excellent responses. i will dig into the stereophile url's today. good info there for sure.
and yes i was looking at the setup as basically a power generation circuit in my mind and thats how i got on this power factor thing. now i wonder if the PF has an affect on sound. is tweeking a setup to achieve a better PF going to be worth the time and effort. could one spend money on new gear only to realize a lower fidelity due to a decreased PF?
if so maybe adding some correction would be a benefit, or even a new revenue source for someone down the road.
in the early 80's i had a kenwood ka-1000 amplifier which had what they called sigma drive. it amounted to 4 terminals at the amp to connect each speaker. they were absorbing the counter EMF or something on a pair from each speaker. or maybe they were using the signal to tweek the amp for a better PF. i dunno.
i do know that a generator running solely on a distribution network will have a var measurement that can only be changed by adding capacitor banks as you describe located near the offending device. however when a generator is tied to the grid and a distribution network the generator var's can be changed by varying the exciter voltage, thus stealing var's if you will from the grid. the grid maintains the voltage. untied from the grid the exciter must be set to maintain voltage.
so maybe there was something similar going on in the kenwood amp to vary the var's. i really dont know......
and while speaker has been assumed in this discussion i was really thinking headphones all along. here i assume a bigger variance in PF, between say an IEM and like an HD-600. i'm thinking these are way different animals.
but maybe not i really dont know this stuff. just wondering. looking for the final tweek
