There are mains conditioners

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4 REVIEW Clean-up Campaign There are mains conditioners and then there s the Isotek Super Titan, says Paul Rigby... There are mains conditioners and mains conditioners; for everyone who s had a good experience there ll be someone claiming a bad one. So you ve got to take each product on its own terms, in your system, and not arrive at any preconceptions. This said, Isotek s name precedes them; if there s one company that s made its (fine) reputation from mains-related products, this is it. They do a lot of live demonstrations at hi-fi shows, where time after time, they demonstrate the efficacy of their products. This prompted me to review this, the Super Titan, a flagship of their range. At 5,995 it s right on the edges of what even high end audiophiles would regard as acceptable, so for me it wouldn t be a case of it doing a bit of good here and there; to justify its price it would have to work wonders! Happily, I have a high end system (although even in this context 6,000 quid is pushing it), so I duly installed it and listened with interest... It certainly looks the part; it s a beautiful thing in its own right, and massive weighing a beast-like 30kg and spanning 500x500x300m, in no small part due to the fact that it has to deliver 32A. It builds upon the current Titan model but offers twice as much power and doubles the filtering capability: offering a group of four, seven stage, filters to help remove differential noise (the noise from your fridge, for example) and common mode noise which is a more insidious distortion that you only often notice once it s gone. Designed to work as a sort of pre-power conditioning combo with the current Aquarius conditioner, the reported ideal configuration for sound quality is to plug your power amp (or monoblocks) directly into the Super Titan, the rest of your front-end into the Aquarius and the Aquarius itself into the Super Titan. The point of the Super Titan? To deliver clean and consistent power. So what does it sound like? SOUND QUALITY Initially utilising Skunk Anansie s Stoosh as a test CD on an Icon CD- X1 CD player within a valve system, the listening tests began with the basic reference system presenting a tight, thumping bass with a dynamic rhythm guitar, smoky vocals with discernible acoustic guitar and cymbal elements on the periphery of the soundstage. Next, the Aquarius mains conditioner presented a more focused soundstage with now, centrally placed, rhythm guitar and bass. The downside was a slight upper midrange lift but the reduction in distortion, improved bass grip and more acoustic guitar and cymbal effects held promise. My monoblock power amps were then plugged directly into the Super Titan chassis. My reference system has never displayed such a wide and deep soundstage; bass power was immense, almost visceral, while Skin s sometimes subtle vocalisations proved that the upper midrange and treble were particularly nuanced and delicate. Finally, the monoblocks remained while the front-end loaded Aquarius was connected to the Super Titan. What I heard surprised and shocked me because, up until this point I was presented with more and better fireworks. The Super Titan removed that. For the first time, I was listening to the music and not the hi-fi. That focused soundstage of the Aquarius-only rig sounded false, in retrospect, and the basic reference sounded relatively veiled and lacking in bass power. Now, the soundstage had a more organic arrangement while each instrument could be heard clearly. In fact, I could have easily written the bass guitar part on a piece of paper, it was that lucid. Via my Avid Acutus turntable, Ella Fitzgerald s performance on Speakers Corner s Cole Porter Songbook was simply arresting. In standard reference mode, her performance was relatively stodgy, slow and tired. Post Super Titan, Fitzgerald revealed sparkle, a crisp enunciation and elegance. Also, a tremendous instrumental separation was drained of distortion by the Super Titan and, within the resultant gaps, new detail was revealed. CONCLUSION Power conditioning has always been of value, but with the Super Titan, it has finally come of age. Here is a system that never imposed itself upon the music. Here, in fact, the music was king, not the hardware. Yes, the Super Titan might cost a pretty penny but this is one of those highend components which is actually worth every penny providing you've got them in the first place! HI-FI WORLD VERDICT Beautifully built and presented, this is an extremely effective mains conditioning device but so it should be at the price! FOR - tonal accuracy - incisive detail and clarity - bass interpretation - 3D soundstaging AGAINST - price! JULY 2011 HI-FI WORLD

