I don’t consider myself to be an audiophile, but friends and associates who know about my home theater hobby, and have an understanding of the time and money invested; think I’m an Audio-Nut, which actually may be more accurate.

Upgrading my system has taken a few major leaps in the last couple of years, one of which included the 950. All of these changes benefited the listening and viewing pleasure in different and sometimes unexpected ways. Most of the changes had one significant dependency in common, power.

Now, I have never been an advocate of power conditioners, hospital grade outlets or super expensive power cables. I considered these types of products mere hype. I just thought if it got juice, you were set. Well no more.

Here is what happened. After all the various additions to the MeanGene Home Theater I found that I could not play DVD’s anywhere near 0 dB. (Zeroed with 950 test tone @ 76 dB SPL) The 15A house circuit breaker providing all the power for my rack would trip leaving me in the silent darkness. This wasn’t a show stopper as I rarely play anything at that SPL (I measured over 115 dB once with ear plugs). But on the occasion where the movie/music demanded it, I didn’t want to be left in the dark. So I decided to upgrade the electrical system in my house. I had the electrician come by and add two 20A dedicated circuits to the home theater room. While he was there he found that some of the breakers were weak and some connections were a little loose with a bit of green corrosion on the wire ends. We replaced all of the breakers in the panel and made sure everything was clean and tight.

My expectation would be that I would have the same sound quality without a breaker tripping during high demands on the system (2000+ watts). The revelation was that the sound quality did improve, and very noticeably.

The improvement in sound in most noticeable in the lower frequencies. The bass is much stronger with greater detail. It sounds like the subs and woofers have more control over their voice coils. For example, I have two 15” sub woofers that are currently using drivers that are lacking (replacements are on the way). During high excursion they would start to blubber or loose control. I had thought that it was exclusively a driver problem, but the change with 20A for the amplifier circuit gave these meager devices a clear improvement. They are far less susceptible to the control problem now. Drum beats are more accurate and sharper then before.

I have wondered to myself about some of the Home Theater hype that is out there, will I actually hear the difference or is this just eye candy. Well I can tell you now that giving good power to your devices, if it’s not already there, WILL provide a positive audio difference in your system. It was a revelation to me.

I was lucky. When I began to install really good equipment in the basement room dedicated for music and theater, I installed a 20 amp dedicated circuit. I have never tripped the breaker and since it was new, there was no corrosion. I have always been impressed at the fidelity I got right off the bat, even with my old Denon receiver, then adding the M200s, then the pre-amp. It is truly a great recommendation and should take precident over expensive "power conditioners" and the like. Good thread. I am curious about others experience as well.

Glad you're happy Gene, but the term "expectation" comes to mind. Unless your mains were actually providing very poor power (which, honestly, it sounds like they might have been) it should make no difference with well engineered devices. If you were experiencing excessive voltage drops during high demand, that's a different issue, of course. But then, that's "very poor power", not merely "mundane power from the wall". The latter is what those gizmos we love so much are DESIGNED to use.

Well, I'm not sure what your saying exactly, all I know is that I could hear a difference, and any system that is engineered correctly will have specifications that require a reliable, consistant power source.

Read this:

With everything Engineered right to begin with, this simple change to your existing system power cord has the following benefits....

increases the cords effectiveness in carrying the instantaneous current demanded by any size amp or load. This allows for maximum subtle detail and negligible current limits, allowing your high powered components to finally breathe and sound less restricted with better dynamics and bass control..

This cord... will allow your amp to do its work way down LOW, bringing out an articulated low frequency bass response from your system, while opening a window to all the small, delicate, lifelike nuances of the mids and highs, all in a well balanced, natural way.

So my question to those watching is, If a mear power cord can make this much "Claimed Difference" how much of deference would it make to actually give the system the power it was originally desgined to use?

Electrical power is produced at a generator plant hundreds, or thousands, of miles from our homes. It travels via a hodgepodge of aluminum, copper, transformers, fuses, circuit-breakers, conditioners, meters and other devices until, finally, it makes a tiny journey a few feet from your wall outlet to the device it's destined to power.

No, replacing a perfectly functional basic cord with an exotic one won't improve the sound.

As I said, if the change you noticed is real, your house wiring was defective. Not impossible at all, from the conditions you describe.

