Discovering I may have the cleanest AC power in USA
PS Audio Noise Harvesters are on sale. $50 each.. So naturally I had to buy a pair. 36 hours later in my home.Well I clean the prongs, Caig Gold them, and plug them in. Nothing. Nothing. I am wondering broken? DOA? I move them to other outlets not on my stereo in the kitchen, in the bathroom (the bathroom has a air cleaner plugged in the same outlet, motor running). OK a single blink. I remember the dimmer thing. Plug the Noise Harvesters into the stereo again.. and turn on the only dimmer in the place (in the bedroom, on a different circuit) KABLAM!!! Now they are blinking pretty regular. OK they are NOT broken.They also blink when I put them on an Adcom AC box also on different circuit than stereo. Both the Cable internet box and the WiFi box are on it. And yes they blink every minute or so.I checked the Furman REF 20 outlets, no blink. The direct to the amp.. no blink.+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ So I apparently have just naturally the cleanest AC line in America? (For my stereo equipment.) +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Part of it may be the fact I packed the duplex enclosure 20 amp single line I use for the stereo with small quartz crystals coated with Automotive dielectric grease, in small baggies, the duplex is also the Furutech GTX NCF type, and the wall plugs are also filled with the loose small quartz crystals, plus some flattened baggies of the crystals wrapped around the outside shell of the plugs at the wall Good thing I only ordered two of the Noise Harvesters. More are not needed. (and I actually do not even need the two. but that is OK. I can keep them as a sentinel, to know if I ever get noise on the lines. So I do not know if my home made anti noise crystals work magic? (along with the Furutech NCF which is basically a refined version of my own crystals) or if I really do have some of the cleanest AC around. (PS I live in a 90 unit apartment building, folks above below, around me. Things like my frig I have several ferrite cores with the AC zipcord wire wrapped in and around them, ditto air cleaners, lamps..
I've fiddled with my Noise Harvesters. I recently noticed my dealer has a 'Blue Horizons Mains Noise Analyser' I asked to borrow it, yes. All that is in another thread https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/ac-mains-noise-borrowed-noise-sniffer-and-tested-my-ac-lines Just mentioning here that I DID put the extra two PS Audio Noise Harvesters #6 and #7 back on the audio system. On the Furman line. And nearly all of the power cords are sorted out for best sound.
FYI update and the blinking blue lights. When I moved my cable box from my Furman Power Conditioner to the wall, the noise harvester on the front of my FPC stopped blinking. It would start blinking when I turned on my power amps. The one in the wall didn't start blinking either way. I made additional outlets connected to the same circuit on the wall. When I plugged my amps into the new outlets, the NH on the front of the FPC and the one on the wall both don't flash now. I believe the sound is better with my amps not into the FPC and running off straight wall current, but I didn't do a lot of A/B testing with my rack pulled out from the wall. I took spatialking's advice on wiring into consideration, well almost. I used 3 orange 20A outlets with isolated grounds into 3 steel boxes. I connected the boxes using aluminum flexible conduit. I separated the solid green insulated 12AWG ground wire and ran it into it's own flexible conduit. I also didn't connect it directly to the steel boxes, just to the outlets. I twisted the solid black and white 12AWG wires and ran them into their own conduit between the boxes. I used the outlets themselves to connect the wires using the holes in the back tightened with the screws. Now I had 2 conduits going into a Sonar Quest alloy male plug. Well only one conduit fit. I stopped the ground conduit a little short. I connected another ground wire to the plug and rapped an exposed end around the conduit to ground it and the steel boxes. I connected the two conduits with a zip tie and electrical tape. The plug went into a Pangea 20A outlet(the cheap one) in the wall(20A circuit) with the FPC plugged in next to it. The house hasn't burned down, yet. :)
@12blistn - In that case, twist solid wire instead of the stranded stuff. Do keep the ground or earth wire out of the twist. That is, only Line and Neutral should be twisted together. You can get flex conduit in 1/2" or 3/4" conduit sizes and electrical boxes are easy to find in these sizes.
