The first item unpacked was the Ansuz Mainz8 A2 power distributor. It measures 495 x 236 x 78mm WxDxH, weighs about three kilograms and is made from pressurized MDF finished matte black. The logo on the top is bracketed by two shallow cross vanes which make the clean gently rounded exterior much more interesting and appealing. Four aluminium feet installed underneath might seem regular at first but aren't. Each sports a shallow race track to accommodate three titanium balls which then land in the Darkz puck receiver dimples.
Once detached, the Mainz8 A2 underbelly of MDF reveals a steel insert. Bent at a 90° angle, it forms the rear occupied by eight Schuko inlets and one IEC out. Lack of fuse compartments and switches tells a lot. All Mainz8 boxes are distributors not conditioners which Ansuz consider dynamically handicapped. Accordingly each of their many-tiered power hubs is as free from built-in protection as it is from capacitors, transformers, MOV and anything else known to truncate speed. Today's distributor was designed as a purist affair with performance as top priority. Anything known to cripple it was off the table. This path isn't new. Many manufacturers strip their power bars back with similar goals but this team exploit several very unusual steps to set their work apart.
Usual power distribution or outlet multiplier task aside, all Ansuz power hubs shape and suppress AC noise by a number of means whose type and proliferation differentiate each tier as we just saw. Despite being positioned just a cut above the entry-level X and X-TC products, today's A2 box insides already looked like no other such product I'd come across. Each socket connects to the main PCB with thick solid-core veins neighboring 31 x active Tesla coil noise suppression loops each based on two cables inversely twisted. A voltage spike in one coil gets actively sampled and attenuated by a counter spike in the opposite coil. Picture active noise cancellation à la Bose headphones but for AC power. The efficacy of these Tesla coils units is cumulative so there are many. Eight IC chips next to these coils are Ansuz' analog dither modules developed by Michael way back in his Nordost days and pushed still further here. These operate similar to marine sonars. Their job is to modulate ground noise via an injection of low-level squared frequencies to improve clarity.
Each Mainz8 distributor incorporates star-grounded lines linked to a single point of lowest impedance which for user convenience is the central white-coded outlet. This should power your system's central audio, so most often will be a preamp which everything else plugs into but in my rig a DAC took over. From this junction remaining devices cascade outwards thus power amps or active woofers connect to the outermost sockets. According to Ansuz, their star network is of extremely low impedance so doesn't impede current flow. It's why their ground veins are 10mm² thick.