I agree with charlie that the physics of electrical power distribution makes the changes to the cable carrying the power over the last few feet should not affect the way a piece of equipment operates, at least as long as the original cable wasn't significantly undersized or damaged. The only thing that last bit of cord needs to have is a conductor that is properly sized for the peak power consumption of the piece of equipment.

That does lead to a few "stating the obvious" observations. One, if the cord you are starting out with is undersized, then replacing it may offer benefits - it may actually allow a component to receive the full current flow that it needs. Carrying that a step farther is another observation, which relates to the post that started this thread. If the circuit that a cord is plugged into is overloaded or fed from a panel that is overloaded or otherwise restricted (corrosion on conductors that limits current flow, as an extreme example), then you are in much the same situation as you would be with a skinny little power cord connected to a properly sized and installed circuit.

What he said.

Basically, a device will draw the current it needs unless the circuit is badly damaged. What can happen in extreme cases is that the act of drawing that current causes a significant voltage drop across the circuit conductors. The conditions Gene described are prime candidates for this, but it's not a slam dunk. Why? Because some drop in voltage will ALWAYS happen, since the resistance of the conductors is non-zero. Devices must be designed to deal with some of this effect, but even the very best engineering has it's limits.

One of the things I like about Outlaw is the tradition they're building for being an old fashioned no bullshit High Fidelity vendor. Of course, the reality is that some concessions must be made for marketing reasons, but even given those, nice one Outlaws. Well done.

Kudos to them for it.

I agree with most everything I have read here, but I have to state that the wiring and circuits were not badly damaged. I saw the old wiring and there was a little greenness to the end of the wire connected to the breaker and everything worked fine, it just would pop the breaker in the panel if I got close to 15A which a 2150 watt system can do (amps only). Now the system has good connections, new breakers and I was startled when I could clearly hear a difference. It was startling because my expectations were the same as what has been expressed in this thread. I never would have dreamed that I would hear a benefit from this change to the system. I just can't explain it.

PS. I don't use $500.00 power cords either.

i beleive you meangene

i beleive you meangene

He really does, meangene.

And to be honest, I don't doubt you, either. Clearly, your old 15A circuit was not fully up to the task of delivering the needed current to your equipment - either due to age on the breaker itself, corrosion (which would have a significant impact even with a small deposit, since it will be a much poorer conductor of electricity than clean copper), or both. You might even say that your case is a good illustration of why having sufficient current available for your equipment really does help.

As a side note, my new drivers are in California now and should be here by Saturday. One of the reasons for the power upgrade. I will be installing two of these into the system.

Update:

The new 15" 27mm xmax drivers are installed and working well. Along with the "power supply" upgrade, they are sounding very good. Sometimes it is outright scary.

Sub Pictures

MeanGene I'll bet thats a far cry from the original BSR drivers

Well they are very capable.

Avalanche 15 Demo

Ooooh, Avalanche. I've heard some very nice things about them even before you consider their price.

There on sale right now and I could not pass up the deal.

Ah, they're still trying to get rid of their XBL^2 technology drivers.

my only question is this, why not 18s? its like wheels for your car, everyone rolls around on 15s, but you dont see that many 18s, yet they are so much nicer... :-)

no more burnin paint on the 'volks',meangene?

'bout time :p

They are a significant improvement and yes there is no longer a smell coming from the burning paint Volfenhags.

The box's I'm using now will only hold 15's but I have a cabinet that I am thinking about adding a couple of 18's to. But, that means I'll have to get a Sampson S4000 to drive them with. At this point I'm really not sure if I need them. The room is such that the LFE is greater within the house with the front door open. My daughter played a U2 DVD the other night @ reference and we hit 105-109 db in the middle of the room. For me that's more than loud enough. (Cal. Outlaw 950 tone 76 db). At that level the twin Mesa/Boogie amps were running with only the first set of LED's lit and the second set barely flickering. The first LED comes on at 12.5 watts (-12 db); the second at 50 watts (-6 db) and all three at 200 watts. The Sampson S1000, running the twin Avalanche 15's, was just starting to lite it's third LED. So there was room to go if I wanted.

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The last couple of years the my system has gone through a lot of changes. So right now I would probably need a "running run down" What did you have in mind?

If you go to the MeanGene web site there is a fair amout of informtion on my equipment. Just click on one of the pictures and then use the direction arrows (next). That will provide you with a description of each component.

Start Here

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