the impact the device on the sound of their system.
 Most audiophiles have more than one source of information masking present in their systems and they have compensated for this problem in someway whether they know it or not.
 When a major source of masking is dramatically reduced the compensatory measures that are in place may be shown to be inappropriate in the new context. At this point the power conditioner is blamed for the problem when what has happened is that the reduction of EMI-RFI has changed the operating environment of the system.
 In my opinion some form of EMI-RFI reduction should be implemented if one has expectations of realizing a High Fidelity system. Whether it will be found to be helpful from a subjective viewpoint in specific situation is still a something of a crap shoot due to the number of variables involved.
 Scotty

[goldlizsts]

  Clean power isessential to great sound. Wether a state of the art power supply in ones component or an after market device makes a difference.
   Not all power conditioners give good sonic results. Not all components like using a PC with them. Our CAT preamp as an example sounded horrible with everyone we tried. Amps lost dynamics as well. Dedicated lines helped out the amps big time. Same for digital. 
   When we tried a power correction device in lieu of conditioning the game changed. One would have to rip it out of our dead cold hands. Worked for us, to each his or her own experience, have fun trying if desired.


charles

I'd have to say "Well.... may be".  I'd have to say this from my own experience.  Several years ago, bought a PS Audio Power plant, since I read so much praise of what they called "clean" power.  Perhaps it does clean the power.  But.... the resulting sonics, over time I realized, not necessarily were to my liking. 

The Chinese have a saying - With an added urn, you'd gain another ghost.  Somehow, in my opinion, these power conditioning things gave me sounds that may surprise you  a lot.  So, Audiogon the Power Plant went.  I then used 2 PS Audio Ultimate Outlets.  I found them to have better sonics, probably because they "recycle", or, as some say, "clean" the power "less", or in a different way?  That has been my exerpience.  Conditioning units may give sounds that surprise you.  Perhaps in some way, they "reconstitute" the power for you.  I now actually do not use anything like Ultimate Outlets even.  I just replaced the wall outlets (e.g., Testaplex, etc.), and use a PSA strip with multiple outlets.  I found that to be pretty good already.  Better than using a Power Plant.

[*Scotty*]

OzarkTom, What equipment are you using battery power with? It would be nice to know what kind of system you have assembled and in what way the battery power has improved your system.
Scotty

[jtwrace]

Yep, come on down to the Ozarks in the Show-Me state and take a listen. You will be astounded too.

I had a battery pre before and prefer my AC powered unit.  What battery equipment are you gaga over anyhow?

[OzarkTom]

OzarkTom, What equipment are you using battery power with? It would be nice to know what kind of system you have assembled and in what way the battery power has improved your system.
Scotty

I am currently using the Rethm Maargas, the AMR DP777 pre-Dac with remote, and a TBI Class D amp on batteries, Mac Mini with Amarra music. This is a very revealing system. Yep, a $500 amp on a $15,000 system.

The amp sounds good on AC but is somewhat tiring, especially during the day. The battery opened it up quite a bit more, more detail, improved the soundstage width, made the background much more revealing, and floats the vocals quite a bit better. You can hear people whisper, shuffle their feet, even snap their fingers in the background like no system I have ever heard before. The sound never gets tiring, I can turn it on at any hour of the day for great sound.

I asked AMR if their Dac would sound better with a line conditioner and they said no, only worse. The guy that makes the AMR is an ultimate tweekster that believes in building well regulated power supplies. He even installs the AMR audiophile fuses and tube dampers on the tubes in the DP777.

[OzarkTom]

I had a battery pre before and prefer my AC powered unit.  What battery equipment are you gaga over anyhow?

I offered to loan you one while your Ncores was on tour but you turned it down.

I gave up on separate pre-amps 25 years ago.

[jtwrace]

I offered to loan you one while your Ncores was on tour but you turned it down.

Do you keep them in stock for the business?

I gave up on separate pre-amps 25 years ago.

Why?

[OzarkTom]

Do you keep them in stock for the business?
Why?

I have another amp I can use. I just wanted you to try this one compared to the Ncores and see how close it is. This amp also separates the background instruments like I have never heard before. It should be fairly close as long as you run it on a battery.

Pre-amps adds another chain of capacitors and resistors while adding another pair of interconnects to mask the sound. This shuts down imaging and dynamics compared to no pre-amp.

[roscoeiii]

Yeah, I have tried PS Audio Power Plants on a couple occassions and found myself preferring the Running Springs Haley, which my amp could plug into as well (the Power Plants weren't big enough to make sense for my Butler 2250).

[TONEPUB]

I don't know about the AMR, but I've been using the RSA boxes for seven years now and have probably plugged over 500 different amps, preamps, CD players and DAC's in, in the course of reviews and casual listening and I haven't heard one thing that wasn't improved.

For what it's worth, the improvement has always been bigger with tube gear than solid state.

Just my experience.

And I've tried almost everything else.  The IsoTek conditioners we've auditioned have been equal to the RSA in terms of lowering noise, not sacrificing dynamics and not altering the tonal balance. And the new PS Audio P10 is excellent too, though I haven't had the time yet to plug really big power amps in and give it the ultimate test.  But the P10 offers some pretty cool features as far as it's ability to be controlled remotely, etc etc.

The isolation transformer based products I've tried were very good in terms of noise, but I haven't used one big enough to not limit dynamics on a large power amplifier.  One of our staff writers, Jacob Heilbrunn (who also writes for TAS) just started using one that is phenomenal, but it's the size of a dishwasher and was pretty expensive.  I can find out what model that was.  He's running VTL Zigfrieds into a pair of Wilson X2's, so if there was a loss in dynamics, you'd hear it pretty quickly.

[jhm731]

The isolation transformer based products I've tried were very good in terms of noise, but I haven't used one big enough to not limit dynamics on a large power amplifier. 

Try the Silver Circle Audio 5.0SE.

[TONEPUB]

Tried it, sent it back.  Wouldn't get the job done with large amplifiers.  Smaller amps ok, but the big pass amps ran it out of juice.

[TheChairGuy]

You really need to make that visit we've been discussing...

I'll give you a very convincing demo on the merit of high quality power conditioning.  Then we can go drink beer!

Make mine (cheap) red wine!

I missed your earlier response (and werd's) in this fast running topic....welcome back from Munich (I was in Cologne last month - first time - good town)

I misspoke earlier - I do use an active conditioner that I found to only help matters without grain or etch added - the Adept Response product (I use the AR1p powering the whole outlet strip that everything but my digital gear gets plugged into).  On the strip I use a ENACOM filter, too, and a PS Audio Noise Harvester in an adjacent outlet (it's a very small, nuanced difference I hear with it, but when removed I enjoy the music a bit less - even if I still can't determine what it's doing)

3+ years ago I had a LOT more time in my life to monkey around with my system, so each and every piece of power conditioning was tested here.  I work all day in my home office and that's where my system is...so if there is etch added it will grate on me pretty fast while in here 8-10 hours daily.

What I meant earlier is that I have yet to find a transformer-based noise 'conditioner' that was a net positive for anything but digital gear.  As mentioned, on the digital side, I use a small isolation transformer that is likely most effective at being a wastegate for digital pollutants getting tossed back into the system than anything else.  I'm not at all certain that it makes the juice going to the digital side 'better' so much as restrict digital artifacts back in.  Nonetheless, it's a pretty substantial net gain in better sonics going that way.

[Quiet Earth]

I think that most of the claims of "limited dynamics" have more to do with the amplifier than the receptacle that they're plugged into. Pass Labs is one good example of that. Most of his amplifiers have trouble driving a realistic load in the first place.