Romy the Cat wrote:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6725955.stm No further comments…  The caT

Romy the Cat wrote:

Still, there is an interesting phenomenon that I never was able to understand. I observe Lamm’s show rooms from I think 1998-1999 to 2006 when I did my last audio show. Surprisingly all Lamm rooms at audio shows sound the same, even regardless of what kind acoustic systems they use. It was somewhere along the lines you described - everything is very accurate and good but tedious and disjointed. Ironically tediousness and disconnectivity were never was problem with Lamm electronics in my home or in other homes where I heard Lamms. I do not know where it comes from… Perhaps it comes from the fact that wherever Lamm does his shows to please no other demands then the barbaric and primitive demands of idiots like Fremers and Valins? Hard to say but if it talks like a duck and walk like a duck then it most likely not a porcupine….

Somebody Erick Lichte at his Stereophile blog posted a comment about Lamm/Wilson room at CES 2010

http://blog.stereophile.com/ces2010/super_priced_lamm_system/

Erick’s comments, Saturntube’s comments, Jason Serinus comments, the comments in response to the Erick’s blogs and many of my personal observations about sound Lamm’s show rooms are very in the same boat – Lamm’s room sound very hi-fi-ish on the shows. Still, I believe that this hi-fiishness: excessive brightness, compression, metallic electronic harsh edge around tones and many other unpleasant properties I heard from Lamm’s rooms at the show are not the properties of Lamm electronics and not the properties of Wilsons. From where I stay now I feel that all of it a result or Lamm neglect of electricity. Lamm’s PS, at least what I had are very susceptive to electricity problems and from what I remember and what I see Lamm does not use the PP2000, which is in my view monumentally stupid.

I kind of like the low-key of the PurePower marketing. They looks do not give their units to reviewers and do not advertise.  If I run the PurePower Company then knowing what PP2000 is able to do with sound I would do the following trick: I would get 50-100 PP2000 units, load them into track and drive to CES. Then a day before the show I would lend for free PP2000 to any vendor. Electricity in Vegas is famously bad and any vendor person with ears after a few notes of the PP2000 listening would love to power own room during the show. All that all that needed to be done is to walk over rooms with video camera, correlating the sound in the room with the fact of the PP2000 presents. The best would be to go on Saturday night and recall all PP2000 units (how about a remote-control activated bypass!!!)  Then to demonstrate how much Sound of the show goes to drain without the use of the PP2000.

Or course to pull stunt like this would make many manufacturers angry but fuck them, they hate each other anyhow and suck each other blog as they could. What is also would do is educate, really educate public awareness what is going on.

Interesting, I never heard the company’s products nor about the company. I have read everything they said.

http://www.tripointaudio.us/

I do not know how to interpret their claim it might be anything from pure BS to something real. Mostly the “features” described in these units are undoubtedly BS. They have own proprietary passive filtration components. I do not know what it is and have no idea how it sound. I know that one can have electricity with no EMI/RFI and still have electricity to sound not well. So, it is hard to say anything. The most controversial element in the Tripoint Audio description is their insistence that their units are passive but at the same time they correct AC waveforms. The only way to do it with passive units is to use resonators but then you can’t not make claims that unit uses no coils or caps. If the Tripoint is a passive unit that have no waveforms correction and all that it does is high-sonic quality noise filtration then I would like to see the waveforms and harmonic spectra before and after of the unit.

Anyhow, the company is in Florida and the only think that they missing from their site is an offer for in-home trial. If they care to sell those units that this is the way how it shall be done. There is a good tradition endorsed by practically all power devises selling companies – they all give this unit for in home trial. All that Tripoint need to do is to make a dozen of their units without that idiotic “elegant appearance”, laser engraved aluminum plates, African Bubinga BS and to send them to people to test the “functionality”. So far I am curios but not impressed.

From: http://blog.stereophile.com/ces2009/the_silence_of_grounding/

"Based on a new concept, the device uses passive filtration in the form of magnetism and layers of different materials (brass, copper, and proprietary products) to eliminate and reduce EMI and RFI."