5 AWARDS Product of the Year A C C E S S O R Y IsoTek Super Titan Power Conditioner $10,000 We ve had excellent luck with IsoTek products over the past few years, and the Super Titan has worked flawlessly in our publisher s reference system. Combining some radical ideas to power conditioning with vault-like build quality, electronic and mechanical noise is eliminated from your system with the Super Titan. It s Neutrik connectors for the four power cords going out to your system is just another example of how everything under the hood of the Super Titan has been taken to the extreme. With a maximum capacity of 32 amperes (from a 110-volt AC line), the Super Titan requires you to call your electrician to get the maximum capacity it can deliver, but the results are well worth it. You ve never heard your system sound so free of electrical artifacts until you plug into a Super Titan. 208 TONE A U D I O NO.60

6 Equipment Reviews Print Version IsoTek EVO3 Super Titan Power Conditioner Reaffirms the primary importance of AC power to great sound. by Jason Kennedy July 6, 2013 ritish audiophiles are somewhat skeptical about power conditioning. After all, we reason, if a company has gone to great lengths to make a product sound good, surely it has put in enough power regulation to make further conditioning unnecessary. Nowhere is this strategy more likely to be the case than with power amps, which need as much juice as possible, and in the least compromised form. Decent power conditioners for amplifiers have been rare during my 25 years of reviewing, so I was quite ready to dismiss the IsoTek EVO3 Super Titan, despite its incredible bulk and top-notch casework. But that was a mistake -- the Super Titan did things for my system that few other products have managed, despite many of them costing more, and sometimes considerably more, than this beast. Did I say beast? I meant behemoth. The EVO3 Super Titan is huge enough (500mm) square by 11.7 (300mm) high -- that many visitors mistook it for a serious power amp. Its weight isn t indicated on IsoTek s website,

7 but it must be over 110 pounds (50kg). That s because it contains a lot of chokes -- devices that look like transformers but don t operate in the same way. These enable the Super Titan to deliver some very big numbers -- specifically, 7360W of continuous power, and transient bursts of up to 35,500W. You can see why it looks and feels like a power amp. Its goal is to deliver high-current power of extremely low impedance that s devoid of the problems that beset the AC that comes out of your wall socket. The Super Titan aims to remove from the incoming power the two most common and insidious forms of noise: common mode, also known as radio-frequency interference (RFI), and differential mode, aka electromagnetic interference (EMI). EMI comes from computers as well as, nowadays, all domestic appliances that include a basic computer (and some that don t) -- pretty much anything you plug in adds to the problem. RFI is what you get from your WiFi network, your cell phone, and all forms of terrestrial transmissions. Both RFI and EMI have increased exponentially in recent times, which is likely to be one reason for the increased effectiveness and thus the popularity of power conditioners -- even here in the UK. The Super Titan contains four seven-stage networks, connected in a series/parallel configuration to deliver extremely wide bandwidth filtering via a direct-coupled circuit. It uses Kirchoff s Equal Resistance Path (KERP) to provide equal resistance and equal power delivery across all four of its outlets, and connects those outlets independent of each other so that there is no cross-contamination between components -- even high-end audio devices emit noise that can affect other parts of the system. The Super Titan s unusual appearance is a result of its Independent System Isolation Support (ISIS) resonancecontrol system. This, the exoskeleton that supports the body of the conditioner, was created by German designer and microphony guru Kurt Olbert, who specializes in developing materials for audio applications. In the Super Titan it consists of four corner columns that support the acrylic sandwich structures that sit above and below the main unit. These are designed to kill the floor- and airborne vibrations that presumably affect conditioners just as much as they do other audio devices. Even the shape of the supporting struts is designed to keep resonances to a minimum, and the feet are spiked. This latter detail seems counterintuitive to me, as spikes couple, not isolate, but in the audio