David's Phase Linear 700B Thread

[Gepetto]

you cannot have more than one grounded 3 prong plug in your system unless you want ground loops and the associated hum.

See; the this is what I don't get. If that's the case; why do they develop a power center like this with six banks of two outlet three prong plugs? Isn't that just asking for ground loop troubles? A bank of two may be isolated from another bank of two, but internally yes; they all are connected to the same ground point. So I can see why any one component can introduce a ground loop into a system where you have multiple three pronged components. That's frustrating and I bet way over the heads of the basic consumer. I guess they do this to make the item more convenient to the user who has multiple pieces of gear that has more than two prongs? I doubt most care about hum.

See; the this is what I don't get. If that's the case; why do they develop a power center like this with six banks of two outlet three prong plugs? Isn't that just asking for ground loop troubles?

Because safety agency requirements require that they do this, that is why. They don't give a hoot about your audio purity (because you will buy something else to get that audio purity back), they do care about your safety though.

 

[Gepetto]

Dave
What is the model # of that Monster power center?

 

[Phase Linear Phanatic]

See; the this is what I don't get. If that's the case; why do they develop a power center like this with six banks of two outlet three prong plugs? Isn't that just asking for ground loop troubles?

Because safety agency requirements require that they do this, that is why. They don't give a hoot about your audio purity (because you will buy something else to get that audio purity back), they do care about your safety though.

Well that's just crap. Snake oil if you ask me. They hype up AC filtration and purity, and it's a bunch of hog wash for the real world practical use applications. (Introduce HUM here). Well what can I say about having it? I'm a softie whan it comes to pretty blue meters?

No wonder I have heard from certain folks thats thy make noise worse than before. But I don't have a ten bank wall outlet in that corner of the room. With each bank dedicated to its own 20amp circuit breaker to the box. Just the one upstairs for surround sound. I had them do that. Only plug in the house on its own breaker. After coffee here, I will try Joe's reccomendation. I feel better now that I am more educated on this.

oh, BTW, Joe; the international version you have the pics of? Thats exactly what my 700B looks like. I have that fat grey cord with the three prongs. And inside the amp, a stamp on the bulk caps says 220V. I suppose there is an extra winding on the transformer, as there is an orange wire sticking out capped off inside the amp by the caps. This is wired for 120V of course. (I believe there is a picture of that sticker somewhere in my photo album). But that three prong plug is giving me a headache here. I didn't even think about that. But this whole thing makes total sens now.

 

[Gepetto]

Dave
Don't get me wrong, those boxes do help to consolidate all your AC needs and eliminate the clutter. Just do not expect that they really will clean up your audio troubles. They do have valuable surge suppression on the AC lines as well.

 

[Phase Linear Phanatic]

Dave
What is the model # of that Monster power center?

HTS 3500 MKII. I bought it because the blue analog meter looked nice with my plan to upgrade the PL meters to blue at the time. Also to NOT have a big clunky power strip with ten million cords hanging in the back of my tower. It would be nice to have it in component form. The idea that it cleaned up AC and noise I thought was a bonus? But sounds like that was a bit misleading. After the money I have spent on the preamp, the PL's and the PL upgrades, upgrading to something far superior than this monster center just isn't in the cards right now. I blew that on the transparent audio line filtration surge suppression power center. Thats a three thousand dollar product. And my surround sound upstairs is more important. With the OPPO blue ray BDP05 being used to produce my SACD sound quality, balanced jacks and the Arcam processor, my $$ is heavily invested up there. It will be a while before I can replace the monster. In the mean time, I'll keep my eyes peeled.

 

[Gepetto]

HTS 3500 MKII. I bought it because the blue analog meter looked nice with my plan to upgrade the PL meters to blue at the time. Also to NOT have a big clunky power strip with ten million cords hanging in the back of my tower. It would be nice to have it in component form. The idea that it cleaned up AC and noise I thought was a bonus? But sounds like that was a bit misleading. After the money I have spent on the preamp, the PL's and the PL upgrades, upgrading to something far superior than this monster center just isn't in the cards right now. I blew that on the transparent audio line filtration surge suppression power center. Thats a three thousand dollar product. And my surround sound upstairs is more important. With the OPPO blue ray BDP05 being used to produce my SACD sound quality, balanced jacks and the Arcam processor, my $$ is heavily invested up there. It will be a while before I can replace the monster. In the mean time, I'll keep my eyes peeled.