Talk about shaking the bushes!

I like this line from the Stereophile "industry news" blurb:  "The Tripoint Troy employs harmonic tuning to create an extremely neutral, warm sound..."

"Harmonic Tuning"?

Riiighhht...

It's one thing to have a serious go at actually reconstituting AC current into stable AC voltage waveforms.  It's something else altogether (and who knows what it is?) to stick a bunch of crap in a box and simply insist that it does "good" things.

Something I do appreciate, however, is the totally absurd pricing, which you just know they had quite a laugh over at some point.  I mean, you have to hand it to them on this score...

I would not give the last word on power regeneration to measurements; but, at the same time, there are a few things that would be reasonable indicators that something was actually happening.  John Atkinson rightly brought measurements back to Stereophile.  So, measure this, already.

Paul S

I do not know where in what people say about Tripoint BS stops and the realty starts.  I do not refuse that by reducing or injecting harmonics into the AC fundamentals it is possible to moderate sound. Does Tripoint it and if it does it then does it do it in a proper sensible way is an open question.

As I understand they have two devises: one ground controlling devise and another is powers controlling devise. The ground controlling devise in a way reminds me the “explanation” for this one:

http://www.musicdirect.com/product/86638

In contrary to my skepticism I would like to experiment with those Tripoint devises. It is possible that they do some impact to sound, why not?  Dose it has any explanation to what Tripoint states? I do not know. Dose this impact as unambiguously positive as Tripoint would like me to believe? I have no idea and I do not think that anybody besides me will be able to tell it.  If Tripoint went to CES then they are looking sales. The way to sell those things is to ship it to customers for in-home trials. Everything else is BS. To find a reviewer-moron who has equipment with starving grounds and to confirm that “with Tripoint it sounds better” is not too convincing for me.

Romy the Cat wrote:

It is possible that they do some impact to sound, why not?

drdna wrote:

I can tell you already it will work. I have experimented extensively with adding lengths of metal to cables. It works well, but you can do a lot more by fine-tuning the amount of metal and in fact adjusting it slightly from left to right to balance the two sides. To get a very rough idea, I bet you have some lead solder lying around. It's very cheap. Cut off a coil of this and connect it to one of your speaker spade connections. Now hear the difference.

Romy the Cat wrote:

It is possible that they do some impact to sound, why not?  …. To find a reviewer-moron who has equipment with starving grounds and to confirm that “with Tripoint it sounds better” is not too convincing for me.

Adrian I can tell you that it is very much unknown if it work. Well, we need to defend what is “it” and what would be the definition of “work”. In my response you missed a very critical element - the notion of “starving grounds” and this is the key to what shall not be overlooked in the recognition if “it will work”. If you tried something and it work then it does not mean that it “work” universally. To dig it a next level is a bit tricky and never done by audio-reviewers, so we are accustomed to fast and superficial results. Let me to explain.

I also experimented extensively with the very same subject. It was not my idea but a friend of my who discovered it and built us a theory of the local election pools. He went further and come up with different methods to supply different types of elections by different means – I will not describe all details but it was extensive. What it was dumped in me I rendered many of his recommendations - absolutely nothing worked for me. They he told me the pattern – the effectiveness of those mans is in direct relation with the ways how grounds are implemented in a given system and particularly the amplification.

If you try all those methods of creation of local pools with Japanese mass-market stereo receivers that have suffocated PS, no good thin grounds, overly complex signal paths and printed circuit boards then adding local “electron pools” to cables, closer to the load will “work”. The reason is because the that equipment is ground starved to begin with.

