Power conditioners/regenerators advice

Discussion in 'Advice Threads' started by elmoe, May 25, 2019.

  1. saint.panda

    saint.panda Friend

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    I thought I did but looking back the main benefit was probably more about curing power nervosa. Comparing power is tricky because I have to power down the Yggdrasil which distorts things. Tube rolling has much more audible effects in comparison.
     
  2. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    There's power surges, and then there's lightening. I don't know much about it, I wasn't the guy who bought it, but I do know that there was a box in the electrical input to my small server room that was specifically a lightening-surge protection device. I don't think that power-conditioning kit would protect you from a nearby strike.

    And if it's closer than nearby, then the hifi is probably the least of your worries o_O

    Just saying: if you are serious about lightening, you probably need to do something else. Hope someone else can pitch in with what.
     
  3. Armaegis

    Armaegis Friend

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  4. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    Isn't that more to prevent your house being blown to bits?

    I don't know the science of it, so stand sit to be corrected, but I thought lightening other than a direct hit could cause big surges in wiring.
     
  5. iDesign

    iDesign Almost "Made"

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    You are correct and there other common causes of surges including, the restoration of power after an outage, large appliances/equipment used within the home, grid switching, and of course, failure of equipment maintained by the utility company (think PG&E). While surge protection is useful, audiophiles who are in search of the perfect electrical sine wave may also find audible benefits in improving the ground thereby lowering the noise floor, reducing RF, replacing aging home wiring etc etc.
     
    Last edited: Jun 20, 2019
  6. Armaegis

    Armaegis Friend

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    Yes, the rod is just to protect against the direct kabooms or to let you play Dr Frankenstein. If you're looking to protect a house from surges in the electrical grid, I might start with upgrading the circuit breaker. Either a panel surge protector or possibly an isolation transformer.
     
  7. wormcycle

    wormcycle Friend

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    I have a question and about complex world where power conditioners and surge protectors, grounded and ungrounded outlets, and CFGI receptacles have to coexist.
    I recently moved my UltraPower HDC 150 power conditioner to my office, to replace a simple Monoprice sequencer, and noticed that the "Ground OK green light was gone. Indeed, I found no ground wire in a the three pronged receptacle to which everything in my office, including Bryston boxes, was plugged in for years. That scared me.
    As temporary fix I installed a CFGI outlet to at least be safe. But..after the GFGI installation, the Ground OK light is green again on the power conditioner.
    It looks like HDC 150 will provide the ground connection to all the devices, and will will protect against the surge.?
    Is that really enough? I mean having a CFGI receptacle and good surge protector, or do I still need a ground wire?
     
  8. Ksaurav402

    Ksaurav402 Friend

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    A surge protector needs true ground to work and I don’t think GFCI provides true ground if ground wire missing
     
    Last edited: Sep 16, 2020
  9. SSL

    SSL Friend

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    It provides true ground if it has a ground connection.
     
  10. Ksaurav402

    Ksaurav402 Friend

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    Oh actually I meant in the context explained above where there is no ground wire to connect to
     
  11. wormcycle

    wormcycle Friend

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    This one does not and this is why this is such a mysterious stuff. I did some more poking using Klein Tools RT310, which is pretty reliable and here what I found:
    1. the CFGI outlet has open ground.
    2. When I check outlets on the CyberPower AVR (my router, PC etc), RT310 shows proper wiring, with ground
    3. The same with all the outlets on UltraPower HD-150 (audio), all show proper wiring, and the Ground OK light is ON

    I know there are some surge protectors that claim that they do no need ground wire but never believed that.
    My only options a re to live with that, get a an electrician, do grounding myself to a copper water pipe, or run 10 feet extender to the power conditioner. Do not like any of these :(
     
  12. wormcycle

    wormcycle Friend

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    So mystery solved and a bit of warning for amateur electricians.
    When tested out of the box the wired CFGI had an open ground. When I found out that the ground was not connected in the old outlet ,and that Klein tools detected no ground, I did not check the box, but the the box was grounded.
    The CFGI outlet was bigger than the old one, it barely fit into the box. Because of that the green screw was touching the box. It worked as a ground and the surge protectors did not complain. But every time something moved even slightly there was no ground.
    Now I replaced the outlet again with the proper size, and added the wire from electrical box to the ground terminal, all is good.
     
    Last edited: Sep 17, 2020
  13. Noodlz

    Noodlz Almost "Made"

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    Hi so im realizing now that my emotiva CMX-2 may or may not actually offer any surge protection. Should i be daisy chaining this to my Furman M8X2 to be safe? Will this have a negative impact in the sound or should i be ok for the most part?

    Right now i have my MacBook/Asgard3/wyrd/MXU8/monitor/Logitech cheapo speakers all plugged into my furman, and my SFD-1 and WA6SE plugged into the emotiva (which i figured would optimize the sound to have the tube units which seem more sensitive to power on a separate chain? But if it means risking getting my gear getting fried then i would most definitely rather be on the safe side)
     
  14. dasman66

    dasman66 Self proclaimed lazy ass - friend

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    I have my CMX-2 plugged into my ZeroSurge 8R15W-I for surge protection... I didn't notice a sound change. However, the furman is a bunch of mov's for surge suppression and the zerosurge doesn't use movs. Also, each duplex in the zerosurge is isolated, so I still have the computer stuff isolated from the audio stuff.

    FWIW... while I'm not an electrical engineer, it seems like zerosurge as a great upgrade over traditional MOV based surge protection.
     
  15. fraggler

    fraggler A Happy & Busy Life

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    Preface: I know nothing.
    I have my Isobar surge protector plugged into my CMX-2 so that everything plugged into it gets the benefit of the DC protection. I suppose if shit happens, I lose the CMX-2, but I have too much stuff I wanted to protect to do it the other way around. I suppose I could get a better surge protector to protect the CMX-2, but at that point, I'd have to reevaluate everything in my life, and I have too much to do.
     
  16. Noodlz

    Noodlz Almost "Made"

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    haha ok thanks. So i guess the thing to do would be to have the CMX-2 into the wall, the Furman into the CMX2, and then everything plugged into the Furman? I'm assuming this would provide me the most protection / peace of mind. And in the future to upgrade into the ZeroSurge?

    EDIT: if i were to plug the CMX-2 into the Furman though, would i still get power surge protection or am i still susceptible to that?
     
  17. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    It begins with hearing the difference between fuses and ends with an audiophile pole.

    On the other hand, not getting your gear fried is deadly real. Well, perhaps not actually deadly. But close enough. :eek:
     
  18. wormcycle

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    That's how I run it.
     
  19. dasman66

    dasman66 Self proclaimed lazy ass - friend

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    It comes down to what does the CMX-2 do vs what does the surge suppressor do. Everything I have I want to protect from surges, so I plug everything (including the CMX-2) into the surge suppressor. The only thing I have where I notice noise from DC offset is my tube amp, so it gets plugged into the CMX-2 (I also plug my DAC into it, because why not?).

    Going this route, everything is protected from surges, and the items that care about the DC offset get filtered as well. If I had a bunch of stuff that had a DC offset problem, then I'd probably rethink this approach.
    ------Edit------
    To answer your question @Noodlz ... if the CMX-2 is plugged into the wall before the surge suppressor, then it is not protected.
     
    Last edited: Mar 12, 2021
  20. Noodlz

    Noodlz Almost "Made"

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    Ok great thanks for the advice! I have everything now plugged into the furman now, including the CMX2. The CMX2 then supplies power to the WA6SE tube amp & Sonic Frontiers SFD-1 Tube DAC so they can have some sort of noise reduction but still be protected from power surges.
     

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