Tír Na HiFi

Hi Folks

By happy chance, I've come into posession of some mid 2000s power conditiong equipment. I havent dabbled in this before, but a quick google suggests this was high end gear. I haven't powered anything on yet, but wondering if this is still good equipment. Thoughts appreciated.

Here's the list;

• IsoTek GII Titan
  IsoTek GII Nova
  IsoTek Orion
  IsoTek Mira (x2)
  IsoTek Syncro Evo3 Power Cable (x2)
  IsoTek 3 pin -> Nutrik power cables
  Tacima IFI23 Mains Conditioner
  Brennenstuhl Premuim Alu Line 6 way (nutrik input connector)
  Optimum branded heavy gauge power cables (x3)
  Isol-8 braided heavy gauge power cables (x3)
  Isol-8 Powerstation

More Photos

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I haven't powered anything on yet, but wondering if this is still good equipment. Thoughts appreciated.

Well.. its as good as it ever was! Mains "conditioning" can be dangerous - as in you can lose a lot of dynamics but also clean mains, like clean petrol in a car, can make a difference too. Many of us will notice better sound at night. Why? Factories, shopping centres and schools etc are closed. Its all worth trying anyway. I'd look for a loss of quality before any improvement.

I do have that Tacima plug board thingy. Maplin's were selling them very cheap when they were closing. I often pick up mains cables or better plug boards without spending lots. Better mains cables are a bit of a no brainer (for me). The free power leads don't inspire confidence - carefully chosen word's there. The benefits of "conditioning" is an individual's verdict

Isotek and it's variants are still big names in the mains game - certainly worth trying out. Enjoy.

Cheers

I did read manage to read one review of the IsoTek units that made that very point about loss of dynamics as a known risk, but went on to say these particular units exhibited no such problems.

My main concern at this point is that these are a good few years old, and may not have been used in a while so hoping sparks don't fly!

I don't expect to be able to discern any changes but am open to being pleasantly surprised .

Absolutely, very well regarded stuff. Like has been said, I found this stuff great on front end equipment but not amps. In my mind you want to keep the signal clean but but get in the way of the grunt.

Nice problem to have either way!

meep wrote: ↑Fri Mar 28, 2025 6:11 pm
My main concern at this point is that these are a good few years old, and may not have been used in a while so hoping sparks don't fly!

Try them.out on a toaster or kettle.... sparks will hardly fly but just in case. You might even get some great sounding toast.

Oh! There's no way they're even making they're way into my house let alone my listening room. They are in the garage and will remain there until fully tested.

I'm hoping if I charge my power tool batteries from them, the drills will sound sweeter and more open, drivers will have more impact and power saws will have improved cut through.

I'll report back.

So I managed to test everything this morning in my garage system. No explosions, sparks or even the slightest buzz or hum from anything. All seems to be working as intended.

Next step is to power up the actual gear in my HT and see if there's any discernable change in sonics.

The ISOL-8 power station is an interesting device. I put a watt meter on my tests, and a CD player and Receiver were drawing about 75w when running on the IsoTek gear, but running on the ISOL-8 , I could see 186w from the wall.

It isn't a conditioner like others but a regenerator that claims to completely reconstruct the electrical signal, whatever that means. Limited to 100w output, so I'll try it on my stereo pre and streamer to start with.

The good news is all these devices tick over at just 3-5w when powered up but with no devices running, so not too much overhead.

The general impression I always got from reading around was that these could work very well for source components (ie not much current draw) and where sources were powered from SMPS supplies, they could prevent any noise getting back out from that source. So they could be useful indeed.

On the other hand for power hungry devices, the jury was out with a sense of curtailment of dynamics being the big issue - not surprising given that sudden current draws might happen a lot more. I wonder if it would be different for class AB rather than class A amps?

Apart from that, the protection from surges etc is very welcome, always good to have that.