After advice on buying a Balanced Mains Unit or Mains Conditioning kit.

it’s 3D now
 
I am so impressed I am going to email IsoTek tomorrow and thank them and tell them how good I think their product is.
 
I am so impressed I am going to email IsoTek tomorrow and thank them and tell them how good I think their product is.
Given the improvements you're claiming I think you would be wiser to email an electrician. Sounds like your wiring could be a serious fire hazard.
 
Or Arcam. If the "horrendous mains" (whatever that is) is leaking into the output signal that badly there's got to be something at fault.
 
It sounds like there may be a case of the placebo effect here.

However, if the op genuinely believes that there is an improvement in sq and there is nothing wrong with the wiring...then happy days to him.

I'm of the mindset that folk can spend their money on whatever floats their boat and if it's brought results then that's great.

Now I'm off to change my light bulbs to 30w because the existing 60w are playing havoc with my digital signal 😉
 
The icing on the cake was when I swapped out my RA super-fuse from my old RA extension block into the enclosed mains lead.
 
Now I'm off to change my light bulbs to 30w because the existing 60w are playing havoc with my digital signal 😉
Russ Andrews can sell you some Ferrite beads that are designed to precisely solve that issue!
 
paulguk just ignore those ppl sometimes those who make a lot of noise laugh at you had a lower end system than you of course they won't hear any difference on their setup like dannnielll for example using sony dz260 how can those make a difference on a 20pound cable use a home depot more than that are a waste of money.... marywhitehouse using monitor audio BX2 that's the worst speaker i ever heard of for the money a lower end dynaudio will owned them easily only.....IWC and you paul i see had a proper setup from the info below.....anyways all ppl are adult should respect each other opinion if you don't think so then just ignore behaving like a primary students hammering other ppl's comment that think differently doesn't get you anywhere in this world.....
 
Hmmm. Very droll.

So now we have someone who's actually gone away from their keyboard and done something about improving their HiFi system. He listened for any changes in a sighted test, and therefore may be suffering from expectation bias.

The standard forum response is sceptical, largely because of some ABX testing that gave negative results in a similar situation. ABX testing is generally used because of it's low probability of false positive results. In other words, you can be very confident if you do get a positive result. It achieves this at the expense of a high probability of false negative results, especially with audio tests.

1.
We know there's a significant probability of false positive results with sighted tests.
It's not inevitable though.
Sometimes the positive results are right, and sometimes they're not, but how do we know?
If you believe in every positive sighted result, you fall into the arms of snake oilers.

2.
We know there's a significant probability of false negative results with ABX tests.
It's not inevitable though.
Sometimes the negative results are right, and sometimes they're not, but how do we know?
If you believe every negative ABX test, nothing will ever get any better.

So if you can't depend on a positive result from a sighted test, then you shouldn't depend on a negative result from an ABX test, either. It's difficult, isn't it?

I'm not suggesting a solution for everyone else here. I've lost count of the number of times I've made a fool of myself in many years of blind tests, but I've figured things out to my own satisfaction, so that I can depend on getting a good result from a comparison. There isn't an easy way, it takes time and effort (which I'm reluctant to do any more). Whatever you do, you need to get a mixture of both positive and negative results under your belt first, from both blind and sighted tests , so you know what it feels like and can develop methods that work for you.

You can't do it just by surfing the internet.

Nick
 
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paulguk just ignore those ppl sometimes those who make a lot of noise laugh at you had a lower end system than you of course they won't hear any difference on their setup like dannnielll for example using sony dz260 how can those make a difference on a 20pound cable use a home depot more than that are a waste of money.... marywhitehouse using monitor audio BX2 that's the worst speaker i ever heard of for the money a lower end dynaudio will owned them easily only.....IWC and you paul i see had a proper setup from the info below.....anyways all ppl are adult should respect each other opinion if you don't think so then just ignore behaving like a primary students hammering other ppl's comment that think differently doesn't get you anywhere in this world.....
When I started this thread I was never asking if I should or shouldn’t be going down the route of mains conditioning, I was asking advice from people who had tried either of the two suggestions I had looked at. I had already decided I was going to tackle the problem. I have realised now (maybe naively) from this thread and other legacy ones on forums generally that it always opens a can of worms.

