Is There Some Problem With Shunyata's Everest Power Conditioner


I have been looking for a Shunyata power conditioner, and was thinking of going all the way and picking up an Everest, which is not only stupidly expensive but is the predictable darling of all reviewers, who gush about how wonderful this product is.  However, there are currently SIX Everests for sale on US Audiomart.  For a transformative and expensive product with seemingly universal acclaim, the fact that there six Everests for sale at the same time makes me wonder if maybe it is not so amazing and transformative and people are having buyer's remorse after picking one up.  Comments or insight?

moto_man

Following up on fastfreight's post, Shunyata is one of the few power conditioner manufacturers that have patents which publicly disclose aspects of their technology.  In particular, their two primary power conditioning technologies implemented in the Everest (and also the 6 outlet Denali, but not the two outlet version) are referred to as QR/BB and NIC (noise isolation chamber).

If you want to read about them and debate their technical validity, see below (just delete spaces):

QR/BB - https :// patents .google.com/patent/US10031536B2

NIC - https ://patents .google.com/patent/US8658892B2

Re: the number of units for sale, there are a number of possible explanations.  Quite a few times I have seen this happen when a new and improved product is coming out at some point and those "in the know" are looking to dump their units early (most recently to my recollection, this happened with MSB Select DACs right before the public announcement for the Cadence) so - an Everest v2 is on the horizon?  It also could be, as others have noted above, power conditioning tends to be very system dependent / controversial. 

All I will say about the Everest in particular is that it has some credibility in the industry, and in my experience, absolutely smokes the Audioquest 7000, which is commonly listed as its primary competition in terms of price / target application.

I have a Denali 6000S V.2 with an Alpha V.2 XC to the wall. It's an outstanding piece of gear.  

As far as a lot of used Everests' who knows, could be there's something better that the Uber wealthy think is better for twice the price. 

So after cogitating about it and reading everyone's input, and most important, finding a very nice deal on a used one, and no Denali v2's for sale, I bit the bullet and bought a used Everest and Sigma v2  power cable with it, incoming on Saturday, so I will post my impressions after it is hooked up and settles in from its trip!  Hype or real . . . I'll soon see!

FIRST IMPRESSIONS: So I have put the Everest and Sigma v2 power cable (used, so already broken in) into my system and have put about 24 hours of listening in over a week. To recap, my system consists of Sabrina X speakers, ARC REF 6 pre, Pass 250.8 amp, and MSB Discrete DAC with a Premier Power Base, and a full Shunyata loom.

The day I installed it (and ground the components to it), the first thing that I noticed was a "blacker background." The best way to explain this is analogizing it to a picture that is slightly overexposed, and adjusting the white balance. The background was darker black than before, which gave the music a more vivid sound. The other thing that I noticed was that the music was somewhat smoother -- not rolled off, but as if a thin layer of glare was removed. Another thing I noticed right away was negative. It seemed like the soundstage on some recordings collapsed to coming out of the left and right speakers rather than locked into the middle. This varied from album to album. Some still had that "locked in" spatial quality, others were markedly lacking that spatial effect that we refer to as "soundstage." I did not notice any particular change in depth or width of those recordings that still had that spatial effect. Overall, I had mixed feelings. For $7000+, it was by no means "transformative," night and day, or like a new system. The effects described were subtle -- audible but subtle. I began to seriously doubt my decision to blow a wad of cash on this latest manifestation of audiophilia nervosa, and believe, me, I really wanted to like it and think that I made a smart purchase.

So I powered through all week, listening carefully and trying different recordings that I knew had an excellent soundstage to see if it was still there or whether the Everest was actually having a negative effect. It wasn’t, but subjectively it seemed to reduce the soundstage in those recordings that did not seem to have it originally, but left it alone in those that did. Still on the fence about it but thinking more seriously of putting it up for sale.

So, Friday night, I put on a Led Zep soundboard bootleg from their 1975 Fort Worth show, which was pretty well-recorded for a boot. To my surprise, it sounded like a commercial live release. Soundstage was wide and deep, Robert was right in front center although he moved somewhat on the stage. Jimmy was to the right, Bonzo up and behind Robert. The soundstage had real depth and width. Saturday morning, I decided to throw my whole batch of test recordings at it again. Good stuff, medium stuff, bad stuff, stuff I knew lacked soundstage on the recording and stuff that I knew had excellent soundstage. To my surprise, and I really have no explanation for it, everything had good soundstage, wide and deep. The same black background and the music sounded "clearer" and smoother, sort of like silver with a slight tarnish removed. The recordings that had a good soundstage had a great soundstage. The recordings that really didn’t have a good soundstage baked into the recording had a decent soundstage, where the music still came out of the right and left speakers in an identifiable way, but some instruments crossed over into the middle, giving the recording that illusion of dimensionality that I personally love. All of my recordings, good, mediocre or bootleg, sounded better, and particularly my bootlegs (Led Zep and Pink Floyd) sounded better. On the live recordings, such as Bill Evans’ The Complete Vanguard Recordings, I could hear more of the audience chatter between songs that was not there before. Overall, the instruments sounded clearer and did not bleed into the other instruments as much. I left that listening session very pleased.

I cannot explain the improvement from the day I installed the Everest, yet it was there. Mind you, it was a subtle, not a "blow your socks off" type improvement. It is noticeable to me, as I know my music and system inside and out, and would likely be identified by any other critical listener, but as I said, it is not a "wow, what did you do to your system" type change. There was a very noticeable improvement over the week that I found to be unmistakable. People have said that after shipping, a component needs to "settle in." I always thought that was inexplicable BS. But that is really the only explanation that I have for the change after about 24 hours of listening to music and the Everest being left on for a week so far. I don’t know if there is more improvement coming or whether this is it. Whether these changes are "worth it" for $7K+ is a personal thing, but so far, I am pretty happy with the addition to the system!