Now, look how the “electron pools” are implemented in Melquiades.

http://www.goodsoundclub.com/PDF/Melquiades_SET.pdf

The last capacitor of PS  located (point “M” on circuit) is located in physical proximity, in fact it is physically welded into the main negative bus. The main negative bus is 3 twisted pure cooper wires of 8ga – it is thick and on place it has some parts of car-audio cooper grounding cable (it is a finder-thick). Pay attention that all 3 power supplies dumped to the very same negative buss. Then, the Melquiades tubes have grounded cathodes. That was a very essential and absolutely deliberate part of the design – electrons come to tube from power supplies via cathodes. If you look at the Milq pictures then you will see VERY thick wire coming to the cathodes. In fact do you know how the negative bus terminal is mounted in the amp – it held by the cathode pins of the tube sockets.  So, in the amp everything is done in order to not impede the electrons flow to the tubes and give to the cathode enough copper mass. The result is self-evident – the amp dos not need any ground help. 

I can use my own 15 feet burden in backward copper pool or I might use not ground of any kind – to the sound of the amp it will have absolutely no difference. I can add different metals to speaker’s thermals, I did it extensively - it has absolutely zero effect in my system. You can add a railway track to my speakers – not effect of any kind. The point is that adding the metals and paling with “electrons pools” makes sense only if the amp has initial issuers with “electrons starvation”. I do not know what power amp you use and how negative bus is made in there in relation to cathodes but from what you report it looks like it has some room for improvement.

Think about it as if an amp is a turntable. You can make a TT with million adjustments and each of the adjustment would do something to sound. Alternately you can make a TT that has a default right sound and no ways to change it. I bet the bus-loaded amps would react to cables much different than if the need the help of external “elections pools”…

Affect sound, sure; why not?  What in the signal path is inaudible?  By all means put lengths of solder on speaker terminals, etc.  But don't forget their claims, which should at least bear some consideration when we agree that this stuff "works".

I have already tried all sorts of stuff that "affects the sound" but simply does not effectively deal with sonic problems caused by BEP.  Maybe this is why I have such a hard time accepting an attractive $30k (or 8k, for that matter...) box of stuff that affects the sound?  And maybe it's also partly because their "explanations" sound painfully familiar. 

I agree that the money back guarantee seems like the least they can do, here.  No, I don't know what's in the box.  But 30K a pop should cover shipping both ways, too, come to that.

Paul S

Romy the Cat wrote:

I can tell you that it is very much unknown if it work. Well, we need to defend what is “it” and what would be the definition of “work”. In my response you missed a very critical element - the notion of “starving grounds” and this is the key to what shall not be overlooked in the recognition if “it will work”. If you tried something and it work then it does not mean that it “work” universally.

Paul S wrote:

Affect sound, sure; why not?

drdna wrote:

Okay, this is of course an excellent point. Naturally, if the system is optimized to begin with, this type of stuff will not have a beneficial effect. If you have done the experiments before, then you know what to expect from this, and probably there is simply not a need for it in your system.

I do not remember what power amp you run, I presume some kind of SET and I do not know what topology is it. But if you playback reacts to the "electrostatic reservoirs" then you might try to do the following. Open your amp and find the cathodes. Make a 2-3 inch circles from copper litz of 6ga. You will not find litz like this, so use 30-40 short pieces of 22ga. As the result you will have 2000-3000 copper parallel leads attached to cathodes. Run the amp for 30-40 hours. See if the sound of your amp change and the most important if your amp will react to the  "electrostatic reservoirs" on the speaker side as it was before.

I do not know anything about it and never heard about this conditioner. Today I was pointed out by a site visitor to this power conditioner and the visitor claims that he likes it, witch itself means absolutely nothing.

http://soundapplication.com/

There is no explanation, technical data, white papers or promises from the company of any kind – juts list of the endorsements and “reviews”. Hmmmm, not very helpful, and frankly speaking a bit disrespectful. It is necessary to know the operation principles of power devises as they work ageist different load and therefore different condition.  Anyhow, the company is in Berkeley, CA. I have no idea what their devise do, I presume it is just a different time low-pass filter. Did anybody use this? If it is a transparent enough filter then I might be used after PP2000…