Felicia balanced power and Listening Fatigue

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kinku

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Felicia balanced power and Listening Fatigue
« on: 2 Dec 2012, 07:03 pm »
Hi All,
Just an update after using Felicia Balanced power conditioner for 3 months I came to this conclusion. I tried the capacitor banks but the configuration I liked was with out  C2&C5 (0.47uf)
1. It definitely improves the back ground of your music and tremendous increase in sound stage and clarity.
2. At least for me without 0.47uf not in Felicia the high frequencies are accentuated to a greater extent and bass response become slightly weaker(unsure)
3. Tremendous listening fatigue. every  day I  listen with felicia powering my line level devices ultimate result is a nagging ache in my head.When I power things directly it is no there.Regardless of the source.I tried my CD player,Squeezebox touch and Tvico player. :(
Does anyone has any suggestions? I am planning to put 0.47 in line and see if that helps.At least some scientific explanation why that happens? :scratch:

Folsom

Re: Felicia balanced power and Listening Fatigue
« Reply #1 on: 5 Dec 2012, 06:25 am »
Yeah... transformers sound bad. Bleh

They reduce noise but not at a cost worth it.

I'll refer you to my preferences towards CMC's, and that combined with the caps will probably serve you will minus the transformers.

richidoo

Re: Felicia balanced power and Listening Fatigue
« Reply #2 on: 5 Dec 2012, 02:48 pm »
No, transformers don't sound bad. My system never sounded better than when I had Equitech balanced power conditioner powering it. I would surmise that there is another cause of the poor performance than the presence of a transformer.

Folsom

Re: Felicia balanced power and Listening Fatigue
« Reply #3 on: 5 Dec 2012, 08:41 pm »
No, transformers don't sound bad. My system never sounded better than when I had Equitech balanced power conditioner powering it. I would surmise that there is another cause of the poor performance than the presence of a transformer.

It all depends who you ask. I'd say the same thing about your system. It had serious problems with noise until you got rid of some of it, to the point where there is no going back even if something else undesirable happened. I don't think any system will sound right without some form of power conditioning, but for various reasons different types of power conditioning will help more or less.

You might be surprised how many professionals that are involved in making the music we enjoy refuse to use anything with a transformer as far as power filtering goes.

Anything I've ever heard that uses a transformer for AC always sounds marginally dead.

kinku lets go over what you have in your system and think about possibilities. The ampere ratings of each type of equipment plugged into the AC would be useful.

randytsuch

Re: Felicia balanced power and Listening Fatigue
« Reply #4 on: 5 Dec 2012, 09:14 pm »
kinku lets go over what you have in your system and think about possibilities. The ampere ratings of each type of equipment plugged into the AC would be useful.

I was thinking that this might be a problem.

A Felicia is not designed to supply much power, really should just be used for the front end.  An amp would probably draw to much power for it.

kinku

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Re: Felicia balanced power and Listening Fatigue
« Reply #5 on: 5 Dec 2012, 09:39 pm »
Thank you all. I used Signal Transformer A41-130 which has 14/28 configuration in secondary and was exactly matching everything mentioned in the original design. I exactly followed the the capacitor recommendations and used Jantzen caps from parts express.Not tried the auricap modification as someone suggested. I tried wth different configurations but it sounded better without 0.47uf in the design.But last week I tried again with 0.47 soldered back.
It seems like the  listening fatigue has gone some what. The soundstage has improved as before but the high frequencies are different.Can not say what exactly different.I am not saying I am unhappy.
I very well know that I can use I felicia for only one source.So the only thing connected to my Felicia now is Squeezebox touch and nothing else.
I have a TX-8255 connected to main lines and powering Monitor audio silver RS6 speakers.( very humble setup) :cry:

Folsom

Re: Felicia balanced power and Listening Fatigue
« Reply #6 on: 5 Dec 2012, 09:43 pm »
Yeah. The more rejection of noise that a Felicia incurs, the more heat, the more loss of power. If you have a CD player plugged into one I'd think you would want roughly double the available current at the first transformer's secondaries.

The capacitors after the second transformer are going to keep some differential mode noise out of your equipment, or out of anything else plugged into the same socket the Felicia powers. But either it gets transfered across the transformer (not too likely much will), burned up as heat, or the capacitors will indefinitely cycle it (which overtime will increase the amount of current quicker than the heat loss from your very good copper wire). I don't know which is happening... the point being current will decrease. The capacitors will continue to provide the relative amount of current they eat up, but whatever the amount of noise being rejected by them can either increase (and take more current) or cause the transformer to become less efficient as it burns off some heat. If this became too extreme the secondary transformer would actually introduce common mode noise into your equipment (which might produce its own anyways).

