Power direct from the wall, or Power Conditioner?

[Pim]

After decades of active power generator/regenerator use from all the usual suspects, ie; PSA, Shunyata, Furutech, Furman and others I switched 6 years ago to an ultra high-end passive power distributor from Furutech called a Pure Power Six. It was basically a 6-outlet heavy, thick-walled billet of CNC'd aluminum that featured little more than a star-wired triplet of high-end Furutech AC outlets around a center compartment with a granular RFI/EMI medium. It proved to be the absolute best I'd ever heard as there was nothing in it to ever fail and/or inflict electronic hum or buzz into the power. If there was no ground loop issue at initial plug-in there was nothing on-board that was ever going to make noise. It worked incredibly well but I quickly exceeded the 6 outlets and needed more. Not wanting to throw another $20k at it for another PP6 I started researching a DIY alternative and over the years discovered a really worthwhile work-around.

Today I start with a 10 outlet PS Audio Dectet completely gutted of its internal noise & surge protection as well as its 15A IEC inlet. ALL its outlets & internal wiring are removed. Only thing I retain is the housing and single sheet of shielding along its back side. Then starting at the AC wall receptacle I install a Furutech GTX-D rhodium 120V/20A outlet. IMHO simply the finest outlet ever made and head & shoulders beyond anything/everything else out there! The ONLY AC outlet in the world using alpha treated pure OFC copper contacts and nano ceramic/carbon particle shielding/damping technology! With it I also use an Oyaide billet aluminum housing at the wall with a matching Oyaide carbon fibre outlet cover simply because I believe it to be a superior product to the Furutech frame/cover. From there to the Dectet I use a Furutech FI-50 20A rhodium plated carbon fiber stainless steel piezo carbon 120V/20A male plug with a high-current Crystal Cable Ultra power cord and a matching Furutech Fi-50 carbon fiber rhodium plated 20A high-current IEC female inlet to the Dectet. Again 100% solid alpha treated OFC copper contacts! The Dectet itself once stripped/gutted is refitted with 5 Furutech GTX-D rhodium plated inlets and again all 100% OFC alpha-treated contacts. Dectet internal wiring is star-wired, equal-length solid core 5n silver with a 4 layer PTFE, silver-plated copper braid, PEEK jacket with a final PTFE jacket... nothing gets in/nothing gets out of that wire within the Dectet housing. Every component connected to the Dectet also uses Furutech FI-50 CF/SS carbon/piezo AC 120V/20A plugs and/or 20A female IEC's and all power out of Dectet is again via Crystal Cable Ultra with FI-50 terminations at both ends. Additionally all speaker wire, interconnects, XLR's etc are also Crystal Cable Ultra, Dream or Dreamline.

The benefit; no chance of electronic buzz/hum ever occurring if it doesn't occur right outta-the-box it never will occur... least from the Dectet! If it does occur its ground loop or component-related and corrected immediately. In 3 years with the Dectet and 3 years before that with the F'tech PP6 there's never, even once been a hum, buzz, crackle or pop in my system. And unlike having an 'active' AC power conditioner its never even considered if an errant noise occurs. Having had active power conditioners for years and years we become suspicious of them and ALWAYS look there first when a new noise occurs. The biggest endorsement I can give is turning my Devialet remote all the way up with a 24/96 streaming track paused produces exactly as much noise from each speaker as cranking the remote all the way up while the Devialet unplugged. In all fairness I've had active power conditioners that would do that but never one that did it forever or more than a few years! Too many (hundreds/thousands!) little electronic widgets & gizmos in there that can (and do) go wrong. And if it 'can' fail, it will fail! Not a matter of 'if'... simply when. I'm totally happy with 'passive' conditioning and certainly more problem & worry free than I ever was with an active system.

In closing, unless you've also done electrical work from a dedicated line & circuit breaker with startlingly small improvement, it really does all start at the wall outlet. If you want to just try one thing with minimal cost or effort, make it a Furutech GTX-D rhodium or gold plated outlet. there's NOTHING else that comes close! There's no other outlet with 100% OFC copper contacts and carbon/ceramic nano particle shielding/damping... and the difference is H-U-G-E!!! Please, look around, if you can find better, let me know cuz I want it too. Bet ya can't! ;-)

Oh and later if you just can't stand not having one of those massive, mega-spendy line conditioning power generators and the accompanying bragging rights, well you're in luck there too as you happen to already have arguably the best, cleanest sounding AC outlet in the world to plug it into!

Hi Manoet,

Your saying you hear the same noise when your pausing as you do when you unplug... My 200 and the rest of my gear are connected to a couple of 3 dollar power blocks behind my tv and when I first got it I did that test in the middle of the night (no background noise) and I heard nothing at all, right on the tweeter not a single bit of noise with the volume all the way up. Do you have very high sensitivity speakers? If not, there must be something wrong in your setup. Or am I just the lucky one to have a completely quite Dev?