Flip the script.

Bring the gun, leave the cannoli. 

What does a gun have to do with music even if it was to be Dirty Harry's obnoxiously loud Smith & Wesson Model 29?

A famous speaker designer once told me that the most difficult thing for a speaker to reproduce is a gun shot recorded up close and outdoors. All its frequency components must rise and achieve full loudness instantaneously and stop just as quickly since outdoors there won't be sonic ricochet or echoic ringing.

Any time delay or phase confusion as visualized by this generic impulse response plot for a loudspeaker undermines the perfect tracking of such incidents. Mechanical inertia, slow settle times and 'lost in translation' aspects from converting an electrical signal into physical motion all factor. This visualizes the concept of speed for playback. It's not that better gear plays faster per se. That would only result in pitch shift like a turntable which spins at 40rpm instead of the standard 33.3. What then does speed mean for a hifi?

The gun shot points at timing when all frequency components rise as one to achieve full amplitude without delay. It's about the beginnings of sounds: transients or leading edges. They mark when a sound starts. A 'fast' system renders these markers far more pin-point precise than a 'slow' system which incurs delays to splatter a sharply singular event as closely-spaced multiple events. That's confusion in the time domain to register as blur, bloom and fat.

If we apply this to the absence of coils and caps in a passive power distributor, we spot less potential to retard instantaneous current. Even though we're not dealing with a music signal but a 115/230V AC signal at 50/60Hz and its harmonics, the same concept applies. It's why Lloyd Walker coined his passive power distributor Velocitor. It suggests an accelerator effect to set it apart from slower more bloated active specimens. Here we remember that the music signal simply modulates our utility power like a piano's hammers play the tension of its strings.

When he confirmed dispatch of my sample, Furutech's Graeme Coley added that "I included an NCF Booster which can be positioned at any power connector—wall, power-strip IEC, component IEC—to offer more of the NCF effect. It's a great device for tuning once you find the sweet spot in your system."

Most people might view this device as an overkill mechanical contraption to achieve cable elevation off the floor; and possibly some clamping-induced damping. Graeme's comment prioritized NCF's proximity effect instead. He would have us see the NCF Booster as yet another means to apply Furutech's nano-crystalline compound to our system's power delivery.

We already learnt about the NCF Clear Line plug-ins which can be added to any system's existing power distributor/conditioner or even spare wall outlets. In today's intro, we prepped ourselves to inject NCF via specially treated power receptacles and their fixing plates. In this Japanese portfolio there's simply still more to spread their Nano Crystal² Formula around and magnify its noise-stripping action. It's like an aftermarket hot-rod menu not for the drag-strip lads but audiophile go-faster fans.

"How many cc's you got under that hood?"

"Six Clear Lines, one GTO-D2 NCF, eight NCF Boosters."

"Wow. Impressive. See ya at the track. Burn some rubber."

Wherever the blue NCF script appears (on the carbon-fiber covers, on the receptacles, on the power IEC) there the material factors. Placing a Booster around the power cord coming in from the wall would add more to the entire system.

Of course where my silly gun and racer images collapse is that they're all about big noise. The NCF concept in its various application formats is how to get rid of noise at a nearly subliminal level. Still, the key points have been made. Now we leave the world of vigilante heroes and their self-righteous violence. We tune into whatever greater peace from noise disturbances these products might produce; and how that might inform the subjective pace of the tunes. The latter isn't about metronomic time. Again it's about how precise transients register. Their decisiveness sets a tune's beat. If percussive sounds are clearly on time, a tune comes alive. If percussive sounds acquire minor fuzz or blur, some sluggishness follows. Now all the aspects of PRaT—Brit speak for pace, rhythm & timing—suffer. Rhythmic tension is the muscle tone which holds a tune together. When that weakens, a certain musical vitality or pep in the step diminishes. A 'faster' power supply is one antidote (time-coherent speakers are another). With all our electronics driven by utility power, our wall AC is their original/continuous power supply. When that interrupts as it does when our dwelling's main circuit breaker trips, the hifi stops. It's why proper power delivery with minimal loss and maximal current is key to good sound. It all starts with what our gear's power cords plug into.