If you use the armored cable, the wires inside are not twisted, so the fields around the Line and Neutral will inject currents into the earth wire, which can come across as a faint hum in your system. That will definitely muddy up the sound a bit. Twisting them pretty much eliminates this injection.
I was wondering about Romex inside conduit and didn't think it was used that way. I want to keep the same form of solid conductors like inside the wall instead of using stranded wire. I do like the idea of some type of shielding, also. I think the type of conduit I'm thinking of is called armored cable and is semi-flexible. I'm not sure about connecting a plug on the end. It won't be moved much. I know Pangea makes a quad box, but I was thinking of a little cheaper experiment.
@12blistn - If you do use Romex inside conduit then do upsize the AWG since it is not designed to operate in conduit and it may overheat. I'd go to 10AWG just to avoid the problem. However, it is going to be stiff and the solid Romex doesn't like to bend, so don't plan on moving it often.
Why not just twist up a white/black pair of THHN 10 or 12 AWG wire with your drill and keep the ground wire separate from the twist?
I use duplex in 'in wall' boxes. as extension cord terminations but I just leave them on the floor. Two lines, and six Duplex. all from one 20 amp outlet. one duplex separate in line, then two in another box at the terminus.
Update: in case you're interested. I found my JC 1s plugged into F Elite 20 cause the blue light to blink on front and rear outlets when powered on. Also, my Cox contour cable box adds noise even when off, but no noise added to the main line. My next test will be to plug the amps into the wall, like Parasound suggests, and see if noise is added to the main line and if the Furman removes it. I'll have to add some more outlets to do this, so it'll be a while. I'm thinking about using 12 Ga. Romex inside flexible metal conduit with metal boxes attached to a custom rack instead of more outlets in the wall..
You’re probably confusing Germs with Germans, who were the real baddies. The first clue that German soldiers were the real baddies in the big one was the skull 💀 they wore prominently on their caps. Even though in every war each army wants to portray the enemy as the baddy many German soldiers eventually caught on that they were really the baddies.
Germs are just what we call 'bad' (or unhealthy to Humans) bacteria, Just so we all remember bacteria are 100% required for Human life. Without them (several POUNDS of them) in your gut, you could not survive. Be grateful for bacteria. we need them, they are our friends. Despite what the germ-phobic think.
RFI eating bacteria! Cool! I have a can of that! I sprayed that stuff on my stereo but then my DAC at 196KHz quit working. Worse yet, my FM tuner went up in smoke. Dang, I hate it when that happens!
Germs are invisible, just like RFI/EMI. Doesn’t mean they’re not there. Too bad there’s not a spray that will illuminate the pesky little critters. Or RFI eating bacteria. 👾 👾 👾 👾
That is a good point. What I have yet to sort out is how it deals with common mode noise and how it deals with the required diode to go along with that cap. The diode is going to let almost a volt of noise through. I'm curious how Paul solved that problem.
The capacitor is sucking up the energy, and when the cap exceeds the threshold for firing the LED it fires, depleting the capacitor.I would guess the capacitor is never allowed to get 'full', but the hf energy it is taking off the line is continuous...
I was looking at the noise harvester on PS's website. They charge a capacitor from the noise voltage, which also requires a diode in the circuit somewhere as well. When the SCR's gate voltage on the cap reaches the turn on limit, it fires and dumps the energy through a LED. The takeaway here is the noise continues to travel on the line until the capacitor charges up and fires the SCR. Using a LED as an indicator is novel but the older way of simply dissipating the energy in a resistor with a 100% duty cycle isn't as novel or as sexy but certainly is effective 100% of the time. In other words, the NH concept works only when the LED fires, the rest of the time the noise passes on through. Maybe I have this wrong, I'd have to buy one and open it up to sort out how it works. But that is my best guess on what and how it is doing it.
Latest update in Noise Harvesters in my system. (It has become clear to me that the Noise Harvesters DO WORK and DO SOMETHING GOOD even when they are not blinking. Absolutely positive of this.) After some listening with five total in the system Excellent results. Stereo sounds very good. Better clarity ,dynamics, clean. I am VERY HAPPY I added them. NO need to adjust the balance of eh Magnepan 20.7 with resistors I think I am done. And curious the same number FIVE, as generally recommended.
