Accustic Arts

Oh God, Dev and I agree about something; sorry, only about the IsoClean, of course.

I remain skeptical that the engineers at AA would be capable of designing a world class transport and DAC and not have the wherewithal to design a competent clamping puck for their system - not impossible, but highly unlikely IMHO. Perhaps a mat might improve things, but I'll wait here to hear from others that may have had a positive experience with the AA - I'm slightly skeptical regarding the use of a mat, but open to the possibility. What did greatly improve (ok, audiophile overstatement) the performance of the Digital Duo was the use of an RSA Haley (similar to Teajay's Jaco)power conditioner. For me it was well worth the cost - might be because I live in an apartment building and my electricity may be quite "dirty". I will look into the Critical Mass platform mentioned by Dev, I think good platforms do make a difference - I'm using 2" maple with BDR cones at the moment - no idea if that is ideal, but will experiment. I'm also using the JPS Digital AC power cables and they seem to do a good job with digital equipment.

What are Isocleans?

Esoteric X-01 LE is not a toploader player, thus using mats on it may be risky as it can jam up the tray opening mechanism should the mat slide out during closing. However, with toploaders like the Accustic Art transport, such risks are minimal, as there is very little loading movement to dislodge any type of mat. Furthermore, the design of the Boston CD Stabilizer which I am using is already stated for use on toploading transport and CD player only. So please heed the warning appropriately ;-)

I am a big tweaker.
A) Power Cords
I use mainly Acrolink powercords namely the giantkiller 4030 powercord terminated with F1/M1 Oyaide (the highest model in their lineup, Beryllium Copper plated with Platinum/Palladium ). They have replaced more expensive Shunyata powercords costing more than double. Ultimately I may get the Acrolink PC6100/7100 powercords that comes terminated with carbon fibre connectors (oem by Oyaide and same ones used by Wolff in his higher models).

B)Digital Interconnects
Currently Acoustic Zen MC2 AES/EBU, but may be switching to an Acrolink 75 Ohm digital interconnect now on trial with the most gorgeous looking BNC connector
http://www.acrolink.jp/english/products/6n_d5050_5070_2.html

C)Many Japanese Acoustic Revive tweaks...
i) RG24 Grounding Conditioner
Some may laugh, but these really lowered down the background noise considerably. A must try
http://www.acoustic-revive.com/english/rgc24/rgc24_01.html

ii) SIP-8/BSIP2 shorting plugs...
Leave no holes unplugged, the quality of these are better than Cardas' equivalents, and added advantages
http://www.acoustic-revive.com/english/sip8/sip8_01.html

iii)Pure Silk Absorber
A rather inexpensive buy but brought the most cost-effective improvement to my setup. The changes are really beneficial and quite unbelievable. A box of wool is quite big and can be shared among 2 audiophile buddies
http://www.acoustic-revive.com/english/psa100/psa100_01.html

iv) Quartz Insulator
Can be used as footers, top plate dampeners, emi/rfi modulators..etc as in
http://www.acoustic-revive.com/english/riq5010/riq5010_02.html
I use them solely under the input/output RCA/XLR terminals and it audibly brought about more refined frequencies, clear out the digital harshness and improved separation and wider sound stage. Expensive tweak, but I bought 3 sets including 1 limited edition using higher grade crystals with stronger effect.
http://www.acoustic-revive.com/english/riq5010/riq5010_01.html

v)Quartz Resonators
These are like the Japanese version of Marigo sound tuning dots but have even more applications
http://www.acoustic-revive.com/english/qr8/qr8_01.html
http://www.acoustic-revive.com/english/qr8/qr8_02.html

As they say, tweaking is an art, and it seems that the Japanese are really into it, as proven by the very effective range of Acoustic Revive range of products that I have tried

Forgot to mention my power conditioners
a) 2 sets of Blue Circle BC86 MKIII Noisehounds
These are parallel noise filters, but probably suck more noise than the gimmicky PSAudio Noise harvester (a recent Stereotime review commented they need 5 sets of harvesters to hear an audible difference)
b) BPT Purepower Centre powerstrips with Bybee..
c) Magnet Isolation Transformer(a cheap made-in Thailand brand that apparently OEMs for Monster) just to feed the DAC and transport. Will upgrade to a Japanese brand Balanced Isolation transformer in future once my local distributor brings it in. Namely the CSE TX series
http://www.cse.ne.jp/tx.htm

Rack/Footers
a) Finite Elemente Signature on Cerabase Footers
b) Taoc Tite 35S SuperInsulator footer on the Transport
http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue22/awards_2005.htm
c) Boston Audio Tuneblocks on the DAC