Quote:
Originally Posted by mikeg
Silly question, but any suggestion regarding how to label equipment without leaving a residue or scratches? As for Best Buy Monster Power Conditioners, have you ever found that they alter/improve the sound? Would any such improvement result for both tube and SS amps?
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Mike, for meets, I've seen lots of different ways to identify gear. The simple way is to use a small piece of paper (or post-it note) and then scotch tape it to the bottom of your amp or source, or staple it around (not through) the cord of a pair of headphone, etc. As long as the group is relatively small and there is not a lot of duplication of gear, identifying what is yours is not at all difficult, and people are quite honest and trustworthy.
The more important issue is figuring out how to get any "special messages" about your gear across, as Guru alluded to (i.e., not to place anything on top of certain sources or amps, or the like). What happens is that people get excited and start chatting about what they liked or didn't like about a piece of gear, and then they put a pair of expensive cans down in the wrong sort of way, etc. At one of the Milwaukee meets, someone's brand new amp get scratched in a fairly significant way, and he was not happy about it (obviously). Often times the space is limited, and this is a contributing factor. (You can see this from the pics taken at some of the meets.)
The other thing is that people don't want to be overly anal about their gear and come across in the worng way. At home, for instance, I handle my R-10's very delicately because there is no easy way to put them down without having the wood cups coming in contact with the surface of whatever you place them on, and thus they could easily get scuffed. Thus, I always place them on a little "throne" (a folded wash cloth actually) and it works for me (when nobody is watching the ritual). If I were to bring them to a meet, I'd feel silly asking everyone to treat them with such kid gloves, but once scratched, always scratched, so why not?
Concerning the power conditioners, there are mixed opinions about what they can (or might) do to the sound, but I'd say that for those that believe there are audible improvements, most would argue that they apply equally well to tube and solid state performance. The main things are 1) surge protection, and 2) power cleansing. The surge protection aspect is done extremely well with the Monster HTS 1000, 2000 (and the more current models). These conditioners are actually (IMO) real highlights (and great values) in Monster's product offerings. Accomplishing the power conditioning is a different, and more complicated matter, and one that arguably does not even need to be undertaken if you have clean power coming into your house/apartment to begin with. There are as many options here as there are with any other aspect of this crazy hobby. I really like the Tice Audio products, from the relatively low end (Solo A/V) to their flagship (Power Block III-C) but sadly, the company is now out of business. The owners decided to retire last year, and they closed up shop (there were only 8 employees including the George Tice and his wife). If you can find a used Solo or Elite model at Audiogon, it is still worth checking out. They live in Jupiter, FL, and may still provide some level of service, I'm not sure.
