Having played around with Alan’s standard power enhancers and his PE V Pro Custom, I thought I was fairly familiar with what to expect when inserting one of his devices. Normally, one expects a period of time during which the sound is noticeably worse and one wonders whether they have made the right choice in inserting the filter or not. With the PE V Pro, this was a very long period of time, before the sound settled and changed for the better. I recently had the chance to try out Alan’s newest offering, the Reference II. Being quite happy with the sound of my system now that the PE V Pro had settled, I hesitated plugging in the Ref II, fearing that period during which the sound degraded. Much to my delight, I found the Ref II to be a completely different beast altogether. The PE Pro took a lot of faith to keep it plugged in after hearing what the system sounded like for the first week or so after its installation. The Ref II, once I had picked the right circuit, happily settled in within a couple of days, never really causing that same period of bad sound to get the good sound afterwards. Rather, things started sounding better right from the get go. The changes with this filter were a bit more subtle than those with the PEV Pro, but are significant, nonetheless, since they occur in the important area of naturalness of the sound being reproduced. Instruments have more “body” and the sound is, for lack of a better word, more “ripe” sounding. This is especially apparent with string instruments and low brass. More of the lower harmonics that give weight and body to the instruments seem to be present with the Ref II in place. In the case of the cello, the sound doesn’t come from a flat plane anymore, but seems to come from a resonating 3-dimensional wooden instrument. These changes make listening infinitely more pleasurable and lifelike. Overall, I am thrilled with the improvements wrought by adding the Ref II filter to my system (system here meaning the electrical system of my house, since at Alan’s advice, the Ref II is installed in a non-audio circuit). Even after being in the circuit for 2 weeks, things continue improving a bit each day, with the sound becoming more and more lifelike. Every CD sounds better and much more emotionally involving than before the Ref II. Even CD’s I would cringe to listen to before are now quite enjoyable, with the Ref II having further reduced that upper frequency haze that can plague digital playback, especially when the CDs are poorly recorded. The Ref II is a clear winner, and at the price Alan is asking, it’s nothing short of a steal!
Chris
