I just installed a
Balanced Power BP 3.5 (new version), and it is stunning what it does for my system. I already used an older power conditioner on all but my amps (a Straight Wire Power Purifier PP-8). I chose this unit because (a) lots of great reviews of BPT products, (b) consistency of reviews (similar benefits, no negative reviews), (c) sensible, proven technology (although this unit includes Bybee filters which are controversial), and (d) it seem it would be able to drive my amplifiers well.
I shied away from the PS Audio products for three reasons. (1) They put out tons of heat, essentially as much as the equipment you are powering. (2) To power my amps, I would need the P1000, which is about $4000 USD. (3) the fact that so many waveform options are provided on the PS Audio products, and make sonic differences, suggests to me that perhaps the real issue hasn't yet been zeroed in upon. As with most emerging technologies (such as early digital), the expensive and over-engineered early products are examples of throwing money at the problem, and luckily hitting a few good solutions; yet the later products are far better at vastly lower cost. The PS Audio products are among the very best, but I had this philosophical objection (yet, it may turn out that the waveform tweaks are just the ticket to satisfy power demands, which often occur right at the peaks, making perhaps a triangle, for example, a better waveform... I just don't know).
Anyway, I chose the BPT product to start with, and set up a system including three extra power cords (to my two amps and my SACD player).
I'll get into a full review later. But my impression, and my wife's (better hearing and often faster discernment of subtleties), is that this has greatly improved the system. Many aspects of sound have clearly gone significantly in the direction of more transparent, subtle, resolving, focused, and controlled. And, the musical enjoyment is not diminished in any way.
The overall voicing or tonal balance was not changed. However, the bass is more defined and controlled, perhaps due to the lower output impedance of the power conditioner providing current when demanded, not a moment later due to inductance and resistance... hence making the bass a bit loose and having a sort of bounce back to it, as many tube amps can be heard to have. Now, the bass feels a bit more as if it is grounded to bedrock. Solid, with better inner detailing and separation of bass plucks, drum pats, foot tap shudders, pianos resonating (sounding large and 3-dimensional), and so on.
Midrange is more focused and detailed. On Dire Straits' album On Every Street, the remaster, track 6 (You and Your Friends), his voice is more focused, less vague. It moves forward in space just a bit, so it doesn't sound like he's behind a cloth, and the texture and expression of his gruff voice is far more clear. I hear vocals on Industrial Disease from Love Over Gold that I never made out before through the raucus din.
Treble is less hard in the lower treble, more extended and varied in the upper treble. I found that changing the feet under my SACD player made easily obvious changes to the treble, and it was easy to hear which was more "right."
The soundstage is bigger, closer in front, farther away in back, and instruments or effects appear more vividly placed and surrounded by their own envelope of air. The illusion of real instruments in front of you is much enhanced, at all frequencies. We just came back from the symphony last night, and the tonal balance of my system has been optimized to match live music; this power conditioner helped to make it sound even more convincingly real in its spatial, textural, timbral, and dynamic qualities.
Dynamics are distinctly better. I find I hear more detail at a low volume setting, and that I feel there is less of a sense of overload or compression as I turn it louder. As the volume goes up, I just here more of what seems like real, live acoustic or electric musical performance. The quiet moments and the spaces between instruments seem free of hangover or smearing from preceding transients, a lack of noise that triggers the illusion of reality a bit better.
Switching to LP, I found there seemed at first a bit less of these qualities. Then I realized the Vendetta phono amp was not plugged into the BPT conditioner. Plugging the phono stage into it made an immediate improvement of the same types as with the amplifiers, described above.
This is all a first impression based on 4 hours of careful experimentation (including bypassing the BPT for a time) and critical listening. And, it has only been operating for 24 hours, so I expect improvements.
While this reads like an astounding difference for $2k (there are much cheaper units available by BPT, all of which seem to be good value compared to similar products with perhaps less real technology inside), please remember that my first impression was of little difference. Partly, it may be breaking in (capacitors, dielectric, even the transformer and cables will take time to settle in performance). Plus, I have never had quite this much resolution in my home system before, so it took a bit of opening up my perception and interpretation for me to recognize what was going on.... Once accustomed to it, bypassing the BPT made it painfully clear what had been wrong with the sound before. More coloration, less detail, vague images, a mushier presentation. Less high-end, but still enjoyable and musical.
I'd say the power conditioner from BPT was like upgrading my amps' power supplies, and upgrading my cables, all at once. Not quite as big as a new preamp and amp, because tonally the system was not so much changed as refined. But it was like having upgraded power supplies and capacitors (from 10-year-old current to new Teflon ones).
I wish I had a headphone amp to test in the same way. I can only assume a similar level of improvement would occur as I heard with my phono amp being added to the circuit.
Sorry for the length... I was thinking about writing this up, so you gave me an excuse. For those that are shopping or thinking about one, here are links, first regarding BPT, then regarding most everything else. I'll put them in the next message.
