Service please. Yes chef! With each Macro no wider than my thumb, no deeper than my hand, the quartet delivered in a hard-plastic flight case was a tidy bunch. By contrast the included cabling of two each links plus two-pin figure-8 power cords except for the bigger ground station's classic 3-pin cord was far busier. With flawless fit 'n' finish, the Telos team of noise busters certainly looked the upscale audiophile part. As it happened, the Silent Angel shipment arrived the very same day so I had open server ports galore. Time to jack in and tune in. How about opt in? For this ground-noise virgin, 'twas the big one; question that is. I'd take my time getting the hang of this.

For my pre-trial run and photo op, here's the armada at work on Silent Angel's Z1+ server and masterclock. This cable salad doesn't yet include any power or signal cables. Gevalt. The v5.1's ground cables terminate in a big and small spade. The former is meant for the device's own WBT post, the latter for a chassis screw. As such it was too small to properly fit Silent Angel's full-size ground post. I had to slip one leg of the spade into the post's centre hole as shown after the break.

My first install happened upstairs where a Soundaware D300Ref had all the open sockets to get the full quartet busy. Being mid November by now, 18:00 meant pitch black outside which meant…

… I felt transported to a Grouchy Maximus disco, green + orange Telos lights pulsating rapidly like jittery caffeine addicts. Did this imply inverted AC polarity? With my US-style two-prong power plugs reversible, I checked. The annoying flashing continued. Surely Telos wouldn't promote noise killers only to cause at the very least brain noise with such awful flickering if not actual electrical on/off noise? It's why better LAN switches can turn their RJ45 lights off, even disable unused ports to eliminate their constant link pulses.

Click for closeup.

The Macro form factor too is problematic. With i/o on either end, even turning these critters sideways exposes visible wires. The only clean cure is hiding them behind equipment. I much prefer kit with a business end as busy as needs must but a clean fascia. I'm not sure what Telos thought when they committed to this layout. At $1.2K/ea. this kit is serious coin. Couldn't it behave appropriately serious? Off went an email to Ethan. I had to have overlooked something.