Author Topic: State of the Art Power-Conditioner  (Read 14205 times)

Offline TrueAudio

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Re: State of the Art Power-Conditioner
« Reply #30 on: August 04, 2018, 09:04:30 AM »
I fail to see how using the same basic topology gave you good and bad results. I'd have to know some details.

Dynamics have to see voltage sag to actually "go away". (it's not a function of current) So if you are getting sag, you probably have something undersized.
If it isn't a function of current, what's the purpose behind massive capacitor storage banks in power amplifiers then (as well as modifications specifically making a point of mentioning increased capacitance over a stock unit)?  Hundreds (or more) amplifier manufacturers always highlight the instantaneous current that is available due to said manufacturers power supplies.  But even the best supplies aren't perfect and the AC line upstream of them is still compromised (however small of an amount) from the much larger current demands of lower frequency transients.  I would imagine putting a quality clamp on ammeter on your speaker cables while playing the 1812 overture at full power, (if it's fast enough to measure those changes) would be interesting to observe.

« Last Edit: August 04, 2018, 09:06:33 AM by TrueAudio »

Offline Folsom

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Re: State of the Art Power-Conditioner
« Reply #31 on: August 04, 2018, 11:26:23 AM »
If the power supply in your amplifier (playing 1812) gets pulled in voltage from say 40v down to 10v, it can draw the same amount of current from the transformer as it had at 40v. The discharge in capacitors is in joules. The more capacitance you have the easier it is to keep the voltage up. The capacitors provide current of the voltage they were charged with, and voltage drops off as more and more comes from them. So let's say you have a bucket. You need X amount of water in it. The level of the water in the bucket is voltage, and the amount of water is current. The only way to keep the voltage high is by having a massive bucket, so that as you pour water out a significant amount of water will be taken without changing level very much.

What you hear is voltage drop. Not current "drop". In order to actually reduce current enough to hear it, you need to get near failure in audio gear typically. What does happen though is lots of wasted current drops the voltage because you're using lots of water (joules).

I don't know why manufacturers say all of that except that it works as silly marketing. It *sounds* like what they describe but is not. Many may simply not know better, and many don't know why they need such oversized parts to make it sound the way they want. I have no real argument against a stout power supply, but stoutness to PSRR is actually on somewhat of a bell curve - eventually too much gives you low frequency noise.

Offline rollo

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Re: State of the Art Power-Conditioner
« Reply #32 on: August 04, 2018, 12:48:42 PM »
  We have two smart guys here talking way over my knowledge on this matter. So for me after the engineers design a conditioner my only way of knowing the result is to plug it in and listen to its affect.
   It appears to me Gigawatt has engineered a fine product line that if one is interested in conditioning should be considered. Previous to the GigaWatt PC-2+ my Consonance Cyber 211 mono blocks hummed. Not now, gone. They hummed witl all previous conditioners. The Gigawatt as an option is supplied with a DC blocker. That DC blocker had a huge edge over the non DC blocker model. No fuse either,using a circuit breaker that was redesigned by GigaWatt eliminating the fusible link to a more robust link that passes more current. Brilliant. Similar to the after market fuses using a heavier Ga. element.
 To my and my customers ears we are impressed to say the least. All one would except without ANY of the negatives associated with conditioners.
We will demonstrate the PC-2+ at CAF 1018.


charles
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Offline Folsom

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Re: State of the Art Power-Conditioner
« Reply #33 on: August 04, 2018, 05:40:17 PM »
Charles, it sounds like you may have a DC problem. DC blockers are usually just to eliminate hum from transformers... but if you have a lot of it then it'll choke your transformers bad.

Offline tmazz

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Re: State of the Art Power-Conditioner
« Reply #34 on: August 05, 2018, 05:01:30 AM »
Charles, when you say that the Consonance  amps hummed are you talking about a physical hum coming from the amp itself or and electrical hum coming out of the speakers when it is hooked up? The first would typically be a function of DC in your incoming power while the later would indicate some kind of circuitry problem in the amps power supply.
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Offline rollo

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Re: State of the Art Power-Conditioner
« Reply #35 on: August 05, 2018, 08:31:00 AM »
   Coming through the wall baby. Electrical hum. The trannies in amp do not hum and zero circuit issues.



charles
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Offline rollo

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Re: State of the Art Power-Conditioner
« Reply #36 on: August 05, 2018, 08:32:25 AM »
Charles, it sounds like you may have a DC problem. DC blockers are usually just to eliminate hum from transformers... but if you have a lot of it then it'll choke your transformers bad.



   Very possible I need to measure and find out for sure. Thanks.