business, using spikes is a hard habit to break. There are two versions of the Super Titan. I was sent the 32A model, which requires a dedicated 32-amp power line if it is to deliver that sort of current. Only a few amplifiers actually require this much power, and the 32A version can be plugged into a normal mains circuit, as it was in my room. Its outlets are Neutrik locking types, and the conditioner is supplied with four of IsoTek s Intense power cords, plus a fifth to connect the conditioner to the wall. That s five $995 cords, which makes the $13,995 total price seem a bit more palatable. Alternatively, the less expensive 20A version ($11,995) has regular power outlets so that you can use your existing power cords. IsoTek also brought along their Genesis conditioner -- a regenerator with sufficient capacity to handle source components and preamps. At $23,995, it costs nearly twice as much as the Super Titan, but it made a huge improvement. efore introducing the Genesis, I used the Super Titan to power my Valvet monoblocks, which are (confusingly) not valve or tube amps but solid-state, class-a designs. With the Valvets driving PMC Fact 8 speakers, the Super Titan 32 allowed the system to sound considerably more relaxed and natural, despite its being already inclined that way. Importantly, the Super Titan did nothing to upset the pace and timing of the music; if anything, it enhanced these aspects. It also revealed further layers of fine detail, such as the full extent of the reverberation in Michael Hedges Aerial Boundaries CD [Windham Hill 1032]. This recording is quite rich in reverb, but there s more to be heard when you give the power amp a clean source of AC. Dynamics also improved, a natural result of pushing down the noise floor -- you can simply hear more low-level detail when it s not submerged in noise. I found the overall effect quite transporting; it increased the ability of an already good system to engage both mind and emotions. Moving on to some electronica, in the form of Bugge Wesseltoft s Duo CD [Universal ], I was struck by the enormous amount of space the IsoTek pulled from the recording. This may have been created in the studio, but it nonetheless made for a room-filling soundstage in which clever use of reverb and other tweaks delivered realistic space and dynamics. Wesseltoft abandons the keyboard and starts playing the strings inside his piano, something I d noticed before but that had never been revealed with this degree of clarity or impact. It s a very nice thing to hear the performance of a favorite component being enhanced to this degree. The Super Titan didn t change the amps character, but it allowed them to deliver greater transparency while sounding distinctly more effortless. Any sense of grain that might have existed before the IsoTek was introduced was wiped away to leave more of the original signal, cutting the amps free of the constraints imposed by the quality of the power coming out of the AC outlet. Next I tried the Super Titan with an amplifier from Naim, a brand renowned for both its add-on power-supply upgrades and its total disdain for all forms of AC treatment or conditioning. You can spend more on better supplies for a Naim source component than on the component itself, so the company clearly appreciates the importance of highquality power. I tried the IsoTek with the SuperUniti streaming amp, which I ve been using for a while, and for which

8 Naim doesn t offer a PSU upgrade. The change was night-and-day obvious. Suddenly there were space, scale, and three-dimensional imaging. Voices were placed within the room, and an electric guitar revealed a radiance that, before, the SuperUniti had only hinted at. In many respects, the SuperUniti stopped sounding like a Naim -- that is, very musical but not as transparent as other amps; the effect was very similar to what one hears with the company s new DR (discrete regulated) power supplies. Essentially, I heard greater transparency than I usually do from Naim products. The timing was still rock solid, but now I could hear all the fine detail that makes up the sonic picture. There were texture and tonal color at the same time as emotional power. The word transformation doesn t seem too strong to describe what I heard. I had to have a sit down and a cup of tea before I could come to terms with it! The Super Titan 32 had certainly perked up the SuperUniti, but what was just as impressive was its impact on overall system unity. Naim products in general don t agree with my usual speaker cables, the Isolda from Townshend Audio, because they need to see high inductance to remain stable and the Isolda has high capacitance. So I d been