Yesterday I wrote about the need for a one way gate for the power - meaning we want to see if we can't reduce the generated power line noise each piece of equipment produces from going back on the line. As well, it would be nice to trap out any other noises going into the equipment. If you'll remember, the generated power line noise is reasonably high on large power hungry devices like power amps and Power Plant regenerators.
One simple way to create a one way gate for the power is to simply add one in line with the device. Such a gate can be found in some of our older power products like the Ultimate Outlet, the Duet and Quintet and as of late the Dectet. These devices are all dual mode filters that remove two types of distortion and noise: common mode and differential mode (two technical sounding types of noise and distortion that I will explain to you in tommorow's post).
Remember I wrote that most inventions are born out of necessity? Well the PowerBase is no different and here's why. To create this one way gate and reduce the amount of garbage our Power Plant was putting back onto the line in the sound room I simply placed an Ultimate Outlet in line with both of the P10's. The results were both noticeable and appreciated by anyone who listened before and after. Even the many blinking Noise Harvesters we have sprinkled around the listening room quieted down and seemed happier.
I, on the other hand, was not too happy with the added amount of clutter in the listening room. Remember, I had added the prototype isolation base to both P10's, thus enduring more boxes in the system - the benefits being so big you just couldn't not do it. Then to that I added yet another box, the Ultimate Outlet, hanging off the back of the P10 sitting atop the base. It was a messy looking affair. Plus, if you want to get real tweaky about it I was also worried that my idea of adding the properly diffused vibration energy into the unit sitting on the base was being hijacked somewhat by the external power cable hanging off the back of the Power Plant and unattached and unrelated to the isolation base. Right or wrong, these were the issues keeping me up at night.
Then the simple solution struck me. I have this big, empty chassis that was housing the floating isolation platform - it was just begging for something to be mounted inside and I had just the thing. I quickly whacked a couple of holes in the back of the PowerBase surface platform, added an IEC AC inlet and a Power Port AC receptacle. I then took apart the Ultimate outlet, mounted it's guts on the floor of the base and wired it all up. Bingo. All I needed to do at that point was grab one of the half meter power cables I had lying around and loop it into the P10 sitting on the base. Not only was this neat and tidy but lo and behold, because everything was working as a system it clearly sounded better.
Now, in hindsight, it seems so obvious to plug the PowerBase into the wall socket with my original power cable and this feeds a one-way gate inside the PowerBase and connect whatever was on the base with a short cable between the base and the unit.
Most really good product concepts are obvious once you see them. It isn't so obvious figuring them out.
