I’m excited to share a new addition to our reference listening system that has truly impressed me.
As you may know, Amy Hansen, Nordost’s VP, visits us a few times a year for our customer listening parties. The day before these events, she usually educates me and our staff on Nordost’s latest product advancements. This recent addition is one of those advancements, and it’s frankly amazing.
For the past couple of years, we’ve been using the Nordost QNET Ethernet switch with upgraded Ethernet cables to clarify the signal we stream to our digital-to-analog converters and other digital components. While this wasn’t an inexpensive endeavor, I convinced myself it was worthwhile, as it made sense to try to eliminate some of the EMI or noise from our busy network. Honestly, this by itself wasn’t an exciting sonic upgrade. I compare it to putting a first-aid kit in your car in case of an emergency, a bit boring, but probably a good idea.
During Amy’s last visit, she introduced a companion piece to this EMI cleanup effort: a small box called the QSOURCE linear power supply.
At $2,750.00, plus cabling, I initially had some pretty strong reservations about its potential value. Another challenge, besides the cost, is that demonstrating it to a client takes quite a bit of time. The network has to be shut down and rebooted between listening comparisons to accurately assess its effect.
However, with about two hours left before our event started, we dove into this audio-upgrading journey. What this linear power supply does is eliminate the AC/DC wall warts that often come with network switches, Roon Nucleus units, and even some inexpensive DACs. These wall warts are notoriously noisy, not to mention they take up room on your AC power strip.
We listened to our system as it was, and it sounded fantastic as always. Then, we shut down the network and hooked up this power supply. Being very scientific, we made sure the volume levels were exactly the same as before and went over the same track we had been listening to.
I know this is a long explanation, but I think it’s important to let you know that I want all of you who are interested to call me and allow me to give you this demo. I think you will be blown away. I’m not even going to try to describe what it did for our reference system, because I want you to hear it for yourself.
Amy needed to take her unit back with her, even though I pleaded with her to let me buy it. But I should hopefully have ours in a few days. I never thought I could be excited about a power supply for an Ethernet switch, but I can’t wait to have it back.
Jim Lee
