Tight like virgin!

After a year of being bombarded with advises to replace that multi-plug and adaptor, I finally did that! I guess when you are not plagued by imperfect music, you would not get your ass off that couch and do something about it!

Damn, the last 2 months have witnessed one of the major revamp of my setup since 3 years ago. Back then, it was from nil to something reputable, this time, it was a step up from what I have. I don’t believe in changing brands altogether when the stuff you are using are serving you well. Unless, of course a certain brand performs flawlessly and thrashed what you have when playing them side by side. So, the upgrade is upward from what I have now, same brands, but just better models.

The arrivals of AQ DBS Cheetah and ProAc Ref 8 Signature have elevated the fussiness of my setup to unbearable state. Man, if a setup ever resembles a PMS-induced woman, you can’t get any worse than mine! You can’t just dim the lights and whisper “honey, do you think we could…” or just start caressing her. The window for me to enjoy music is so narrow and limited due to the electrical condition in the area I live.

Anyway, the best I could do is to have the best connection in place, switch on my setup, keep the fingers crossed and hope that God would be generous enough to bless me with good electricity! So, there goes my RM400 on just a wall outlet!

Fixing the outlet wasn’t too hard actually, remove your current outlet, fix the cables and voila, your spanking new sparkling in gold wall outlet is ready to take action! You don’t have to worry where the earth, neutral and live should go to as the accompanied illustration and labels on the unit itself are very much self explanatory.

The only thing to worry is to get your polarity right! Is this a great challenge? YES, if you live in Malaysia! Before removing the stock unit, I had to use a polarity checker to make sure the polarity is correct first. Then remove the stock outlet and make sure I mark the cables. WHY? Because Malaysian contractors never use proper color coded cables!

OK, you really get your money’s worth as the unit comes in 24K gold plated all out, even the screws are spanking-ly glowing in gold! The outlet itself is from National, however, IsoClean claimed to have them polished and treated to better the contact. The unit is just heavy and most importantly, TIGHT!

When I plugged in my HT Fantasy powercord, darn, I thought I got it wrong. It was really TIGHT! When I tried to remove the cord, I was so afraid that I could remove the whole outlet out while the cord was still attached to the outlet!

Upon powering up, fingers crossed and I prayed real hard that no smoke came out from anything! I heard a click and my pre amp was ready to go! Do I really have to do this all over again, stating the improvements and all? Well, guess I have to, or else, no one would be even considering buying a unit!

What greeted me was higher volume than I normally heard. With the same previous volume setting, the setup played louder. I had to lower down the volume. Then there’s lesser background noise. This is really background noise when the setup is idling, tube setups have always got this background hiss. With IsoClean outlet, there is a major cut down on this hissing noise.

With trumpet and saxophone pieces, there is more bite to the vibrating mouth piece. Bass tightens up with no overhang and the highs seems more extended with delicacy. There is less opacity between the music and the listener. Understandably, there’s just more information being presented when there’s less masking due to higher noise floor.

The outlet is there to cut down on noises suffered from poor contacts and provide the best transfer of power. However, it would not and won’t be able to change the tonal characteristics of your setup. To lesser extend maybe, but I perceive no change in this area. But it surely helps in the transparency area where noise masking is concerned.

I could only tell the difference before and after, please DO NOT tell me to A/B between the stock and IsoClean as this is just too dangerous! Oh, if I were to do it, I would have forgotten the sound after the hassle of replacing the outlets.

RM400 is not a small sum, but knowing that you have the best connection available, I guess that’s the first thing every serious audiophile should do! Although I did it 3 years late.