And I would say the BluTack CHANGES THE SOUND.. (Yes I hear the screeches and cries of all those skeptical types) and makes the sound less treble strong and makes the midrange better. Please since there is no backup on this tweak, I ask others who use Noise Harvesters to check it out with BluTack (or some other means of dampening the N.H. body) and report back. Otherwise it is just an untested tweak no one ever heard the likes of. Since the Noise harvesters are so ’loose’ when plugged in, they may be internally vibrating? and the BluTack quells this? I also remember another person mentioning adding Ers paper to the N.H. helped. (And I wonder if part of the ’help’ was not the sticky ERS paper but just dampening the body of the Noise Harvesters.???)
I actually removed them and started over. 7 were too many, and the sound was a bit treble happy. I also decided to bond them to the duplex with BluTack. SO I added three. One to the PS Audio for the five disc changer. Two on the low level AC on Furman. Those 3 sounded really great. I tried one on the AC line the Furman REF 20 comes from. no, too much. Took it off. I added two to the separate line for the amplifier, also with BluTack, and the sound is still in the air. Cleaner, but slightly treble rich. But since I am actually listening to Classical music, which is often very treble rich.. I cannot make a snap judgement. With all the conditioning and such on my AC, seems I can hit ’Too many’ Noise Harvesters pretty easily. I can say 3 is very good. Plus if I like the sound but not the tilted a little to treble, I can adjust the resistors for thespeaker mids and bring it back to a better balance that way. Right now I have 0.75 DueLund Cast. I could easily go to a 1.0 ohm. or I have some 1.3 DueLund Cast too.
I have thought about a few more , so your going to 7 and experience with them is inspiring me to add a couple more . Have you tried listening to a passage over and over again by adding one at a time to hear the improvements ?
I have 1 in the amp outlet , 2 in the outlet just before the amp and 2 more on my 10 gauge wired outlet strip before the outlet with 2 . My isolation transformer is connected to the last box in the circuit ( connected by using Cardas in-wall 10 gauge cable hard wired to the wall box and connected with a Furutech IEC connector ) with the amp being the next to last outlet on the circuit , a AudioQuest NGR outlet .
An oscilloscope is the only way to go. A unit with a 100 MHz bandwidth is suitable and very affordable if you buy a used one but more bandwidth is better. You do need two channels since you have to do a differential measurement and you will need two identical test probes with at least 50% more bandwidth than the scope has. The catch is, you have to eliminate the 60 Hertz voltage or you won't see anything else. Some scopes have high pass filters, but most do not. What you need is a good filter that kills everything below 50KHz to 100 KHz. Now that I think about it, at work we do a lot of business with several transformer companies, I'll see if any of them have a test isolation transformer for this sort of thing. If so, I will post the part number here, they should not be too expensive. For those of you with access to a scope, you can be amazed and have sleepless nights when you see what is coming down your line!
I bought five more. So with seven, I will see how it goes...Immediate impression is the background black is 'blacker'..Noticed watching PBS TV "Arthur" cartoon the smooth blobs of color are totally free of grain, perfectly smooth. Enough to note it.Treble seems a tiny bit sweeter in stereo. Little more detail in general. Two on amp line. three on Furman (One on high power, used for preamps, one at Plasma TV one at Marantz SA-10) , one on PS Audio P-600, and one at powercord to Furman.During normal stereo operation, only the one on PS Audio P-600 where five disc CD changer is blinking at all.Plasma TV turned on makes the two on Furman blink like crazy. IPlasma off no blinking) Dimmer in bedroom at half on only makes the amp line pair blink a little. I am of the opinion that even with no blinking, the Noise Harvesters may be doing something...
I'm always amazed at how a tread can take a turn from the original statement or question . The HF meter is a good tool , but a better one would be an oscilloscope where you can see the interference on the AC sign wave .
As for the PS Audio noise harvesters , don't look just listen . I noticed a minor improvement with 2 and a larger one with 5 all on the stereo systems circuit .
