Just wanted to relay first impressions on the Blue duplex. It's had 120 hours burn in on a cable cooker which should be plenty. I installed it this morning -- other than having the ground on the opposite corner to the red installation was a cinch. By the way I have found a lot of reds strip the cover mounting screw, hopefully no such problem with the blue.
Anyway how does it sound? I swapped my power amps (and FEQs, Atmosphere and SR Active Ground) from the Black to the Blue and they do sound very different.
The Black is the king of delicacy and detail while in the Blue there's almost an extra half octave of bass, a greater sense of pace and immediacy and the potential for more openness and extension. However there is a big caveat to all of this - unlike any power outlet I've ever tested the Blue is very sensitive to setup and ancillaries. If there's any noise in your system the Blue seems to pick it up and magnify it. Cable dressing needs to be immaculate -- for example I had a couple of interconnects running too close to power cords - never been an issue with the Blacks but with the Blue getting these better dressed made an immediate and profound impact on the soundstage.
I still need to run down a level of amp hiss and even some odd ultrasonics that are apparent with the Blue that I never heard with the Black. Overall I suspect the Blue is such a wide open window it is exposing problems I didn't know I had.
The bass while deep is still a bit uncontrolled but I suspect this will settle down over time.
Net net I think the Blue is a good complement to the Black -- ideal for power amps and situations where you want to prioritize slam and openness over finesse -- I'll probably stick with the Black for my sources as exposing noise issues here would be even more of a bear to track down but for my amps I suspect I'll be sticking with the Blue.
Anyway how does it sound? I swapped my power amps (and FEQs, Atmosphere and SR Active Ground) from the Black to the Blue and they do sound very different.
The Black is the king of delicacy and detail while in the Blue there's almost an extra half octave of bass, a greater sense of pace and immediacy and the potential for more openness and extension. However there is a big caveat to all of this - unlike any power outlet I've ever tested the Blue is very sensitive to setup and ancillaries. If there's any noise in your system the Blue seems to pick it up and magnify it. Cable dressing needs to be immaculate -- for example I had a couple of interconnects running too close to power cords - never been an issue with the Blacks but with the Blue getting these better dressed made an immediate and profound impact on the soundstage.
I still need to run down a level of amp hiss and even some odd ultrasonics that are apparent with the Blue that I never heard with the Black. Overall I suspect the Blue is such a wide open window it is exposing problems I didn't know I had.
The bass while deep is still a bit uncontrolled but I suspect this will settle down over time.
Net net I think the Blue is a good complement to the Black -- ideal for power amps and situations where you want to prioritize slam and openness over finesse -- I'll probably stick with the Black for my sources as exposing noise issues here would be even more of a bear to track down but for my amps I suspect I'll be sticking with the Blue.