Need help lowering the noise floor in my system!

schw06 · « **on:** 1 Jul 2008, 06:10 pm »

I am running my cd player, preamp and monoblock amps directly into outlet on a dedicated line with Lowes hospital grade outlets. I currently have no form of power conditioning and am generally very happy with the sound but hoping to find a way to not screw up dynamics while lowering the noise floor. Any suggestions are appreciated.

rydenfan · « **Reply #1 on:** 1 Jul 2008, 07:14 pm »

Running Springs Audio Haley or Jaco

woodsyi · « **Reply #2 on:** 1 Jul 2008, 07:43 pm »

Quote from: schw06 on 1 Jul 2008, 06:10 pm

I am running my cd player, preamp and monoblock amps directly into outlet on a dedicated line with Lowes hospital grade outlets. I currently have no form of power conditioning and am generally very happy with the sound but hoping to find a way to not screw up dynamics while lowering the noise floor. Any suggestions are appreciated.

What gear are you using, where are you and what do you hear?

IronLion · « **Reply #3 on:** 1 Jul 2008, 07:44 pm »

I just got an Acoustic Revive RTP-4 and it lowered the noise floor very nicely.

schw06 · « **Reply #4 on:** 1 Jul 2008, 07:55 pm »

I have the Cambridge 840c cd player, Odyssey Candela preamp, Odyssey extreme mono se amps with Groneberg speaker cables and Verastarr interconnects. I simply notice a jet black background between songs and hear, for lack of a better description, a background hiss that is only audible on very quiet music passages. Thanks for the help.
Dave

woodsyi · « **Reply #5 on:** 1 Jul 2008, 08:08 pm »

It doesn't sound like you need anything, really.

If you don't hear anything between songs but hear the "sound of silence" within a song, then it must be in the recording.

Enjoy.

saisunil · « **Reply #6 on:** 1 Jul 2008, 08:17 pm »

Quote from: woodsyi on 1 Jul 2008, 08:08 pm

It doesn't sound like you need anything, really.

If you don't hear anything between songs but hear the "sound of silence" within a song, then it must be in the recording.

Enjoy.

Don't fix it - if it is not broken.
Usually after market power cords for all electronics are a good was to deliver clean AC and hence lower noise floor.

Other than that the list goes on .... including - isolation of some sort below all your devices (isolpads are a good and affordable examples)

Enjoy!

TheChairGuy · « **Reply #7 on:** 1 Jul 2008, 08:51 pm »

The Audience aR1p....and it won't break your piggy bank wide open, either aa

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=56983.0

John

*Scotty* · « **Reply #8 on:** 1 Jul 2008, 11:45 pm »

schw06, if the hiss you hear is audible at the listening position during quite passages you definitely have a problem and I would contact the manufacturers of my equipment and seek some sort of remedy for this problem.
Scotty

Occam · « **Reply #9 on:** 2 Jul 2008, 05:59 am »

Quote from: woodsyi on 1 Jul 2008, 08:08 pm

It doesn't sound like you need anything, really.

If you don't hear anything between songs but hear the "sound of silence" within a song, then it must be in the recording.

Enjoy.

The benefits of power conditioning are seldom perceived as elimination of pops, clicks, hiss, or whatever we describe as noise..... What I hear as the benefits I perceive as the elimination of solid state 'grit', better bass control and extension, clearer highs, better dynamics etc.... [please note I'm saying 'percieved as'. Correlating our subjective perceptions with objective measures is a hard one.] An ofttimes cliche is that it 'lifts a veil that one hadn't realised was there...'
Rather than annoy with cliches, I'd suggest you borrow or buy (with a full return privilege) a Running Springs or Audience Adept. Try it feeding your whole system, and again just feeding your source components, so that you can draw your own conclusions. Power conditioners on power amps can be a crapshoot. Some respond beautifully, and others, not so well. My Aspen Soraya as well as a visiting Korato poweramp respond quite positively to a diy Felix conditioner.
Source components respond far more consistently. (save for my own Convergent Audio Technology CAT SL-1 preamp whose designer applied Herculean efforts at internal conditioning, where it should be; but even among very good components, aren't)
An alternative, if you're handy and place minimal value on your own time, would be build your own low material cost Felix conditioner specifically for your source components. From my very objective perspective

, a conditioner made specifically for the power demands of source components stomps a more general conditioner designed to accommodate the large current peaks of power amps. As Gordy, GBB, MGalusha and others have commented in the various threads titled 'Felix meets...', applying 'horses for courses' to power conditioning can have substantial benefits.

The only person who can evaluate what conditioning can do for your system is you. If you're in the NYC environs, you're welcome to try mine.

FWIW,
Paul

djbnh · « **Reply #10 on:** 2 Jul 2008, 10:14 am »

Quote from: schw06 on 1 Jul 2008, 06:10 pm

I am running my cd player, preamp and monoblock amps directly into outlet on a dedicated line with Lowes hospital grade outlets. I currently have no form of power conditioning and am generally very happy with the sound but hoping to find a way to not screw up dynamics while lowering the noise floor. Any suggestions are appreciated.

If all the above-listed components are running off the same line, you may want to consider having a separate line for the digital gear.

schw06 · « **Reply #11 on:** 2 Jul 2008, 09:36 pm »

My local dealer let me bring home an Isotek Sigma. It was an enormous improvement on my cd player but really killed the dynamics on my preamp and amps. I can't bear the thought of spending $2000+ when I'm only using 1/6th of the unit. I sincerely appreciate everyone's help in this matter and will try some of the options mentioned above. As of now, I think finding a conditioner for digital front end will be a good start. The Monarchy AC regenerator has 2 outlets and looks intriguing. Anyone have experience with it or a similar product?

rockadanny · « **Reply #12 on:** 2 Jul 2008, 09:49 pm »

Don't plug your amp into it.
Also, I have this and it works well for me:

http://brickwall.thomasnet.com/item/audio-surge-protectors/eight-outlet-audio-surge-protectors/pw8r15aud?&forward=1

kbuzz3 · « **Reply #13 on:** 2 Jul 2008, 09:58 pm »

I also think you should find a dealer who will allow an audition in your own system. If there is not one locally the cable company specializes in this type of thing via mail.