Elizabeth, I am in no way trying to tell you what to do. I was merely providing information from my own experience. It was you after all who began this thread regarding clean power.
Respectfully, you are the one who criticized my choice in a power level meter and suggested alternative devices. That is fine. This forum is to inform. My curiosity has long been satisfied regarding my own power needs. I was merely hoping i might be of some modest help to others.
kodak805... Seems YOU are interested in what I could or do not find on my AC lines WAY MORE THAN I AM. LOL As it is, not reluctance, more like I really do not care, nor am I worried. So why should I waste money to satisfy YOUR curiosity?
I also like to keep an eye on the voltage, it is how I discovered my building was running 130V
It absolutely pays to monitor voltage. My problems were the opposite: Low voltage, sometimes down to 93VAC. I battled the electric utility for years ... although to its credit it has improved enormously over the last 7 or 8 years.
Couple of things: Furman devices with SMP naturally filter starting at about 3 kHz. This is because the surge protector is effectively a low pass filter. This behavior is what makes series mode surge suppressors superior. It is nearly impossible for a high slew rate surge to slip through. Unlike all parallel mode / disposable units. This also means they don't current limit in the 60 Hz range. An ideal situation for amps.
Further, LiFT adds some active noise cancelling which to my ears clearly works.
I also like to keep an eye on the voltage, it is how I discovered my building was running 130V and got them to readjust the city’s load balancing. :) Seriously.
Well Elizabeth, I cannot disagree with your purchase suggestions. So, unless you are reluctant to find out what may be revealed by any measurement device, why not buy one and let us know what you find?
With the maxim of all audiophiles: "Where you can spend a little, way better to spend a LOT" I suggest skipping the cheap $150 ’distortion’ gizmo, (which only selects a particular harmonic btw) And splurge twice that or three times that and buy a real oscilloscope from Amazon. Then you get the Whole Enchilada .. And you can analyze your power until the cows come home. ADDED: and for less money than $150... you can buy a USB oscilloscope for $80 or so.
Forget any speculation as to what a Noise Harvester can and cannot do or what a more expensive device might do better. Again, without a properly calibrated power line meter there is no objective way to know.
A blinking led will not tell you very much, especially given the tolerances in a cheaply made device. For the price of less than three Noise Harvesters the doubt is easily resolved.
The notion that one device, however expensive ( $2200.00 highly engineered Akiko Audio Corelli passive power conditioner) sets the bar for all others is an incorrect assumption. I have noticed that my Furman does stop the HF in the toroid transformer. So outside noise does not get in, and inside noise does not get out. Nor does the HF noise added to outlets in the High current get to the low, nor the reverse. The same is true for the normal transformer in the P-600 I own. The added notion that "" Any experimentation without a calibrated meter is merely guessing, wishful thinking and a waste of time ""Is perhaps closer to being partially true. However it certainly is NOT wholly true. The calibrated meter may AFFIRM what one has found without such a meter, but the experiments with the Noise Harvesters certainly do help one to know what is polluting, and when the blinking stops, that at least that part of the grunge has been located and separated from the system. But since the Noise Harvester is not a full range device (It is for 10,000Hz and above) a meter might be useful. Though not a ’requirement’ as kodak805 wishes to claim.
The Alpha Lab Power Line Meter (and/or equivalent device) is the only objective method of determining exactly what noise is on the power line.
To eliminate doubt of the efficacy of the Noise Harvester merely monitor the noise level with the Noise Harvester in and out of the system.
If a $2200.00 highly engineered Akiko Audio Corelli passive power conditioner did nothing to reduce noise artifacts on the power line, I seriously doubt a $50.00 Noise Harvester will have any beneficial effect.
Any experimentation without a calibrated meter is merely guessing, wishful thinking and a waste of time.
I think of the Noise Harvesters more as noise "sniifers" than I do noise reducers, though I don't suppose that they hurt (and, like Elizabeth, I have found that multiple NHs on the same circuit reduces the frequency of their blinking). Using them on my two dedicated 20 amp circuits I have been able to find benefits by swapping to better quality dimmers elsewhere in my house and/or identifying which circuits/appliances seem to add noise. I have star grounded most components and also added a second ground rod on my electrical box with good results. Reduced noise = better sound for little $$$.