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Offline TrueAudio

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Re: State of the Art Power-Conditioner
« Reply #37 on: August 06, 2018, 04:06:48 PM »
If the power supply in your amplifier (playing 1812) gets pulled in voltage from say 40v down to 10v, it can draw the same amount of current from the transformer as it had at 40v. The discharge in capacitors is in joules. The more capacitance you have the easier it is to keep the voltage up. The capacitors provide current of the voltage they were charged with, and voltage drops off as more and more comes from them. So let's say you have a bucket. You need X amount of water in it. The level of the water in the bucket is voltage, and the amount of water is current. The only way to keep the voltage high is by having a massive bucket, so that as you pour water out a significant amount of water will be taken without changing level very much.

What you hear is voltage drop. Not current "drop". In order to actually reduce current enough to hear it, you need to get near failure in audio gear typically. What does happen though is lots of wasted current drops the voltage because you're using lots of water (joules).

I don't know why manufacturers say all of that except that it works as silly marketing. It *sounds* like what they describe but is not. Many may simply not know better, and many don't know why they need such oversized parts to make it sound the way they want. I have no real argument against a stout power supply, but stoutness to PSRR is actually on somewhat of a bell curve - eventually too much gives you low frequency noise.
It appears to me at least one manufacturer builds in, (as part of the amplifiers circuitry) their own version of something like Dave's Uberbuss:

http://halcro.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/UPFC_PowerSupply.pdf

http://halcro.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/HALCRO_TECHNICAL_PAPER.pdf

« Last Edit: August 06, 2018, 05:33:44 PM by TrueAudio »

Offline TrueAudio

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Re: State of the Art Power-Conditioner
« Reply #38 on: August 06, 2018, 06:08:40 PM »
http://halcro.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Mains_Conditioners.pdf

Quote
MAINS POWER CONDITIONING & FILTERING

Most audio power amplifiers:

1. have no power supply regulation,
2. nor filtering and
3. practically all use "peak rectification" power supplies.

The Halcro amplifiers thoroughly address all these points, and mains conditioners address some of them, but not all.  Power supply regulators essentially maintain a constant mains ripple-free supply voltage to the amplifier circuitry. There are basically 3 different types of power supply regulators which are:

a) Linear regulators. These are the simplest, but they generate a great deal of heat, and so designers of amplifiers are reluctant to use them because amplifiers already generate a great deal of heat at higher powers even without linear regulators.

b) Switching regulators. These are very efficient, that is they do not produce much heat, but they produce radio frequency interference.  However, if well designed, this interference can be reduced to insignificant levels- far less in fact by than that borne by the normal mains supply. New E.C. standards are particularly strict in this regard and only allow radio frequency emissions of the order of micro-Watts! The Halcro units use switching regulators which do comply with EC standards.

c) Power factor corrected supplies (PFC). These are very rare in the audio industry, and are expensive to manufacture. These supplies doubly regulate the mains-to-amplifier supply conversion, and thus if designed well are particularly mains signal free. They also have the very substantial advantage in producing no mains current distortion, unlike all other types of supplies, which produce very considerable mains current distortion, which may cause interference to other equipment. (These PFC supplies should really be called "low mains current distortion supplies" and not "power factor corrected supplies," a term adopted by the industry which means something quite different.)

To address the problems cited above, the audio industry now produces 3 different types of mains conditioners:

1. Mains filters. These filter out radio interference signals from the mains (so called "EMI" or "Electro-magnetic Interference.") which can cause substantial degradation to the performance of many brands of amplifiers, especially those which do not have appropriate circuitry to suppress such interference. Thus such filters may be of benefit to some brands. The Halcro units have extremely extensive filters, both pre- and post- power supply, and in addition have EMI suppression within the actual amplifier circuitry. Thus these units will probably be of no benefit to the Halcro amplifier, but may well improve source equipment (preamps, SACD players etc)

2. Mains regeneration supplies. These in effect reproduce a regulated mains supply and thus can be of benefit to amplifiers containing no power supply regulation. The Halcro units are doubly regulated and thus the use of such units will probably be of no benefit to the Halcro equipment. Even though most source equipment has regulated power supplies, these mains regeneration units may assist some source equipment which are susceptible to mains current or voltage distortion.

3. Units combining the above features 1. and 2. The comments above apply to these units.  We are not aware of any mains conditioners which incorporate mains filtering, and mains regeneration, and low mains current distortion circuitry; a feature


Bruce Candy, Physicist
Head of HALCRO research and development.
Edit:  I believe Dave has said that the Uberbuss provides for a "current well", and that it is a *separate* feature/implementation from his PFC network.
« Last Edit: August 06, 2018, 07:42:57 PM by TrueAudio »

Offline P.I.

