Power Conditioning done by IC's & Speaker Cables

Tom says, I've used all of these types of things, and they work. I use Bybees, and they work nicely. I use power conditioning and it works. I use decent IC's and Speaker Cables , and they work well. I think a combination of things is the way to go. If you have a real problem, address it as best you can. I use Bybees at the speakers, and battery power for the mains. I don't have an RF problem, so I use unshielded IC's. I have no AC wiring or power in my house, except for the high voltage section of my tube preamp. I have DC lights, DC refrigerator, no TV, and DC everything else. I am 400 feet from the nearest power lines, and am not connected to it. The stray fields in my house are as low as it can get. So, I am adressing the issue from as many directions as possible. No mains power or fields. DC battery power wherever possible. Less offensive appliances in the house. And I still have Bybees on the speakers, and they still help. Do whatever you can, and you'll get better results out the speaker. But be sure that it really does something. Don't buy snake oil.

Speaker cables would be one of the least effectives places to attempt the type of filtering accomplished by power line conditioners. If your problem is 60Hz line hum, then you've already run it through your power amp thereby wasting precious headroom. If its some sort of ultra sonic hash, then it will have already done its damage in your CD player or preamp. I use Versalab Red Rollers at the speaker end of my cables to filter out radio frequency interference that may be picked up by the cable, it's no substitute for dedicated, active power line conditioning.

Twl, you truly are a 'purist'. And in more ways than one. You are to be commended for some to many of your choices.

Audioengr: As i've stated before, there is nothing wrong with shielding a power cord. You've probably based your opinions of this matter on the commercially available models that are out there. I don't think that any of these do it "right", especially for high current devices like a power amp.

Other than that, i agree that power cords should be as low in inductance and series resistance as possible. If it sounds like i'm "dodging" specific design criteria, you are right. I am trying to say something ( as i have tried to do in the past ) without giving away the whole bag of marbles. Sean
>

TWL - I believe that the reason that you like the Bybee filters is because they eliminate some of the sibilants caused by wire in your IC's and speaker cables that has jumbled crystal lattice. If you replaced this with wire that has organized crystal structure, you could probably eliminate the filters.

This is the reason why so many folks believe that stranded wire is worse than solid wire. It's because cold-working the wire to braid or twist it into stranded bundles damages the crystal structure and sibilants are the result.

This is also why direct-immersion cryo damages the sound of the wire - the crystal structure is then helter-skelter, not well-organized. This causes reflections and current-bunching in the conductor.