Cables & Accessories

Stop bad vibrations once and for all with this isolation platform

There is 50 percent more silver used in the Silver Melody 2. 5 compared with the company’s original Melody 2 tonearm cable. The solid wire conductors are made from 99. 99 percent silver and insulated with the company’s dielectric material.

Current affairs Mains filtration removes high-frequency noise, but as Richard Black discovers Isol-8’s Powerline Axis goes the other way, removing direct current ains treatment specialist Isol-8 has been around for quite a while, but has not been over-keen to offer product for review. Evidently, the reason for this decision was due to the fact that advanced sales had outstripped supply, apparently! Now that this problem has been addressed, we’ve finally been able to get our hands on a sample and a fascinating product it is, too. In its basic form, the PowerLine is ‘just’ a mains distribution board – though it’s actually about as deluxe as such a thing can get, with silver-plated wiring, high-quality sockets, a solid metal chassis and so on. But the Axis variant adds something very unusual in mains filtering called DC blocking.

Electric Tech Want clean mains to power your hi-fi ? IsoTek’s range of passive mains conditioners promises you all that and more, says Jimmy Hughes The quality of the mains supply directly influences the sound produced by your hi-fi . If your mains is contaminated with noise (and it is!), the sound will lack transparency and clarity, making the music seem congested and lacking in dynamics. The solution? Invest in a good mains conditioner. IsoTek offers a wide range of products, from the mighty £6k Super Titan, to smaller more affordable solutions like the new EVO3 Solus at £595.

A mains filter that is fitted with a standard 10A IEC C14 input socket, the EVO3 Gemini has two output sockets also rated at 10A. The unit features star earthing internally and a delta filter topology to ensure filtration of both common mode and differential mode mains noise. Common mode noise is interference that appears on the live and neutral mains connections simultaneously and is often caused by external sources, such as RFI, which affects both mains conductors.

A pre-filter device, the EVO3 Syncro Uni can be used with any power cable, conditioner or mains distribution block. It plugs into the mains wall socket and its 13A output socket takes the mains supply and realigns its waveform prior to any subsequent filtration or conditioning. According to the manufacturer, it synchronises the mains supply to provide a perfectly symmetrical sine wave, designed to deliver significant sonic improvements to hi-fi separates.

The legendary twisted speaker cable with a reputation for screening out RFI gets put to the test