For my Plasma TV, yes adding a second Harvester slows the furious rate of the first one. And both blink alternately, pretty evenly, still fast, but not as fast as before.
@twoleftears to answer your question, yes use an adapter and two or more noise harvesters as many due for example with the daisy chained mc 05 from hfc.
With two noise harvestors, when there is noise detected in the line by one, does adding the second cause less noise to show than before? Seems like this would be a reliable way to determine if these gadgets actually remove noise as well as detect it.
When I thought it was my conditioner, I found it was another bit of gear doing the damage (causing the blinking) It can be anything! Finding which items was on great thing about using the Noise Harvesters! I was able to find each offending item. Like you, but at first, I thought it was the small Adcom conditioner causing a problem. NO! It was an item connected to it. SO I would suggest the Furman is not the problem, but something plugged into it. The noise can travel a long way. Though I do find my Furman blocks from the small power to teh main power, but not between the individual small duplex. The Furman also block from outside, or from inside to outside it.PS: I made my own multiple outlets devices when I did not have enough outlets from the wall. From the wall is also from the wall to a pair of additional duplex!!
Since I use the front Furman outlet to connect my TT motor when in use, I had moved the harvesters to other shared wall outlets and very rarely.saw them blink. After seeing your post, I tried moving them back. My SS class A/B amps are plugged into the back of the Furman along with most of my other A/V equipment. I recently moved another similar SS amp I use for surrounds and plugged it directly into the wall, same shared circuit. Now when everything is on, the harvester blinks bright like a constant strobe while the one in the wall doesn't light. Now when everything is shut down, the Furman front one still blinks a little and the one in the wall is still dark. My conclusion is that the Furman surge and noise suppressor is adding noise at least to it's front outlet, but not to the wall line. The next time I have my rack out I will try plugging one of the harvesters into the back of the Furman to see what happens. My power amp manufacture suggest plugging them all directly into the wall. I haven't tried that yet, because I would need more outlets.
I had a similar experience one time when I moved. The little doodads made a significant difference in one home but had zero effect in the next. I believe it is very telling that the new place was a much newer building than the last...
I am one of those so-called ’audiophiles’ who believes in the power of ’clean juice’. Fact is I got a steal on a ESP The Essence power strip because the seller had just paid big bucks to have the power company install a distribution transformer in front of his house and no longer benefited form the ESP.
If the Harvester stops blinking when you turn something off. Clearly that particular something is spewing HF junk into the line. I am going on the possible unmentioned ?fact? that the amps are plugged into the Furman? IF the amps are plugged into the wall.. Then yeah it is a mystery. If the amps are plugged into the wall, and not the Furman. Try unplugging everything else going into the Furman .. except the amps left on. Does the (still also plugged in and turned on) Furman Harvester still blink? Another crazy wild guess is the amps are sucking up whatever is on the line?? and when turned off that HF junk is free to wander. (if the amps use a digital switching power supply those do make HF noise)
I got two of those harvesters, also. My HT/2ch is in the living room on a shared 20A circuit. When I plugged 1 into the shared wall circuit, it blinked a little and then went out, When I plug the other one into the front outlet of my Furman Elite 20-PFI, it blinks constantly. It will stop if I turn my power amps off. The other one still doesn't blink either way. I did switch the harvesters to make sure they were both working. Most of my components are plugged into the back of the Furman that is plugged into the same shared line. I really can't say I notice a difference in the sound quality either way.
Anyone have an explanation as to what might be going on?
Have a similar experience where plugging one into the wall yields absolutely no blinking light, but plugging one into my power conditioner certainly has an effect. Mind you this is a house made in the 1920's.The unit actually acts up the most when I power on or off my PC (computer that is).
I do not relish being the one to point out that whilst anti-static foam might possibly have some affect on the static electric charge build-up in the equipment chassis, even when the chassis is grounded, it can have no effect on radio frequency interference RFI, which is a totally different animal. RF has no electrical charge. I hate to be the bearer of bad gnus. 🐂 🐂 🐂
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