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Third parties to the rescue! In our last few homes we suffered from such DC pollution. In one case it was really severe and caused by agricultural pumps which started and stopped at irregular intervals to also cause sags on the mains voltage. The use of a power regenerator only solved the latter part of the issue. DC still troubled mainly the powered woofers of our Avantgarde hornspeakers. A PS Audio Humbuster became the working solution to silence the buzzing beneath the horns. However there was a restriction. The Humbuster was to be used only after the regenerator and only for the two woofer amplifiers. Any other configuration had a negative impact on the overall liveliness of the system.
At the Milan show we talked to Keith Martin of IsoTek. As a result he sent us an IsoTek Evo3 Syncro with the promise that it would improve our lot by a lot. According to his publicity, "in designing the Syncro, the challenge for IsoTek was to offer a universal solution that would remove the unwanted and damaging DC component from the mains supply whilst allowing the maximum possible current to pass. IsoTek’s latest engineering solution and DC-blocking technology developed for the Syncro is in many ways superior in performance to a massive 12,000VA isolation transformer by delivering greater dynamic ability."
In our current domestic situation—in yet another peaceful rural area, not downtown Rotterdam—there is not merely radio on the mains. There is also DC as our still resident Avantgarde woofers reminded us with some buzz. This was an ideal scenario to test the Syncro in. When the package arrived we found ourselves with a good-quality box that felt surprisingly heavy. Once opened there was a 204cm long blue power cable inside terminated with a Schuko connector on one end and a female IEC on the other. Both connectors were a beautiful translucent purple plastic with gold-plated screws and pins. At 77cm from the Schuko connector sat a 20cm long black canister 7cm in diameter. Clearly this was the cause of the overall weight. Finished with two rubber rings on either side to prevent scratching, the canister sported an IsoTek logo and blue LED. Through the blue sheath the underlying mesh shielding of the blue cable twinkled at the beholder. Overall finish was good.
Installing the cable was easy once the considerable weight of the active component was taken into account. Letting the cable dangle unsupported from an elevated wall outlet would not be recommended. The strain on the wall outlet and/or the Schuko connector would be substantial. Proper support is needed.
First we compared the workings of the Syncro with those of the Humbuster. The latter has two outlets so we only did a ‘mono’ comparison. Right after powering up of the woofer amplifier the difference was clear. Where the Humbuster had left a residual buzz when getting up close to the driver, the Syncro quieted things down all the way, even having us recheck that the woofers were really powered up at all.
