Having found an immediate significant benefit of adding a full fat Powerline to my Nova which is my current interim streaming source into the NAC 282, I’ve played with another Powerline on various bits of equipment.
There are so many permutations/options to try it’s a little overwhelming, though Powerlines on everything would probably be great in the fullness of time.
I run active SBLs with 2 olive HiCaps, 2 olive NAP 250s and an old Naxo.
Trying a Powerline on each of the HiCaps, I wasn’t immediately convinced.
I’d need to remove from Nova to try both on the pair of NAP 250s.
I seem to recall someone saying that a Powerline on the NAPSC made a huge improvement to their 282 - tried it last night and there seemed to be a no insignificant improvement which is hard to understand, though I suspect down to less noise in the control circuitry.
I’ve perused a few older threads, but where have you found the best ‘bang for the buck’ when adding individual powerlines?
There are many many users that find a PowerLine on the NAPSC made the biggest improvement.
Let your ears decide. I also found it made zero difference on the NAPSC. Absolutely zero. I stuck it on the main power supply instead and it made a subtle improvement. Grouped with PowerLines for the source and power amp too, the total improvement was far better value than 1 on it’s own. It’s really an “icing on the cake” upgrade though after racking , interconnects, and cable dressing are all done properly.
I have a pre-loved one, which is on my XPS DR, following “source first”. It was a bugger to fit in, so it’s staying there, Quite keen to try one on the Nova. That leaves the HiCAP and SN, not sure whether to go with them?
Just noticed a typo in my original post which should say ‘not insignififcant improvement’.
The Powerline on the Nova seemed to give a massive uplift, far cheaper than the next black box upgrades I’d been considering, and while they may be the icing on the cake, domestic considerations/budget don’t always allow all the other extras we’d maybe aspire to.
I’ve always felt however that they are potentially one of the simpler relatively cheaper upgrades that you can not only add in quickly, but will carry forward when you do eventually sort out interconnects/cable dressing and so forth.
Knowing when to upgrade from stock intreconnects/power cables is I think tricky as many of us have probably thought they’d only really benefit veryt high end Naim equipment but that may not be the case.
@Alley_Cat, In view of the fact that the recommendation with SuperCap into 252 is to run the Burndy and SNAIC close and parallel but not touching I’d suggest you try this as well. There were suspicions that the NAPSC or anything close to the SuperCap might degrade SQ, but I suppose with a HiCap placing NAPSC on left on the same shelf might work.
You could then see what the benefit of Powerline over other mains cords was.
@Alley_Cat when I had my NAC282 powered by HCDR just used the normall power cables, I always kept my Powerline on my 300 which I found gave the best results
in my current system my powerline is now working on HCDR which supplies my NAIM pre fix, in all the tests I have done over the years the best and moreover biggest improvements is using powerline on the largest transformers and not on sources
I have just added in some new Titan Audio powerlines which are superb
There’s a lot of heresay around about the NAPSC being a noisy power supply from an EMI perspective and should be as far away from a preamp as pissible. I have no idea how this got started. It’s a toroid like other Naim power supplies and is therefore inherently quiet on the EMI front. It’s core size to output ratio is suffiently conservative whereby core saturation and stray EMI flux is unlikely. The substantial casing provides decent redundant shielding too.
That way you avoid tilting the performance too much. The synergy when all is switched is magnificent and fully balanced
Worst balance for me was with two PL, best ofc with full and second best with only one. Noice floor drops with every one and perceived loudness occurs, but that goes away with full set
