Something left field, I was cleaning out cupboards of stuff, sure like other of you guys we get accumulations that ends up in various storage places. I came across something that was traded-in (more like the guy thought he was trading-in, but that was news to me) of some sorts, even forgetting who it was. There were these two ABS boxes saying "Power Conditioner" and these toroidals inside. I saw the it was a 240V AC Primary 300VA transformer and sketched out the IEC input and out. This is what I got, any comments as to how it 'conditions' the AC. Seems like via cancellation.
The full label (maybe somebody recognises the name);
"Power Supply Conditioner AI - 50 LE Valve Amplifier"
"Design by Daud Pranoto"
"Audio Improvement"
.
The full label (maybe somebody recognises the name);
"Power Supply Conditioner AI - 50 LE Valve Amplifier"
"Design by Daud Pranoto"
"Audio Improvement"
.
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In my experience, it helps with overly-aggressive tweeters more than anything else.
PMA raises a question. What is 'unusual' about this phono circuit, in particular the circuit board layout?
Let's look: The ckt boards are GOLD PLATED, without a nickel inter-layer, just over copper, so it has to be more than just gold flashed in order to minimize spotting from pinholes allowing the copper to be exposed over time. The ckt board material is a special rf (nylon) material that cost us plenty extra. Later we went on to use Teflon for the CTC Blowtorch.
The input board was designed 35 years ago, and I did not trust the relatively crude solder mask material at the time. For the last 20 years, I have used a quality solder mask instead of gold, such as the boards in the CTC Blowtorch. Where is the actual ckt board layout? It is almost entirely underneath and can't be seen without taking it apart, but note almost 100% shield coverage, which is also true on the bottom side as well. What is the general ckt path? It starts on the far right with the colored wires (VDH) and ends underneath at about 40% of the board's length from the right. Pretty tight, huh? The rest of the circuitry is power supply or servo circuitry which comprises more than 60% of the board space. Could it be tighter? Yes, but we did not know what POLYSTYRENE caps we were going to use initially, so we left some room. We used 0.1uf Rel RT caps for the power supply bypass caps. The electrolytic caps are part of the power supply reference bypass and pass no audio.
Now, this particular SCP-2 has TEFLON EQ caps. I use similar caps, these are not Rel, but the ones in my unit are. These worked OK, but I think I would stick to Rel in future. That single silver wire that sticks up and connects to the output RCA connector is the very silver wire that we made the CTC Blowtorch with. Does anybody know where I can get some of the SAME wire? I am willing to pay real money for some.
The entire set of discrete devices are jfets or mosfets, usually hand matched to their complement if possible. The IC is only jfet input. Should I go on?
Let's look: The ckt boards are GOLD PLATED, without a nickel inter-layer, just over copper, so it has to be more than just gold flashed in order to minimize spotting from pinholes allowing the copper to be exposed over time. The ckt board material is a special rf (nylon) material that cost us plenty extra. Later we went on to use Teflon for the CTC Blowtorch.
The input board was designed 35 years ago, and I did not trust the relatively crude solder mask material at the time. For the last 20 years, I have used a quality solder mask instead of gold, such as the boards in the CTC Blowtorch. Where is the actual ckt board layout? It is almost entirely underneath and can't be seen without taking it apart, but note almost 100% shield coverage, which is also true on the bottom side as well. What is the general ckt path? It starts on the far right with the colored wires (VDH) and ends underneath at about 40% of the board's length from the right. Pretty tight, huh? The rest of the circuitry is power supply or servo circuitry which comprises more than 60% of the board space. Could it be tighter? Yes, but we did not know what POLYSTYRENE caps we were going to use initially, so we left some room. We used 0.1uf Rel RT caps for the power supply bypass caps. The electrolytic caps are part of the power supply reference bypass and pass no audio.
Now, this particular SCP-2 has TEFLON EQ caps. I use similar caps, these are not Rel, but the ones in my unit are. These worked OK, but I think I would stick to Rel in future. That single silver wire that sticks up and connects to the output RCA connector is the very silver wire that we made the CTC Blowtorch with. Does anybody know where I can get some of the SAME wire? I am willing to pay real money for some.
The entire set of discrete devices are jfets or mosfets, usually hand matched to their complement if possible. The IC is only jfet input. Should I go on?
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Sure, but I don't really care what the goop costs (if anything), the point is the complete lack of a coherent theoretical framework or any explanation of what the heck these things are actually supposed to do, and no data to support the idea that they do anything at all.
That's a terrible idea, why on earth would you skip the nickel?! It's there as an interfacial layer that adheres gold to copper (ENIG). Hopefully none of the gold has just straight up flaked off. This is literally making a plating worse than a common, well characterized and robust plating protocl, especially when you put the corrosive effect of soldering and how readily it wants to punch through the gold. I realize ENIPG wasn't a thing when you made it but this is dumb dumb dumb.
