Synergistic Research Comes Down to Earth

Yoby,
I kept my Powercell and now run it in series with other front end components.

I just talked to Robert at Worldwide and have 2 of the Power 3 pcs on their way to me. I'll be trying them in my soon to be completed office system, and then who knows? Definitely more reasonable than SR's cords. Thanks for the heads up guys.

Joeyboynj,
I have not tried the Element line so I don't know how it stacks up. I run cables and my front end in series so my system is different from many others. All I know is that, from my experience, you cannot beat having an isolation transformer in series with a power regenerator. Then you add the power conditioner of your choice. In that order. No matter what any power conditioner manufacturer says about their product it cannot come close. They are selling a one-box solution but, unfortunately, the solution does not come in one box. So they always have to market their latest line heavily to make the new imagine of "new and improved" take the place of the old image of "new and improved". It takes time to make the new one stick. There will be another "new and improved" line after the Element. Please be assured. And it will also be accompanied by superlatives. I remember when the SR Master Coupler was the latest and greatest.

Synergistic Research is not alone, of course. All manufacturers play the same game -- with variations on the theme. I remember when the Gillette blue double-edged razor was the cat's meow. I now shave with a 5-blade vibrating razor blade with a special gel strip. The Gillette Double Blue does not cut it anymore -- pun intended. As customers, it is our job to sort the wheat from the chaff, which is not an easy task when there are so many superlatives to choose from in the market place. For me, living abroad and not being able to audition products at home before purchase, this means that a lot of gear gets sold off.

Some Synergistic Research products work well in my series approach to cabling, but others do not. So far, the SR products that are staying are the Tesla 3 power cord, the Hologram D power cord and the Acoustic Reference ICs. That may change, but for now they are staying. The cables that are the mainstay of my system are the HiDiamonds. Without them the sound falls apart.

I am concentrating on room treatment at the moment. The SR ART is definitely staying. So are the Shakti Hallographs. I am waiting to add the Steinmusic Harmonizer System. My system is so resolving that, at this point, room treatment is the most logical place to put my audio dollars.

The point here is VALUE. I think you are missing it. What do the element Hologram A and D retail for? And then don't forget to add Galileo MPC's. I've still got my old SYnergistic Holograms, Apex bi-wire speaker cables, etc. I'm just getting tired of being offered pennies on trade-ins for SR products that are still being sold by Cable Company and Synergistic. The Synergistic trade-up policy is an even bigger joke.

There are 3 other companies, Hi Diamond being one of them, and High Fidelity being another, that I am currently demoing and am getting comparable, if not better performance for considerably less money. These will continue for several months, in both my home and office systems. I will no longer knowingly support blatant audio cable greed. Pretty simple, and just my opinion. I've had ENOUGH.