I picked up my Topaz out of the dumpster. A construction crew was renovating a dentists office that had it plumbed in for the safety requirements. They show up on CL from time to time relatively cheaply.

It is a beautiful transformer, provides balanced power and faraday shielding. Weights about 90 pounds. It does nothing however to clean up the mess behind my audio rack and it does not have any lights on it either. It is also more of a feel good than actually doing much. I would not notice if it was not there. But it was free and followed me home.

If you open your Monster, you will see an array of common mode chokes, X caps and MOVs to filter and surge suppress the AC line but nothing to isolate. At the end of the day, AC is AC.

 

[laatsch55]

Here is a picture of an international 220V PL400. Note the round line cord instead of the flat 2 conductor cord we are all used to seeing.

The green safety conductor terminates at the middle leg of the leftmost 3 terminal barrier strip which ties it there to chassis ground.

International (EU) safety standards led US safety standards, now they are onto line purity and harmonic distortion of the current waveform

View attachment 9768

View attachment 9769

I notice a Whit Oak cap kit in that one.....

 

[laatsch55]

they do care about your safety though.


I have to disagree----they care to have safety records improve under their watch to further their careers when they move on.

 

[Gepetto]

they do care about your safety though.


I have to disagree----they care to have safety records improve under their watch to further their careers when they move on.

"At the end of the day, AC is AC."

As Lee would attest, dealing with 480 3ph

 

[Phase Linear Phanatic]

I picked up my Topaz out of the dumpster. A construction crew was renovating a dentists office that had it plumbed in for the safety requirements. They show up on CL from time to time relatively cheaply.

It is a beautiful transformer, provides balanced power and faraday shielding. Weights about 90 pounds. It does nothing however to clean up the mess behind my audio rack and it does not have any lights on it either. It is also more of a feel good than actually doing much. I would not notice if it was not there. But it was free and followed me home.

If you open your Monster, you will see an array of common mode chokes, X caps and MOVs to filter and surge suppress the AC line but nothing to isolate. At the end of the day, AC is AC.

Agreed. Faraday shielding? Ahhhhh....I haven't heard that term since school. It's funny how this stuff comes back to you. You have a nice component there Joe. Lucked out. If I had real $$ at my disposal, I'd spend thousands on a box that DOES clean up the AC. Make it a nice part of hat rack with the Linears. But no way I could justify that to the wifey. At least the blue meter on the monster looks to her like its doing something? I can make up a story to explain that one. Not so much with a 90lb brick transformer. Lol! But I would if I could. You are right. I used to sell those monster products many moons ago and I remember the talk of the MOV's and the chokes. I sadly am aware now that there is no isolation. And I can see that to have a product that does, would cost big! Still...........yeah. AC is AC. And its all gonna plug in to the wall. So you have to tie in your grounds in a multi outlet box somehow. Unless you have a 90lb torroid or something for each independent outlet, you aint gonna fix your loops. And then at that point, what practical purpose would something that large serve? Its be the size of a speaker. Sadly, to get audio purity, i am slowly realizing the tremendous efforts it takes if you are going to be serious about it.

 

[laatsch55]

Ok Joe, heree's one for ya. Was replacing an overload relay on a GE size 4 starter . Got it replaced, hit the start button and immediately the starter coil burnt then the 4/0 wire and the line lugs erupted in plasma and ejecta eminated from the panel to my hands, arm , chest and eyes. Had to go to the emergency room for the eyes, the flash burns to the hand and arm were kept from gettiung worse from the fact I always have a cooler full of ice with me at all times. 3 seconds after being burnt I had my hand and arm in the ice getting that latent heat removed quickly. I believe in those kinds of high intensity flashes a degree severity of burn can be stopped by getting it cold NOW!
Anyway, it continued in it's orgasmic plasma display until the center 150 amp time delay fuse finally went.Then the arc collapsed. My question-----what did the coil burning do to make the air around the line in lugs become conductive. This one is buggin me because it's not operator error like usual, that I have some control over, not understanding the dynamic here is F*&^% with me....


