This topic has been really helpful to stuff that I have had to look into recently and I wanted to post some impressions on the balanced mains power transformer that I have recently installed.
A recent visit by Paul's (Scroobius) to my place has helped to highlight a [big] "problem" with my system which has been holding back sound quality for a very long time. Then a return visit to Paul's place absolutely confirmed the problem and rather excitingly for me, totally reset what I consider to be my reference sound (wow Paul's system is good). During our chats Paul recommended trying balanced mains power and this became the get well step.
As a side note, it is turning out the at the "problem" is a compound one caused by a number of factors (so no "silver bullet" single fix
). Everything in the system is coming under scrutiny. Steps so far that have really helped are installation of balanced mains power, and the discovery that using my laptop to RIP CDs has lead to very substandard RIPed WAVs. Now that I have the Balanced mains it is easily allowing me to hear the difference between Laptop and PC RIPs easily so another part of the "problem" has been solved.
I guess that the impact from installing balanced mains power is going to vary depending on how poor the starting mains supply. I must have had poor mains quality because the change is really large here. In its fact difficult to fathom just how much better the sound has become !
Prior to installing I wanted to get the safety aspect of going balanced addressed. The AirLink Model that I went for does much of this by virtue of having primary circuit breakers and most importantly for me the RCD on the output phases installed as standard. In addition I will be fitting secondary fuses internally on all equipment that is connected to the Balanced power to ensure that what was formally the neutral wire has some fault protection within each component. I am no electrician so these measures my only be a starting point but I feel safer using balanced mains with them then without.
This is the unit which is a smaller 3kva version of the 5kva models that that Mani uses, the 3kva model has three pin main plugs installed making output wiring a little simpler than the bigger unit. Build quality is "industrial" but given the price very good, the unit makes virtually no humming sound you have to have your ear right to the case to hear anything at all and then only occasionally can you catch it making any sound. Delivery took just two days.
http://www.airlinktransformers.com/standard_balanced_power_supplies/61-BPS3110S.htmlSo the impact of the system on sound quality. Well sound is has improved EVERYWHERE, perhaps most importantly a nasty layer of hash and confusion in the sound has been removed throughout the performance right from lows through to highs. This has creatated a much firmer and more understandable foundation for the music to be built on with a much lower noise floor. Transients are better defined and more accurate in their weight. For the first time, in a very long time, highs could almost be described as sweet, with understandable rhythms easily coming across in percussion lines (this was also improved by the discovery that my laptop RIPS are flawed). Mid range is solid less confused has better prominence and improved air and focus between the speakers. Voices, guitars, strings, horns and drums are better reproduced with more colour weight snap and delicacy where appropriate.
My comments are in the context of the balanced power output earth being connected to the household mains PE. I have not setup a dedicated low resistance earth (using earth rods etc) but this may come later.
I was not really that much of a believer in mains conditioning before this and perhaps still don't really subscribe to the conditioning approach of many of the single phase solutions, but the Balanced approach is such a simple one, providing isolation, noise cancellation, and possibly more stable ground reference. I am hooked, this rather industrial looking box has found a place at the heart of my music system.
There are still further "problems" to address for me but I think the mains component is now done, and one strep closer the the sound I fell in love with a few weeks ago whilst at Paul's.
Nick.
Ps these impressions are with about 20 hours on the transformer they are supposed to improve quite a lot with some burn in.
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) it worked for you as well. I agree with your description of the change to sound, very similar here too. With sound quality having moved so far recently even small changes can make quite a useful difference.