I will add that despite playing with equipment for almost 20 years, I only tried real "conditioning" for the first time in the past few months. This is exclusively on my digital front end. I can confirm its changes to the system and regret not doing so along time ago. Noise floor lowered indeed. This goes double if your system has easy access to cabling and moving things around.

I did not do a large survey of pc's due to space limitations but there are plenty of them out there to play with. In addition to audience and running springs, i would also put the monarchy regen, and the audio magic digital mini on my short list. The alan maher circle here on AC is also filled with converts to his products.

The Good thing is that there are many PC's mentioned that dont break the bank. The list is endless, and limited only buy your budget. note that many hold bpt, adept, equitech in high regard as well.

I would also suggest you try a bunch of the herbie's audio lab or bright star isnode anti vibe/iso products. I found them to lower the perceived noise floor on a lot of stuff from dacs to amps. They are cheap and come with a very liberal return policy. With a pc and the herbie's i think you will be pleasantly surprised.

Try it you have nothing to lose.

SET Man · « **Reply #14 on:** 2 Jul 2008, 10:06 pm »

Quote from: Occam on 2 Jul 2008, 05:59 am

....
An alternative, if you're handy and place minimal value on your own time, would be build your own low material cost Felix conditioner ...

FWIW,
Paul

Hey!

I will second Paul/Occam on this.

If you could swing a soldering iron and comfortable working with this kind of voltage.

Before you go for something like Monster, Audience and something similar you might want to try a Felix. I built mine for less than $50. Pretty simple.

And if you don't like how it sound in your system than just use with your TV especially LCD one instead and enjoy a better picture.

Take care,
Buddy

Dan_ed · « **Reply #15 on:** 3 Jul 2008, 02:39 pm »

Stop your CD player and listen. If you can't hear anything from your listening position, then your system is probably fine. IME, conditioners and the like always take away HF extension and dynamics, and may not even correct the original problem. IMHO it is always better to use less equipment in the chain.

You may just be hearing tape hiss from the original recording. This will be easy to tell by checking with different CDs. If you hear the hiss with all CDs then maybe you could have your CDP checked out. A better power cord may help. Do you have another source to compare with?

TheChairGuy · « **Reply #16 on:** 3 Jul 2008, 03:25 pm »

Quote from: Dan_ed on 3 Jul 2008, 02:39 pm

Stop your CD player and listen. If you can't hear anything from your listening position, then your system is probably fine. IME, conditioners and the like always take away HF extension and dynamics, and may not even correct the original problem. IMHO it is always better to use less equipment in the chain.

Dan, I figured the same thing after 5-6x stabs at it....but now using the Audience Adept aR1p I'm of different mind.

There really is no good HF extension on CD/Redbook (a sharp drop at 22K and inadequate sampling rates of our first digital technology near-guarantee that)....but, when using vinyl I sense no degradation of HF or dynamics at all. If anything, I feel that the Audience improves my CD/Redbook to a higher level of enjoyment more so than vinyl now.

It's not as enjoyable, nr likely ever will be, but it improves it further (more cohesive sounding, all in all)

I already have a (dedicated) isolation transformer on the CDP, which probably helps by not allowing digital line garbage back into the sonic loop (which did indeed restrict dynamics and HF extension on the preamp and turntable when I tried it).....and the Audience fronts the whole system.

I'm, frankly, thrilled with the results and happy to have found one conditioner that really works without apparent pain. I think I'm still 150 hours away from fully broken-in now, as well.

John

Dan_ed · « **Reply #17 on:** 3 Jul 2008, 07:20 pm »

Chair Dude,

That's an excellent point about HF extension and CD. I listen to vinyl probably 75% of the time so I have never been able to live with conditioners. (Now, regenerators would be a whole 'nother subject. Price wise as well.) Perhaps the solution is to only plug in the CDP to the conditioner? Anyway, I've been very happy with my BAT CDP (wonderful analog output stage) and no noise issues so I haven't been pushed to find a solution.

I'll have to check out the Audience Adept. Good luck with it! I've also heard great things from Exact owners. I do use a Brickwall on the theater system and love the piece of mind. But for the 2 channel I've gotten used to unplugging everything of the weather is threatening or we're going to be gone.

rajacat · « **Reply #18 on:** 3 Jul 2008, 08:59 pm »

It could be that any form of digital reproduction is inherently more influenced by the vagaries of AC power than analog playback. Only when you can supply the digital device with very clean power will it play to maximum potential and all traces of digititus will disappear.

Some cases in point would be Red Wine Audio's battery powered amps and the Dodd battery preamp.

-Roy

Mariusz · « **Reply #19 on:** 3 Jul 2008, 09:38 pm »

Quote from: rajacat on 3 Jul 2008, 08:59 pm

It could be that any form of digital reproduction is inherently more influenced by the vagaries of AC power than analog playback. Only when you can supply the digital device with very clean power will it play to maximum potential and all traces of digititus will disappear. Some cases in point would be Red Wine Audio's battery powered amps and the Dodd battery preamp.

-Roy

Roy , add battery powered CDP of your choice.
The two you mentioned I own. The source that is modified to run on batteries.....well , I am contacting some people and will eventually find someone to do it. Will report when this happends.

Cheers

Mariusz