"Let's do something really bad then make a bunch of effort to correct it and call it an improvement" - psuedo high end audio.
"Let's do something really bad then make a bunch of effort to correct it and call it an improvement" - psuedo high end audio.
I had thoughts about the phase as well, got little info on the side of of transformer, and both AC Primary wires are Yellow, but going on the exit points of those wires, I am pretty sure I got the phase right in that quick schematic I did in my CAD drawer.
I just measure it and yes, it does reduce by about 25V AC. The line voltage went from 240V to 216V, so you are right about it being a reducer.
But does it do more than that? The fact it is claimed to be a Power Conditioner implies that line noise is reduced. So if it only reduces by 10% across all frequencies, then this is just a piece of junk, and this guy "Daud Pranoto" made a dud.
When I get time, I will have to figure a way to measure it. Does it filter with increasing frequency, in other words, is this a low pass filter? May have to hook up the audio analyser and put 20 Hertz and upwards through it, maybe 10V RMS level and a dummy load. If this really works, then neat.
There was an "Armageddon" power conditioner made by Naim for use with Linn turntables, in fact you can still buy them. Inside is a 430VA toroidal. Costs a small fortune. No, actually a big fortune!
Somebody else makes one cheaper:
GreenStreet Audio
Edit: I don't think Armageddon produces full AC voltage.
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Why don't you ask him? D’Audio Specialist Design Speaker Jakarta
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Apparently designed in Perth.
WELL SPOTTED THANKS!
Actually I was hoping that somebody would recognise his name. I did of course Google him and got nothing, so there you go. I was pretty sure it was Australian, the 240V AC and a few other things.
Yep, I will try follow this up, I have two of his 'babies' here and I wonder what they were supposed to be used for and why does it say "Valve Amplifier" on the box.
LOLOL And thusly you will achieve immortality!!!
A few years ago at a Speaker Design SynAudCon I suggested that a port hole in a speaker cabinet be called an "Achromatic Signal Source" hole but the consensus was it would raise a stink...
Wakka wakka,
Howie
Thinking a bit more about locating the Effective Directional Source measurement could be done simply with two phase matched microphones and an accurate positioning jig. Knowing the microphones' spacing would allow triangulation of the source just by looking at the phase difference.
So the E.D.S. Measurement could be simple and useful.
Of course it would not be hard to sweep levels and frequencies to get useful data.
So the E.D.S. Measurement could be simple and useful.
Of course it would not be hard to sweep levels and frequencies to get useful data.
Hi Joe.
Here in Perth according to age of suburb, it's normal to measure 245V at the wall socket, very often 250V, sometimes 255V....old 250V AC standard.
This item of yours would drop AC to 220V<230V which is ball park for European AC voltage devices. For Tube amp transformer/rectifier derived HT supply the mains voltage is important, I expect this box provides safe operation of Euro tube gear on WA mains supply, and any claimed filtering is a bonus.
Dan.
'Same but different', it would be fun to have a conversation with Jack and compare notes.
. I had a Friday night party/dinner party recently and a friend of a friend attended. I remarked that wine flavour can be changed easily. I poured two glasses from the one $20 bottle, one glass treated and the other standard and left them for five minutes or so. I then invited this friend to try the wine and he unknowingly took the treated wine glass and we each took a few sips over a few minutes and he remarked how good this bottle tasted. I then swapped glasses (he looked at me 'why ?') and we each took another sip....I was relieved to 'upgrade', he not expecting or understanding what was going on took a sip and very nearly choked and had difficulty in getting it down. His look of shock and then awe was priceless and very very funny. I then treated his glass also and we went on to down two bottles between us over the evening. I woke up next morning bright as a button (NO trace of hangover), and same with him I heard a few days later. Do wine judges/connoisseurs really understand what they are sensing when they judge a wine......I suspect not.
Dan.
I always love to see the unnecessary exaggeration in stories like this. "The untreated CD sent me running out of the room with my hands over my ears"
I have a feeling Dan telegraphs his expectations quite strongly with his tone of voice and probably facial expression. Easy to imagine him offering someone a glass with a warning tone of voice and a look of dreaded expectation at the victims first sip, in the case of bad tasting wine of course.
Why do I think so? He and I talked on the phone once, and during the conversation he put something on his phone to 'treat' it and then took it off. As he was doing that he asked me how it sounded. Even over the long distance phone it was quite clear he was telegraphing his expectations by tone of voice when he asked how it sounded each time.
Also, he can be a charming and likable guy. People might want to please him, or they might not even realize how they are being influenced. Some of what we talked about was how he might arrange his experiments to prevent that type of thing from happening. Don't know if he has started putting any of those ideas to use.
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