Cleaning up the power supply

Isotek's managing director Keith Martin
showing the new Aquarius power conditioner.

It's more vital to deal with EMI and RFI in power supply than voltage fluctuations, said Isotek's managing director Keith Martin.

In advanced countries, the voltage will not fluctuate very much. Unless you are in, say, Ukraine where the voltage fluctuation is really great you should not worry too much about it, he said.


Components like amps and CD players are nowadays designed to cope with plus minus 10 per cent fluctuation in voltage, so unless the fluctuations are really bad they will still work within specifications.


Dealing with EMI and RFI is more important because we are all bathing in high frequency radio waves with mobile phone networks, wi-fi systems and satellite television available in many parts of the world.


Holding up a power cord, he said it is actually a good antenna that picks up RFI and EMI which will end up messing up the power supply to the components in your stereo system.


"Just like Linn said back in the 1970s - rubbish in, rubbish out," he said.


Keith said the first upgrade any audiophile ought to make is not to buy a better interconnect or speaker cable, but a power conditioner.


“A better interconnect will improve the connection between components while a better speaker cable will improve the signal to the speakers. A power conditioner will benefit the entire system because all the components plugged to it will enjoy improved performance,” he said.


Keith was at Centre Circle Audio in Taman Tun Dr Ismail, Kuala Lumpur, last Wednesday to demonstrate the effectiveness of Isotek’s products and also to launch its latest power conditioner, the Aquarius, which replaces the GII Mini Sub.


To show how Isotek improves the sound quality by improving the quality of the power supply, Keith first compared a stock power cord with an Isotek power cord plugged into a normal power distributor.


Then he plugged the Isotek power cord to a Sirius power strip and then to the Aquarius. To complete his demo, he plugged the power amp to a Titan.


The sound system used for the demo was an Esoteric CD player, Parasound P3/A23 pre-power amps and Egglestonworks Diane speakers.


The Aquarius has six outlets and offers 16 amps in its two high-current plugs for unlimited transient requirements.


It also provides great instantaneous protection of 67,500 amps and better independent filter stages throughout.


It is also the cheapest power conditioner to feature the Isotek Adaptive Gating technology which auto-senses the load of each component connected to it and tailors the filtering process.