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Re: State of the Art Power-Conditioner
« Reply #39 on: August 07, 2018, 08:55:49 PM »
I have never been able to hear a Halcro amp.  When I first read about them their approach seemed not only bleeding edge but light years ahead of other designs.

Given the degradation of the grid since they were first introduced their design makes even more sense now!   :thumb:

I’m basically a tube guy, but I’m not opposed to intelligent sand amps.  That is why I have some of Folsom’s amps.  They make sense.  One of the reasons I love tube amps is the power supply topology.  Lots of inherent rejection from the choke(s) and the ability to bypass the noisy crap floating around on the AC lines... if you know how.
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Offline Folsom

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Re: State of the Art Power-Conditioner
« Reply #40 on: August 07, 2018, 09:31:29 PM »
I thought pretty much no one liked Halcro's first amps...

Offline P.I.

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Re: State of the Art Power-Conditioner
« Reply #41 on: August 07, 2018, 10:54:22 PM »
I thought pretty much no one liked Halcro's first amps...
Don’t know first hand.  I heard that they were sterile like the later
Krell offerings that I thought were some of the most overpriced nasty sounding amps I ever heard.  I just wanted to hear them.  The tech made sense in the PS end of the equation, but I just didn’t grok the amp implementation. 
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Offline TrueAudio

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Re: State of the Art Power-Conditioner
« Reply #42 on: August 08, 2018, 05:00:20 PM »
Other interesting reading that has relevance here:

Ncore Technology White Paper

https://web.archive.org/web/20131101191027/https://www.hypex.nl/docs/papers/ncore%20wp.pdf

___________________________________________________________

https://www.devialet.com/en-eu/expert-pro-power-supply/

"Expert Pro uses a revolutionary switch-mode power supply to take you from absolute silence to explosive dynamics. At lightning speed. This ultra high-performance power supply method feeds the rest of the system, achieving energy efficiency rates of 90%.

This intelligent dual power supply runs on a microprocessor capable of adjusting in real time. Traditionally isolated, power factor correction (PFC) and regulation functions are fused into a single revolutionary single stage structure. This allows for heightened power density and enhanced sensitivity to shifts in energy requirements.

The control loop is ultra-quick and particularly well suited to audio engineering. Expert Pro systems can instantly shift from 0 to 4000 Watts while sustaining an average running power of 1200W. Output voltage is variable by a factor of 8 from +/- 10V to +/-80V and constantly changes to minimize overall thermal dissipation.

A load balancing controller ensures even load sharing between reservoir capacities across different power rails, doubling the available energy supply.

Power supply relies on a central transformer based on planar technology. It serves two purposes: spreading energy in packets and ensuring the electrical safety of the product by isolating the hazardous areas. Compact and perfectly symmetrical, the central transformer is far superior to traditional solutions in terms of efficiency and primary/secondary pollution.

Power supply is unaffected by the mains and runs silently with remarkably low electromagnetic disturbance. It is universal and compliant with all power grid supplies: 90-240Vac – 50/60Hz. Driven by a microprocessor, power supply is automatically protected from anomalies including surges, dips and overloads. On a practical level, functional range is stretched out even further to 50 - 270Vac ~ 40/70 Hz, making your Expert Pro available for use anywhere in the world."

Offline P.I.

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Re: State of the Art Power-Conditioner
« Reply #43 on: August 12, 2018, 01:36:44 PM »
Suffice it to say that I'm not much of a SMPS fan.  In the world on consumer electronics they are the cheapest (and I mean "cheapest" wat to power just about anything.  They are spit out of chinese factories by the millions and are responsible for much of the line pollution that we have to contend with in trying to extract the best possible performance from out systems.  Its is not only the backfed EMF from these pieces of junk, but also the fact that they are tiny little radion transmitters.

Rant over.

There are some SMPS that are very, very good.  The M-Core is an example of a very good supply.  When doe right they can be incredibly dynamic, powerful and clean.  It is too bad that most audio manufacturers buy off of the shelf junk because it is inexpensive instead of hunting out or designing good ones.  My hat is off to the designers that create the good ones.

I'm still a linear supply guy when possible.  Especially when it is a good stiff supply mated to vacuum tubes!
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Offline rollo

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Re: State of the Art Power-Conditioner
« Reply #44 on: October 29, 2018, 01:11:21 PM »
  Well is that not what the prototype BussStation does? aAdevice that eliminates that noise from our electrical system ? Yes it is. Dave start your engine and SELL THESE THINGS. Just improves every darn thing.


charles
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