Balanced mains transformers, surge protections?

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Originally Posted by Ali Tait

No, you stated in post 3 what you already have, I then suggested that Steve could plug his Belkin into the Airlink trannie, which you repeated in a later post.
I too often wonder how many times things need repeating before they sink in. ;)

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I know it's already been stated and I had already thought of that option before starting the thread but I've seen it mentioned here and elsewhere that if you're using balanced mains then there's no need for additional filtration. So I was kind of hoping I wouldn't need the PF30's any more and could therefore sell them. I have 4 of them so I could get more than enough money back to buy something else. However, looking at the Belkin Surgemaster jobbie in more detail I notice that it does some EMI/RFI noise filtration anyway, so in the end I'd be swapping one filter for another which is a bit pointless.

My other issue with the PF30's is that I hate the sockets on them, they're shite. So I'd much rather use a quality mains block like those that Mark grant sells but then I'd be back to square one without the surge protection. :scratch:

The other option I've thought of is to try the PF30's as suggested and if they don't seem to have a negative effect I could replace the sockets on them with better ones.

So it's not that I'm not listening, I am and I appreciate the advice, I just decided not to go into great detail about why I'd asked about the Surgemaster. Although I had mentioned in my opening post that I wanted to replace the PF30's with balanced mains. ;)

Balanced mains takes care of any common mode interference or distortion, it doesn't take care of differential mode interference or distortion. The Belkins will help with that :)

I dispensed with all filters when I moved to dedicated mains.
I tend to agree with you, the Belkin strip units I’ve seen were crap both in construction and performance.
I have a distribution block which I built and that may be the way for you as well.

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Originally Posted by HighFidelityGuy

I know it's already been stated and I had already thought of that option before starting the thread but I've seen it mentioned here and elsewhere that if you're using balanced mains then there's no need for additional filtration. So I was kind of hoping I wouldn't need the PF30's any more and could therefore sell them. I have 4 of them so I could get more than enough money back to buy something else. However, looking at the Belkin Surgemaster jobbie in more detail I notice that it does some EMI/RFI noise filtration anyway, so in the end I'd be swapping one filter for another which is a bit pointless.

My other issue with the PF30's is that I hate the sockets on them, they're shite. So I'd much rather use a quality mains block like those that Mark grant sells but then I'd be back to square one without the surge protection. :scratch:

The other option I've thought of is to try the PF30's as suggested and if they don't seem to have a negative effect I could replace the sockets on them with better ones.

So it's not that I'm not listening, I am and I appreciate the advice, I just decided not to go into great detail about why I'd asked about the Surgemaster. Although I had mentioned in my opening post that I wanted to replace the PF30's with balanced mains. ;)

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You could rewire the Belkins with a good quality socket on end of a short lead, one for each socket on the back.

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Originally Posted by Welder

I dispensed with all filters when I moved to dedicated mains.

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I guess you could do, but i decided i wanted to give some isolation between SMPS & linear PSUs so that they didn't interfere with each other. With the seperately filtered outlets of the Belkins this can easily be realised ;)

:lolsign:

I can see that this is a subjective area where there are people on both sides of the fence when it comes to filtration. That's fine and I know that mains filtering can be quite system dependant. So, I guess the way forward is for me to try both ways. I have a Tacima filtered block to try as well, so I'll try both filters and no filter and stick with the one that sounds best. If that happens to be without a filter and I don't have surge protection then I'll get one of the little Belkin surge protectors and maybe an APC one that I've seen and try them. If they knacker the sound I'll decide what to do from there. At least then I'll have covered all the bases. :)

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Originally Posted by Ali Tait

You could rewire the Belkins with a good quality socket on end of a short lead, one for each socket on the back.

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That's the sort of thing I was thinking. :)

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Originally Posted by Reid Malenfant

I guess you could do, but i decided i wanted to give some isolation between SMPS & linear PSUs so that they didn't interfere with each other. With the seperately filtered outlets of the Belkins this can easily be realised ;)

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Balls! I'd forgotten about that and that was one of the main reasons I got so many PF30's. :doh: So I might be sticking with them, or at least some of them after all. :lol:

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Originally Posted by Reid Malenfant

Lets not clutch at straws here Ali :D Yep you are dead right, i stated in post 3 that i was already running a pair of Belkins connected to the balanced output of a P600 ;)

Now apart from the fact that fact that the P600 is a regenerator it's output is still balanced & the Belkins work fine, even if they show things are connected incorrectly (which they aren't - it's just that they get confused with balanced mains) :)

By the way, i'm glad i'm not the only one that wonders :lolsign:

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Who's clutching at straws? :eyebrows:

How much of an improvement did you find the regenerator?

Well Dave, whichever way you go I would be very interested in hearing how you get on with the 5 kVA unit if you get it :)

With regard to SM PSU the answer of course is not to have any on the dedicated spur ;)

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Originally Posted by Ali Tait

How much of an improvement did you find the regenerator?

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Humungous Ali, i would never want to be without one (even if the twat uses loads of juice & acts like a space heater :eyebrows:). For the first time ever, even with a dedicated mains spur i have zero pops, clicks or any other form of annoyance from my system.

It appears that the front end is the important bit for this as the power amps are not connected to the P600 ;)