Ferbose
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Jun 27, 2004
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I have briefly written about this before, when I reviewed Furman Power Factor Pro, but I guess not many people saw it.
Since the experience is truly interesting, I want to share it with more people.
In my lab there is a scientific instrument amplfier, costing about $4000. It was state of the art about 4-5 years ago, and it is used to measure pA currents from single neurons.
Just how sensitive is this amplifier?
Suppose you have thinnest copper wire imaginable, made of a sigle file of copper atoms (such wire does not exist). Take 1 meter of this ultra-thin wire and attach it to a 1.5V battery, the current you get is about 1 pA.
Another way to think about it. When a 10 cm wire is attached to the amplifier, it can detect the electromagnetic field generated by a person walking by, even when the wire is placed inside a five-side shielded Faraday cage. The cage is sitting on an air-stabilized steel table, with four shielding meshes on three sides and the top. Only one side is left as an opening so the experimenter can perform the work. Despite all this shielding, it can still detect the EM wave generated by a moving person. This is different from your body's interference with the indoor TV antenna. At home, a person is simply blocking an outside broadcast. In the lab, there is no EM broadcast. Instead, a walking person becomes the EM wave broadcast station.
As you can imagine, such super-sensitive amplifiers must have a superb power supply. In fact, you can't build an amplifier much more sensitive than this. Still, the amplifier has some internal noise.
One day we were just wondering if we can lower the noise floor of the amplifier. Normally, the amp is plugged into a cheap power strip. This is when I took my $229 Furman Power Factor Pro to the lab and plugged it in. To our delight, the amp's self-noise decreased about 30%, as seen on the oscilloscope. Wow, we can SEE this thing really works!
As you can read in my review, everything I have plugged into Power Factor Pro sounds better, especially components with seemingly weak power supplies. Seeing that it can lower the noise of even one of the world's most sensitive instrument amplifiers, I am completely sold on this unit. It is no coincidence that Furman is a leader of power conditioning products for the pro audio market. Even their cheaper stuff REALLY works. It certainly brought some improvement to a hi-end, ultra-sensitive scientific amplifier. If your home audio components are not as precision-made as some of the world's most sensitive scientific amplifiers, I am pretty sure Power Factor Pro will also serve you well.
Since the experience is truly interesting, I want to share it with more people.
In my lab there is a scientific instrument amplfier, costing about $4000. It was state of the art about 4-5 years ago, and it is used to measure pA currents from single neurons.
Just how sensitive is this amplifier?
Suppose you have thinnest copper wire imaginable, made of a sigle file of copper atoms (such wire does not exist). Take 1 meter of this ultra-thin wire and attach it to a 1.5V battery, the current you get is about 1 pA.
Another way to think about it. When a 10 cm wire is attached to the amplifier, it can detect the electromagnetic field generated by a person walking by, even when the wire is placed inside a five-side shielded Faraday cage. The cage is sitting on an air-stabilized steel table, with four shielding meshes on three sides and the top. Only one side is left as an opening so the experimenter can perform the work. Despite all this shielding, it can still detect the EM wave generated by a moving person. This is different from your body's interference with the indoor TV antenna. At home, a person is simply blocking an outside broadcast. In the lab, there is no EM broadcast. Instead, a walking person becomes the EM wave broadcast station.
As you can imagine, such super-sensitive amplifiers must have a superb power supply. In fact, you can't build an amplifier much more sensitive than this. Still, the amplifier has some internal noise.
One day we were just wondering if we can lower the noise floor of the amplifier. Normally, the amp is plugged into a cheap power strip. This is when I took my $229 Furman Power Factor Pro to the lab and plugged it in. To our delight, the amp's self-noise decreased about 30%, as seen on the oscilloscope. Wow, we can SEE this thing really works!
As you can read in my review, everything I have plugged into Power Factor Pro sounds better, especially components with seemingly weak power supplies. Seeing that it can lower the noise of even one of the world's most sensitive instrument amplifiers, I am completely sold on this unit. It is no coincidence that Furman is a leader of power conditioning products for the pro audio market. Even their cheaper stuff REALLY works. It certainly brought some improvement to a hi-end, ultra-sensitive scientific amplifier. If your home audio components are not as precision-made as some of the world's most sensitive scientific amplifiers, I am pretty sure Power Factor Pro will also serve you well.