using the Atlas Ascent 3.5, which I find a little on the relaxed side in my regular system. With the Super Titan up front, that tendency was gone, the whole system locking together, driven by and responding to the signal -- just because the power had been cleaned up! But it s not just power, is it? It s the very essence, the raw material of musical reproduction. Without an AC line, there is no audio system -- it makes sense that the state or quality of that AC will affect the sound; it s just that you don t expect that effect to be quite so profound. dding IsoTek s Genesis with the Super Titan had profound influence on the sound. Junk in, junk out -- if you clean up the front end, then the amplifier has less hash to deal with, and you get a better-than-double reduction in noise. A least it certainly sounded that way. I put the figure "-30dB" in my notes -- irrational even by subjective standards -- but that was the impression it gave, an impression created by notes coming out of the system that were just too low in level to be appreciated before. The first thing I plugged into the Genesis was a Metrum Acoustics Hex DAC. The result was better timing, greater low-level resolution, and, as a result, a sound that was considerably more subtle and delicate than before. I then moved the Naim UnitiServe that was providing signal to the DAC.The UnitiServe is essentially a computer with a digital output stage and a switch-mode power supply; it shouldn t be very sensitive to vagaries in power. Wrong! Its sound, too, was transformed -- it began to produce a tonal radiance that I had not previously heard from digital audio. Of course, the digital nature of the UnitiServe means that it s unleashing more noise back into the mains than other components, so limiting its ability to do that meant that everything else had an easier time of it. Using the UnitiServe with the Genesis was half the equation, for sure. The other half was sonic glory of the Can t turn it off, who needs to eat? variety. he IsoTek devices made quite an impact on my system, my listening, and my peace of mind. In fact, I had so much difficulty weaning myself off the Genesis that the Super Titan had to share billing with it from then on. Then an audio show loomed, and IsoTek arrived to take the Super Titan away, leaving me with the Genesis. This wasn t the end of the world, but it did result in a few weeks of coming to terms with my old Valvet power amps again. That was how it felt: the Super Titan transformed the amplifiers ability to resolve the musical information they were fed. When it went away, I was left with the sound of regular AC. A few months on, I still haven t gotten used to that reality. I yearn for the transparency and immediacy that flowed from the Super Titan s outlets, the special way it had of opening a window on the music. Word has it that IsoTek will release a more practical and more affordable version of the Super Titan in the near future -- one that might even fit on a rack! I ll be putting my name down to give it a spin. Until then, I m left with the realization that we ignore AC quality and sophisticated power conditioning at our peril. The times they are a-changin, and the ubiquity of computercontrolled appliances, WiFi networks, and switch-mode power supplies means that old, established wisdoms no longer apply. The Super Titan 32 is a seriously impressive bit of kit -- as is the Genesis regenerator. Both are seriously expensive too. If you can afford them and you ve already invested in a serious system, then one listen is all it will take to convince you of their value. But in some ways, their real importance lies in what they tell us about not only the AC supply, but about our attitudes toward power conditioning itself. This Brit audiophile is a skeptic no more. Associated Equipment Analog: SME Model 20A turntable and SME Series V tonearm; van den Hul Colibri and Condor, Rega RP6 phono cartridges; Trilogy 907 phono stage. Digital: Resolution Audio Cantata CD player/dac/preamp; Cambridge Audio DACmagic and Arcam rdac digital-to-analog converters; Naim UnitiServe. Preamplifiers: Townshend Allegri, Border Patrol Control Unit with phono stage. Power amplifiers: SuperUniti, Valvet A3.5 monoblocks.

9 Loudspeakers: ATC SCM150ASL Pro active, B&W Nautilus 802D, PMC Fact 8. Interconnects: Townshend DCT 300. Speaker cables: Townshend Isolda DCT. Digital cables: Townshend DCT Digital, Atlas Mavros, Vertere D-Fi DD. Power cords: Living Voice LVPC, Russ Andrews Classic Powerkord. Equipment rack and supports: Townshend VSSS equipment stand, Townshend Stella speaker stands. The Audio Beat Nothing on this site may be reprinted or reused without permission.