As long as the impedance of the transformer never leaps up and Q isn't pulled toward your equipment, the noise should stay on the other side. However inadequate sized transformers could do just that. At that point you'd be feeding all your noise in a loop, building it up faster than it burns off.

Someone is probably going to tell me I'm retarded and got it wrong but... my stuff sounds great.

Folsom

Re: Felicia balanced power and Listening Fatigue
« Reply #7 on: 5 Dec 2012, 09:58 pm »
Thank you all. I used Signal Transformer A41-130 which has 14/28 configuration in secondary and was exactly matching everything mentioned in the original design. I exactly followed the the capacitor recommendations and used Jantzen caps from parts express.Not tried the auricap modification as someone suggested. I tried wth different configurations but it sounded better without 0.47uf in the design.But last week I tried again with 0.47 soldered back.
It seems like the  listening fatigue has gone some what. The soundstage has improved as before but the high frequencies are different.Can not say what exactly different.I am not saying I am unhappy.
I very well know that I can use I felicia for only one source.So the only thing connected to my Felicia now is Squeezebox touch and nothing else.
I have a TX-8255 connected to main lines and powering Monitor audio silver RS6 speakers.( very humble setup) :cry:

You might be revealing things you don't like. Sometimes we don't know our equipment makes a type of noise we don't like. Prior to better function it just rolled stuff off and sort of smeared noise, then it became precise and we realize the harshness.

Ever listened to regular satellite TV through a very good stereo? It is off putting how low quality a lot of the audio happens to be. You learn how ridiculous a lot of low budget shows and news casters actually sound.

kinku

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Re: Felicia balanced power and Listening Fatigue
« Reply #8 on: 17 Feb 2013, 01:53 am »
Just to give an update. After installing the whole three of caps the fatigue disappeared and after more than 100 hours of use system is more neutral sounding. I still have not used auricaps to bypass but soon..... :thumb:

Speedskater

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Re: Felicia balanced power and Listening Fatigue
« Reply #9 on: 17 Feb 2013, 04:08 pm »
How does a Signal Transformer A41-130 (14/28) work for AC power?  That's a smaller low voltage unit for a solid-state DC supply.

kinku

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Re: Felicia balanced power and Listening Fatigue
« Reply #10 on: 17 Feb 2013, 04:58 pm »
Speedskater please review Felicia BP thread and you will get answers. Transformer is a voltage conversion device limited by the current each side can handle. So primary and secondary can be reversed depending on the purpose.Hope this helps

Speedskater

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  • Kevin
Re: Felicia balanced power and Listening Fatigue
« Reply #11 on: 17 Feb 2013, 05:10 pm »
Oh, going way back to April 2005, I see what's this is all about.

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=18441.msg161831#msg161831

But I don't see what a 150 Watt balanced line get's you.

If one is going to balanced or isolated power, it should be for the whole system.

kinku

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Re: Felicia balanced power and Listening Fatigue
« Reply #12 on: 17 Feb 2013, 06:01 pm »
The felicia will suffice for small signal components only ,since the power handling is half of transformer's power rating. The Felix topology may be worth a try if you wants high power devices to be isolated. I do not have experience with felix but Felicia is wortha shot.

kinku

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Re: Felicia balanced power and Listening Fatigue
« Reply #13 on: 7 Mar 2013, 12:29 am »
After one week of listening without Felicia I think the listening fatigue was there with Felicia and I do not know why it happened?
I do not know any negative experience with Felix ?

BobM

Re: Felicia balanced power and Listening Fatigue
« Reply #14 on: 7 Mar 2013, 03:07 pm »
Well, if it winds up to not work out for you it should not be wasted. Plug your TV into it and be amazed at the improvement in picture quality.

kinku

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Re: Felicia balanced power and Listening Fatigue
« Reply #15 on: 8 Mar 2013, 01:07 pm »
The Felicia BP is only for small signal components. Do not know it can handle 40 watts WITHOUT NOISE ISSUES GETTING WORSE .I do not think it is good to make the felicia design work at extremes of it rated power either.(Should be used only half the rated VA of the transformer, in my case it is 130VA)