Power to the People

It’s a commonly recognized fact that contaminated fuel can inhibit the performance of the best engines. In the same way, noisy electrical power can limit the performance of home-entertainment gear.

The problem is that these connections depend on copper clamps that oxidize over time and become less conductive. The grounds of your electrical system and your cable can “float” a few ohms apart, which means there will be some voltage difference that will make itself apparent as a maddening buzz in your system. Furthermore, even if the TV cable is properly grounded where it comes into the house, it snakes all over the place before it connects to your equipment, gaining a bit of resistance and noise along the way. The only ways to cure this are to completely break the ground between the cable and your AV gear—there are isolation transformers designed to do exactly that, which can be very effective but prevent bi-directional communications between cable boxes and cable providers—or to thoroughly ground the cable and the electrical system where they meet at your equipment rack.

The exercise I performed to eliminate electrical bugs may seem excessive, but the results are amazing: dead silent audio background, even with the volume control wide open, and zero detectable noise in video images. The subjective effect of ultra-low background noise is better detail (both visual and aural) and better dynamics, because you are freeing your equipment to work to its maximum by lowering the noise floor. If you want truly highresolution performance, the dedicated line and auxiliary ground will go a long way toward getting you there. The cost/benefit ratio is enormous.

Power Filters and Power Conditioners

Of course, both of these techniques don’t address the fundamental issue of noisy alternating current. The digital revolution has meant the addition of hundreds of millions of digital switching supplies to the power grid, each of them contributing broadband noise back into the grid. Approaches to this problem vary from relatively inexpensive plug-in noise suppressors (the AudioPrism QuietLine, at $100/4-units is a good one) to power line filters and conditioners, to full-on “power regenerators” such as PS Audio’s PowerPlant products.

I use QuietLines throughout the house, one plugged into each outlet with digital gear connected, and two power conditioners for my A/V equipment— an AudioPrism Foundation III for some components and a SineLock device for line-level and digital gear. (My power amp is plugged straight into the wall, to avoid current limiting.) Built by former Threshold Audio president Chris English, the SineLock is an inductive power conditioner, with two large toroidal transformers providing 80dB of isolation between its digital and analog outlets. Several smaller inductors function to restore the clipped peak voltage on the power line waveform. 120VAC input yields 121.6VAC output, not much gain, but a substantial improvement in noise level and sinusoidal wave shape. I formerly used the excellent PowerPlant 300 to supply all my linelevel and digital components, but found that the SineLock did a comparable job at lower cost. The PowerPlant draws three amps continuously even at idle, but offers the interesting benefit of selectable AC frequency. Believe it or not, the sound of some equipment can improve by raising the power-line frequency.

Aftermarket Power Cords

The last mile in power conditioning is something still considered voodoo by textbook engineers, but something almost all audiophiles and videophiles have bought into to some degree: aftermarket power cords. Manufacturers often hype these devices with extravagant pseudo-scientific nonsense and unprovable claims. The truth about power cords is that they are passive devices, and the only improvement they can offer is filtration of noise. Some do this quite well, and others are no better than hardware store extension cords.

I’ve tried many, and by far the most dramatic improvement I’ve had is using the Kimber Kable Palladian. Sporting a large molded structure like a graphite rod, the Palladian is extraordinarily effective at blocking digital noise from contaminating other components. Its effects can be startling, improving resolution, depth of image, and overall sonic presentation far more than an amplifier upgrade. The Palladian has proven its value to me in many experiments with systems ranging from modestly priced to cost-no-object. It’s done the same for every colleague who’s tried it, including TPV’s Randy Tomlinson. I’m inclined to look askance at most other aftermarket power cords, but the Palladian is one that has consistently performed for me. It’s not cheap, but the improvement it offers is exceptional, especially after you’ve addressed the electrical supply basics.