HiFi News have a vintage section.
If a product is still popular after 5 or 10 years, I take that as a good sign, as was the case with my Reed 3P and RCM phono, both bought new. The Reed 3P goes back to 2011. I bought an EAR Phonobox as it was the successor to the EAR 834P, which was in production for 49 years.
I just can’t buy into this 100%, ‘the only truth is your ears’. There are optical illusions that fool our eyes and I am sure there are audio illusions that fool our ears.
If I spent $10,000 on a 3m interconnect, I am sure this is going to toggle a switch in my brain telling me this sounds better - at least until the next miracle product comes along. How deeper and how wider can the sound stage become, or is this something infinite?
When I buy equipment, I look for a combination of sound, quality, reputation, appearance, construction and measurements. I’ve noticed on several occasions Paul and Ted making sure we know PSA owns four Audio Precision analyzers. Why do we never see any results from this equipment published? It would be a real benefit to PSA.
One other comment, if PSA is to be taken seriously and play in the ‘big boy league’, why do they still sell the Noise Harvester on their web site? This product has been ridiculed from both sides of the fence and it does not enhance PSA’s reputation.
Well those parameters all come into play for certain. For me at the end of the day what matters is how the components under consideration play together, a certain synergy so to speak, in my space. To my mind’s ear the whole audio experience is an illusion, and the hobby a pursuit of that illusion personal as it may be.
The PSA folk may wish to directly address your measurement questions and thoughts on the Noise Harvesters. I have no comment as only they can answer it directly, all else being speculation. 
Precisely.
Choose and enjoy your illusion of choice.
So Rob_W, have you personally tried using a Noise Harvester?
Just one more thing, which sort of big boy league gear do you have…?
Might your reading be ASR sourced?
Best wishes
I have had a solid electronics background for close to 30 years. The whole concept behind the NH is pure bullchit.
On a side note, any quality product is going to have proper conditioning and filtering on the a/c side. Even Bryston publishes in their user guides for their amps to plug them straight into the wall. For products that all run at the DC level, there are better places to spend your money than on the foolish idea that a NH is going to improve your sound.
The OP defined the ‘big boy league in his opening post’.
Well, here we go…
The Noise Harvester has always intrigued me. My assumption is it works through induction with a circuit tuned to the frequencies at issue, while allowing all other frequencies to pass unaffected.
Leaving aside whether there is any audible impact, could the unit work this way?
My grandfather used to say that “golf” is the great equalizer. If someone claimed to be perfect, bring them out on a golf course, lol
that item generated 400 skeptic posts
if I had a nickel for each one…
I have been a HAM radio operator for several years now. I am no more an authority on HAM radio than I am on the audio hobby. However, there are many similarities. I have to deal with common-mode noise, RF interference, grounding, bonding and a variety of other factors in order to reduce my noise floor. Like audio, the cleaner my noise floor the better my signal quality.
Much like audio, the less interference in the audio chain the better the SQ. Some of the most benign objects in your house like wall warts, plasma TVs, light dimmers and some LED lighting emit RF noise. You might hear and and you might not but its there.
I know there are many of you audiophiles out there that will spends thousands of dollars on a product to improve your sound yet offer no conclusive evidence that it actually works other than your perception of the sound stage as interpreted by yourself.
I have quite a collection of high-end test equipment that comes with my other hobby and one of my favorites is my Hewlett Packard Spectrum Analyzer. I could not show measurable proof that one certified USB interconnect performed better than another USB cable.
I joined a conversation here last fall on the Matrix 2 and was able to demonstrate there was no noise or interference on my $100 Chinese LPSU compared to the $400 and $500 units members of this forum were purchasing. My spectrum analyzer only went down as low as 15Hz but it clearly showed there was no a/c or a/c harmonics infiltrating the DC output.
If you are chasing the perfect SQ, I would suggest areas other than the a/c line in.
Thank you, Elk. Best comment so far this year.
I don’t see why Audio Precision measurements should be published. AP make devices to measure various performance criteria during the design process. PSA engineers may set a design criterion, amongst others, for example, that THD must be < 0.01% over a certain range. The AP will tell them that, job done. Various PSA engineers have said, to the effect that THD has to be low enough, it is not the be-all and end-all single design criterion as some misguided people think it is.
A comprehensive set of measurements might run to hundreds of tests, including, for example, observations on subjective listening tests trying out different brands of capacitors.
It would be easy to criticise a THD result of 0.009% when 0.0001% is possible. What it would ignore is what the designer set out to do and how lower measuring THD might have compromised other design criteria.
That’s why most people listen to audio rather than measure it.
The age-old question of whether one listens to music thru a stereo system to know how a stereo system sounds, whether one tastes food to know how food tastes, or whether one measures tests tones thru a stereo system to know how real music sounds and analyzes/measures food to know how it tastes.
I would add that going from a very long non-dedicated a/c mains ring to a very short dedicated a/c direct feed made a large and obvious difference to the noise floor in my digital and class D system. The noise in the old system could be cured by good mains conditioning. It was no longer with the improved wiring, so I sold it, and bought a much cheaper device primarily to isolate the components from the noise the generate and feed back.
You’re not going to get many people here agreeing with you that incoming is not an important factor.
I find that Toblerone that measures 500g is better than Toblerone that measures 250g. Only my personal opinion.
I had to look up toblerone, as I have not heard of that before, LOL
Any good quality hi-end amp is going to have large transformers and caps to do all this filtering for you. Companies like Bryston and McIntosh suggest plugging directly into the wall. I am sure there are many other companies that make the same recommendation.
I don’t lose any sleep over what people choose to believe or not believe but when it comes to the a/c side including power cords and fuses, I did not drink the Kool-Aide.
I am not interested in efficacy at the moment, but rather in how do Noise Harvesters work.
How about Nonsense Harvesters? 