I therefore made my own mind up and settled on the IsoTek Aquarius an award winning product from a company that has invested heavily in the research and manufacture of it’s products. A company that is actually used by many HI Fi companies themselves including Arcam. A company that shows off their products at shows around the world and always seems to get positive reviews.

I can tell you that it has absolutely made a difference to both my HI FI and the picture on my TV. It has achieved everything I wanted to solve. Every listening session so far has been like when you listen late at night...clean mains.

I have therefore for the past week been having fun reading and conversing with so called experts on this forum who fail to recognise the problems of noise on the mains that has come into your house or is generated by your own and neighbours devices particularly mobile phone, WI FI and RFI. They all seem to be entrenched in their stuck in the mud beliefs and hatred of any company that sells products that try and tackle these issues. Russ Andrews always seems to give them the shudders. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think everything Russ and some other companies sell make a difference or are worth the money but a great deal of it is.

To sum up, adding the Aquarius to my system is probably the best upgrade I have ever made.

I have nothing more to say now but I thank the contributors to the thread that have provided me with great amusement in the last week or so.
 
paulguk just ignore those ppl sometimes those who make a lot of noise laugh at you had a lower end system than you of course they won't hear any difference on their setup like dannnielll for example using sony dz260 how can those make a difference on a 20pound cable use a home depot more than that are a waste of money.... marywhitehouse using monitor audio BX2 that's the worst speaker i ever heard of for the money a lower end dynaudio will owned them easily only.....IWC and you paul i see had a proper setup from the info below.....anyways all ppl are adult should respect each other opinion if you don't think so then just ignore behaving like a primary students hammering other ppl's comment that think differently doesn't get you anywhere in this world.....

Define “proper set-up”.
 
paulguk just ignore those ppl sometimes those who make a lot of noise laugh at you had a lower end system than you of course they won't hear any difference on their setup like dannnielll for example using sony dz260 how can those make a difference on a 20pound cable use a home depot more than that are a waste of money.... marywhitehouse using monitor audio BX2 that's the worst speaker i ever heard of for the money a lower end dynaudio will owned them easily only.....IWC and you paul i see had a proper setup from the info below.....anyways all ppl are adult should respect each other opinion if you don't think so then just ignore behaving like a primary students hammering other ppl's comment that think differently doesn't get you anywhere in this world.....

That is so pompous, unstructured and nonsensical I fear you must be an American.
 
When I started this thread I was never asking if I should or shouldn’t be going down the route of mains conditioning, I was asking advice from people who had tried either of the two suggestions I had looked at. I had already decided I was going to tackle the problem. I have realised now (maybe naively) from this thread and other legacy ones on forums generally that it always opens a can of worms.

I therefore made my own mind up and settled on the IsoTek Aquarius an award winning product from a company that has invested heavily in the research and manufacture of it’s products. A company that is actually used by many HI Fi companies themselves including Arcam. A company that shows off their products at shows around the world and always seems to get positive reviews.

I can tell you that it has absolutely made a difference to both my HI FI and the picture on my TV. It has achieved everything I wanted to solve. Every listening session so far has been like when you listen late at night...clean mains.

I have therefore for the past week been having fun reading and conversing with so called experts on this forum who fail to recognise the problems of noise on the mains that has come into your house or is generated by your own and neighbours devices particularly mobile phone, WI FI and RFI. They all seem to be entrenched in their stuck in the mud beliefs and hatred of any company that sells products that try and tackle these issues. Russ Andrews always seems to give them the shudders. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think everything Russ and some other companies sell make a difference or are worth the money but a great deal of it is.

To sum up, adding the Aquarius to my system is probably the best upgrade I have ever made.

I have nothing more to say now but I thank the contributors to the thread that have provided me with great amusement in the last week or so.

Have you ever bought anything you expected to make an improvement which didn’t?

like I said. I’ve tried a lot of stuff from expensive interconnects to silver speaker cables, kimber 12tc, power cords, mains filters and none of it made any difference in any of my systems.
 

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