The impact of a power upgrade

lupodwdm · « **on:** 20 Apr 2005, 07:45 am »

Just though I'd share a experience I had tonight with everyone here:

I have an electrician friend of mine that owed me more than a few favors and today he finally paid me back in a big way. While I was at work, he completed running a dedicated 20 amp run from my audio system to the breaker with new heavy gauge romex and a hospital grade outlet. The house I own was built in 1976 and before tonight I had all my gear running through a monster power HTS 2500 and just plugged into an old wall outlet that was wired in series with the rest of the outlets in the room. The system had always sounded good, and being an engineer, I understood the science of why I needed a dedicated run, but I was not expecting the difference in sound quality I heard.

I listened to one of my reference disks that I have heard probably 50 times before on the existing wiring, so I knew this piece inside and out. After listening tonight on the new dedicated circuit, I heard small details of the mix that I never heard before. The Whole tonal quality of the singers voice seemed to smooth out and become more focused. Before this change, I always played my amp at -30. Anything more than that and the sound would become too bright and edgy. After listening for a few songs, I noticed I had the volume at -22. Tonight the sound did not seem louder it just had more impact and smoothness. The change was so obvious, yet kind of hard to describe. Now, my system sounds like pure silk.

My point is this, if anyone out there is considering some big budget component upgrade, do yourselves a favor and spend a little money to upgrade your power first. In my case, the change in sound was like going from a $500 CD player to a $2000 player.

bubba966 · « **Reply #1 on:** 20 Apr 2005, 08:00 am »

If you don't mind voiding the warranty on the Monster HTS2500 replace the outlets & as much of the straded aluminum wire in that with the same Romex & 20A hospital grade outlets that you just put in the wall.

I did the same thing you did a few years ago and got the same type of results (best $20 I ever spent!).

Then I replaced the outlets & aluminum stranded wire in one of my HTS3500's. Got that same improvement all over again.

So if you were impressed with the improvement with the power in the wall upgrade, you can improve on things even more...

lupodwdm · « **Reply #2 on:** 20 Apr 2005, 08:56 am »

How does replacing the wiring effect all the filtering used in that 2500? Do you have any pics of the guts of the unit?

markC · « **Reply #3 on:** 22 Apr 2005, 08:22 pm »

Try plugging in direct to the dedicated outlet & see how you like that. I'll bet that by removing the hts your sound will improve further. Unless of course you have power line noise issues.

Carlman · « **Reply #4 on:** 22 Apr 2005, 08:30 pm »

I was actually dissapointed when I first heard my system with a dedicated outlet... However, the folks at AC told me to wait it out a little... and they were right... it has really started sounding better since it was installed.

So, you may get some more improvement after a while. I'll do an A/B comparison this weekend for final results.

-C

bubba966 · « **Reply #5 on:** 22 Apr 2005, 08:35 pm »

Quote from: lupodwdm

How does replacing the wiring effect all the filtering used in that 2500? Do you have any pics of the guts of the unit?

Sorry I didn't catch this earlier.

Anyway, no I don't have pics of the inside of the unit. But on my HTS 3500's there's aluminum wire between the outlets & the filter circuit boards.

Aluminum doesn't conduct electricity nearly as well as copper does. I don't how much of a difference swapping it for copper wire makes. But I know swapping out those cheap ass loose outlets with 20A hospital grade "grip of death" type outlets makes a big difference.

So you might as well swap out the aluminum wire with copper Romex while you're in there as it's easy to do.

lupodwdm · « **Reply #6 on:** 23 Apr 2005, 02:02 am »

Hmmm...thats strange that they used aluminum wire to the filters. I would wonder if there is a reason that they used it. I would think that the cost difference would be small between that and copper. I wonder why they did not use it.

Carlman · « **Reply #7 on:** 23 Apr 2005, 02:14 am »

Spread that small difference over the 1 million produced. Even if it's 1 cent, that's $10,000. What would you do with an extra 10,k?

bubba966 · « **Reply #8 on:** 23 Apr 2005, 02:42 am »

Carl's got a good point. There's a shit load of Monster power filters/regenerators/etc. out there. The savings on that many units could be tremendous.

Or maybe they just got a really good deal on aluminum wire and decided to use it in their power conditioners.

Anyways, it's really easy to replace the wire & the outlets in a HTS 2500/3500/5000/etc. If I recall right all you need is a screwdriver to do it all...

lupodwdm · « **Reply #9 on:** 23 Apr 2005, 03:14 am »

You probably right about the cost thing, but there are different physical properties to copper and aluminum wire that could effect the filter networks. For example, copper has a Electrical Resistivity @ 68°F of 10.37 ohm-cir mil/ft while aluminum has a value of 16.96 ohm-cir mil/ft.

Just a thought.

bubba966 · « **Reply #10 on:** 23 Apr 2005, 03:40 am »

Well the aluminum wire was after the filter network. There was no aluminum before the filter network. So it's only what they used between the filters & the outlets.

lupodwdm · « **Reply #11 on:** 23 Apr 2005, 04:17 am »

Ahh, well thats something different.

Maybe once I finish building my GR Research Home theater speakers, I'll give it a shot.