PLiXiR Elite BAC 1500 Balanced Power Conditioner

The PliXiR Elite BAC 1500 balanced power conditioner has five outputs to provide clean power to all of your sensitive audio equipment. It uses a custom built transformer from Noratel. The Elite BAC 1500 is a step up from the 400 delivering 1500 Watts of clean power. Each channel can supply 250 Watts. The single primary winding, transformer can reduce AC mains noise as well as improving the current delivery to the supplied equipment. Ground loop current and noise is reduced to negligible levels. As a result all the grounds of the connected equipment remain at the same potential. This is a well built unit that has a custom extruded aluminium casing with custom made isolation feet.

Top build quality

The casing is made from extra rigid aluminium. This is Precision extruded and CNC machined. Moreover the base plate is a 8mm thick, this anchors the unit and can ensure a long life. The unit is also mechanically isolated by the use of Bfly audio master pro-feet series, isolation footers. This is designed to stop any environmental vibration from getting into the unit. Each unit is hand built by master-craftsmen, using only point-to-point wiring. This means that there are no screwed connections to come loose.

A balanced power delivery system

The whole power delivery system needs to be balanced to avoid ground noise issues. This involves both mains conditioners and improved DC power supplies, for any equipment that uses external power units. The connecting cables also needs to be balanced. As a result noise can be rejected throughout the whole chain, right up to your audio equipment.

How system grounding can affect the sound quality

Ideally the mains supply should provide a clean and undistorted sine wave to the rectifier circuits. This is designed to then be smoothed and regulated to provide the power for amplifiers, streamers and the like. However, the mains can full of all kinds of noise and switching spikes. This comes from the miles of wiring which, act like an aerial. Domestic appliances can also put a lot of hash into the earth wiring. All this noise can find it’s way into your audio equipment, resulting in loss of detail.

Two Grounding paths

There are actually two ground systems in audio equipment. The first involves safety. The metal casing of equipment can become live under fault conditions. This would cause a severe electrical shock if touched. As a result the casing is normally connected to earth. Therefore, if the case is touched by a live conductor, the fuse or trip will blow. There is also signal ground. This is used as a zero refence for the audio signal. An audio signal swings both negative and positive, relative to ground. If the ground is not balanced it can cause clipping and distortion. Moreover both grounds are usually connected to each other. This feeds noise in both directions, to the connected equipment and back into the mains.

The solutions to ground noise

The PliXiR range of mains conditioners can address these issues by using a precisely manufactured isolation transformer. This may naturally lower the noise floor and improves the dynamics of the music without affecting the tonal quality.
The transformer only has one winding rather than several. These are normally used to make the transformer multi-voltage. The balanced design ensures that the live and neutral wires are truly at the same potential relative to earth. This increases the common mode noise rejection. The connected equipment will add very little noise to the earth system. The result is pure sound with no hum or hash. Furthermore, the live and neutral wiring is now out of phase. This means that noise in actually cancelled out.