This was in one of our injection plants tha injects supersaturated salt water back in the ground at 170 degrees and 2000 psi, with a wee bt of H2S involved, just a horrible climate for anything electrical.

 

[Phase Linear Phanatic]

Grrrrr...... For all those reading; please ignore the constant grammatical errors. Typing on a cell phone with fat fingers is aggravating. I'm just going to assume you guys know what I mean to say when I mis-spell.

-Dave

 

[laatsch55]

Dave , I've made many here painfully aware of the FFS (fat finger sydrome) ovwer the time I have posted here. They're used to it.

 

[Phase Linear Phanatic]

"At the end of the day, AC is AC."

As Lee would attest, dealing with 480 3ph

Sounds like Lee is the unlucky field guy who had to deal with it. I spend all day wiring 480 3 phase. But my panels are never turned on until they reach final inspection. And thats not my territory. So arc blasts aren't my concern. But I can imagine once they have been in the field a while and something goes bad, then the field techs have the potential to have bad situations like Lee here. Thats aweful man. I seriously feel bad. 4/0?? Damn that seriously big sh*%# to be getting burned up like that! I think the biggest I have used is 2/0 inside the panel. And that crap is a bitch to bend! Makes the 120v phase linear issues seem like chump change doesn't it. :-/

 

[laatsch55]

No Dave, amperage aside, I've been more frustrated with board levels problems on Pl's that I've ever had on a corroded set of panels inside an injection plants. It goes with the territory and we normally have a bud to remind each other when we are about to F&^% up. In my case it's one of my son's--Kaleb. He was off that day, and up until 5 years ago I was the one and only company electrician, could not afford to hire one and I had told my partner I could handle it. have spent many a night standing in minus 20 degree weather waiting for that moment when something finally cliks inside the brain to solve the problem. BTW, the brain does not work the same when it's 20 below out.

 

[Phase Linear Phanatic]

Ok. Here is what I have come up with. I unplugged all three prong devices in the power center. STILL had hum. (this included the PL 700B that was running my high end). So I unplugged one after another of each two prong device. Until all that was left in the whole center was the WOA PL 700B. I Still have hum. Now from here, I'd check my ac in the wall, by my woman decided she was going to power grind the damn railing outside for repaint with a dremel. And has been going non-stop for hours. She won't listen to me to turn it off. So I can not say for certain that I have an AC problem on this circuit. I cannot eliminate this as a factor yet. IF I have a problem, then as soon as Doug's meter arrives, I will put it on a different plug in full range mode, connected straight to the wall. Maybe this will shed some light. At first I thought maybe I did a bad job at the gold RCA's I installed, but then I realized Jerry had no trouble so It can't be that. Is it possible I have an RCA interconnect issue? I used to have to isolate ground loops in my car stereo amp this way back in the day. I'd use a cylindrical device with RCA interconnects on both ends to fix the ground loops at the line level. I wonder............

 

[Gepetto]

Did you unplug the inputs to the PL and just leave the outputs to speakers in place?

 

[laatsch55]

If your hum was originating there ,possibly. Is the amp hooked to a pre-amp that is on, or if not, shorting plugs installed in he RCA jacks?? We gotta start somewhere, let's start there.

 

[Gepetto]

Agreed, hum is just another signal.

 

[Phase Linear Phanatic]

If your hum was originating there ,possibly. Is the amp hooked to a pre-amp that is on, or if not, shorting plugs installed in he RCA jacks?? We gotta start somewhere, let's start there.

Ok. Here's what's going on. I Just unplugged my RCA's. And the ONLY thing plugged in at all is the WO PL700B. No preamp involved. AND I HAVE HUM. Now what? The amp is passing hum through the speaker line all by itself? With nothing else in the loop? Odd goings on me thinks.............

Remember......before we suspect the speaker or it's internal xover filter, duely note that I had another 700B in this WO b's place and no hum was present.