First off I'll start by saying that this is not a "commercial" for the product I'm about to discuss, but merely a commentary on the effectivenes of a high quality AC line conditioner on a DVD video signal. Having said that, my story begins with a visible and annoying AC-related interference that drove me crazy whenever I plugged the DVD into the receptacle nearest to the equipment rack. It looked like horizontal lines/noise in various areas of the screen. If I used a long extension cord to plug the DVD into another receptacle, it dissapeared. I tried every combination imaginable (with the equipment) with no success, the juice from the plug was apparently foul.
Being the smart person I am (or think I am), I purchased one of those Monster strips that the magazines rave about. Not the huge voltage stabilizer but the strip with level 2 filtering (whatever that means). I get home, plug the strip into the offending plug, plug the DVD into the Monster strip location marked as "DVD" and give the system a whirl with my fingers crossed. Could it be ? Ah, nope. No change whatsoever, not in the slightest. At this point I started using the extension cord I referenced a while back and let it be.
Fast forward a few months, and this weekend I decided to visit a local dealer who sells products by PS Audio ( http://www.psaudio.com ). They sell quite a number of AC-related products (among other things) that seem to make some sense. They don't sell black boxes that magically help your system, instead they open up their boxes and explain exactly how they work. Bottom line, I decided to buy one of their more simple products: an Ultimate Outlet coupled with a Micro Lab AC cable. Got home and tried it on a headphone setup I have (Linn Karik/Numerik, HeadRoom Cosmic, Sennheiser 580) and the difference was not subtle. All I can say is that I listened for quite a while to entire songs (an amazing feat for audiophiles).
Last night I got around to unplugging the headphone rig and plugging the receiver and DVD player. Once again I crossed my fingers and flipped the switch. Could it be ? Hey, wait a second this looks good. No scratch that, this looks VERY good. Guys and gals, the difference is quite outstanding. If the difference made on the audio rig was considerable, then the impact on the video side was nothing short of amazing. The most obvious difference was a the total lack of artifacts or extraneous noise, we are talking CLEAN. This in place lead to an image depth that wasn't there, to colors with punch yet very accurate and smooth, to less dither artifacts on dark scenes, to a great WOW ! I'll say this, I watched movies into very late in the evening with a setup I've had for over a year.
All things said I can't rant enough on the impact of a clean AC line going into your equipment, specially your DVD player. I will try the box on the projector side and see what impact it has, but regardless of the outcome I'm now an official believer and evangelist to good quality AC treatments.
Being the smart person I am (or think I am), I purchased one of those Monster strips that the magazines rave about. Not the huge voltage stabilizer but the strip with level 2 filtering (whatever that means). I get home, plug the strip into the offending plug, plug the DVD into the Monster strip location marked as "DVD" and give the system a whirl with my fingers crossed. Could it be ? Ah, nope. No change whatsoever, not in the slightest. At this point I started using the extension cord I referenced a while back and let it be.
Fast forward a few months, and this weekend I decided to visit a local dealer who sells products by PS Audio ( http://www.psaudio.com ). They sell quite a number of AC-related products (among other things) that seem to make some sense. They don't sell black boxes that magically help your system, instead they open up their boxes and explain exactly how they work. Bottom line, I decided to buy one of their more simple products: an Ultimate Outlet coupled with a Micro Lab AC cable. Got home and tried it on a headphone setup I have (Linn Karik/Numerik, HeadRoom Cosmic, Sennheiser 580) and the difference was not subtle. All I can say is that I listened for quite a while to entire songs (an amazing feat for audiophiles).
Last night I got around to unplugging the headphone rig and plugging the receiver and DVD player. Once again I crossed my fingers and flipped the switch. Could it be ? Hey, wait a second this looks good. No scratch that, this looks VERY good. Guys and gals, the difference is quite outstanding. If the difference made on the audio rig was considerable, then the impact on the video side was nothing short of amazing. The most obvious difference was a the total lack of artifacts or extraneous noise, we are talking CLEAN. This in place lead to an image depth that wasn't there, to colors with punch yet very accurate and smooth, to less dither artifacts on dark scenes, to a great WOW ! I'll say this, I watched movies into very late in the evening with a setup I've had for over a year.
All things said I can't rant enough on the impact of a clean AC line going into your equipment, specially your DVD player. I will try the box on the projector side and see what impact it has, but regardless of the outcome I'm now an official believer and evangelist to good quality AC treatments.
