Something New Has Arrived :~)

[bbosler]

 

I firmly believe that one of the main factors that should determine the value of an audio component is how it performs, not what it cost to manufacture. It is also determined by how easily somebody else can deliver the same performance for less money. So  $20,000 for what appears to be basically a balanced transformer seems excessive no matter how you value it. Knowing what I know about electronics, it is highly doubtful this guy has discovered a proprietary breakthrough in transformer technology that makes this one worth that much more than the competition, which is easily half that.

 

Hand wound, sounds sexy but at the end of the day… who cares? 

 

 

I do see the value in balanced power and of course never say never until you’ve heard it, but I do not see the value in paying an extra $10K to get his

 

[bbosler]

As I said, never say never until you've heard it, so I'm not closing my mind to or disparaging this device. However, it seems to me the jury is out on this until somebody does some listening tests that compare this device with the others available. There are a lot of options when it comes to balanced power. Every review I read about these devices seems to go on and on about how wonderful they are. So I'm not questioning whether or  not this unit improves the performance of a system. My questions is what sets this device apart from the others?

 

As far as specifications go, that is a bit of a red herring. At the end of the day it really doesn't matter how difficult they are to achieve or past a certain point even what they are. You may be too young to remember the Julian Hirsch era at "Stereo Review" where he raved on and on in the early days of transistor amplifiers giving glowing reviews of amplifiers that obtained lower and lower and lower distortion. Turns out they sounded like crap even though they measured very well. So bravo to these guys for achieving spectacular measurements.  Perhaps it is a monumental feat that they achieved 20dB rejection at 1 gigahertz or whatever the numbers are. Just not convinced it  makes any real world difference.

 

I have no doubt that Chris is hearing the stated improvements, but does this device perform better than those that cost much less? Given the challenges involved I doubt we ever see a balanced power shootout. One significant hurdle is the sheer size of these things as has been noted. Couple that with the difficulties in installing some and comparative reviews become logistically very difficult if not impossible. For instance, I  read a glowing review of an Equitech 5Kv wall mount unit that weighs over 300 pounds and had to be installed by electricians as part of the electrical system versus just plugging it in.  The reviewer bought it before the review so he could get it installed. Does the unit discussed here outperform the $10K Equitech unit? We'll probably never know.