Quick Hit: Surge-X and power conditioning

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This was supposed to kill our sound
and save our amp.  It made our sound
(and sleep) better!

"You know ... if you use a surge protector you will ruin the sound"

I had bought into this idea, plugging in the amp right to the wall, since instantaneous power delivery was supposed to be compromised wheever anything was between the wall and power cord, and therefore the sonics compromised.  The only give-back I had, was utilizing a Chang Lightspeed powerstrip to handle sources and our preamp (low current stuff). For things well outside of the sonic pathway we still have a long extension cord to another plug with a standard (inexpensive) filtered powerstrip that the motors, and dirty digital stuff (Logitech Squeezebox Touch, Sonos, the cool Philips Hue products, and our Lava Lamp).

But ... every single time there was a thunderstorm rolling through, we got nervous - with visions of a smoking carcass of that amp (making us unplug the amp) - and that we aren't exactly rolling in money so it could take out our listening enjoyment for quite a while if we suffered a hit.  So ... while we trusted the conventional wisdom of audiophile experience, we felt we needed to do something even if it was going to degrade sonics a little to give us peace of mind.

We had explored getting a high current Chang Lightspeed, or any other higher end power conditioner all claiming to improve the sound through a variety of technologies from filtering, isolation or even regenerating the AC signal perfectly.  All were a little to a lot North of $1000 and our budget just wouldn't allow that - at least currently as we recover from an unplanned-on new roof.  (it isn't just electronics that fail in stormy weather!)

Given that Florida is the lightning strike capital of the US, a number of Audio Asylum Florida dwellers has a lot of useful advice - they recommended a number of brands, but based upon our (beer and not champagne level) budget, we carved out enough to get a 2 high current outlet from Surge-X (SA-20).  Our local audiophile dealer, Forefront Audio, got one, and given it had a captive plug for the 20A circuit we had, we also bought an inexpensive audiophile hospital style plug and the whole thing installed in about 30 minutes.

Over the last 3 weeks of owning things, we've noticed a lower noise floor, a little more detail, and better transient snap.  Given the 20A circuit is hardly dedicated (it covers this lower floor room and most of the upstairs) it's pretty clear the filtering helped a bunch.  And our only conclusion has to be that when it comes to system Synergy, take conventional wisdom as free advice, but not a law.  Try things out for yourself, since there are so many things that can and do vary in a particular system and particular setup, that there is plenty of room for experimentation.

(This is not to say that the rule of thumb is wrong, just that your experience might run contrary to this in your specific case!)

So ... we added a quality, but not astronomically priced, surge protector, and got better sound.  Perhaps you should violate a couple pieces of received wisdom and see if it works for you, too!
We're no longer worried about this.  We also improved our sound!
Isn't this a strange hobby?

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