Canada's Polynice & Antigone are members of the same 'secret' society that hosts equivalent products from Akiko, Shunyata and Synergistic. They're all power distributors whose three secret chambers filled with a secret crystalline compound proprietary to each brand strip our three power-line conductors of UHF noise. This works without any filter caps, coils or isolation transformers. LessLoss use their unique skin-filtering recipe, Furutech their nano-crystal² formula. There are many more AC boxes from the likes of Ansuz, Audio Magic, Nordost and Verictum with their own passive power purification that won't current limit. Today however is about Daniel Robidoux's Polynice. It combines his existing Antigone noise-filtering concept with a built-in virtual ground module and four associated ground terminals. His email inquiry for a review ended with "this is certainly the best product I did under DR", leading me to ask whether he's left since; or now designs for other brands. "Actually, I am still with DR Acoustics. What I meant to say is that in my previous life as telecoms engineer, I did some gadgets that were really fun during the early days of modems."
Pound-for-pound math might consider these innards a bit sparse for the sticker? A pair of 250W Kinki Studio monos in class AB not D costs less.
As for today's model name, it has bloody history. "In Greek mythology, Polynices was the son of Oedipus and Jocasta or Euryganeia. He was also the older brother of Eteocles. When Oedipus was discovered to have killed his father and married his mother, Thebes expelled Oedipus, leaving Eteocles and Polynices to rule. Because of their father's curse, these sons didn't co-rule peacefully. During a battle for control over Thebes, they killed each other." Very Shakespearean of them; so messy. And messy it could also get around Polynice if eight components connect their chassis to it via ground wires. That happens via bananas or spades into the power box (spade+banana accommodates 2 components per post) and spades for chassis screws. I'm no fan of viper's nests but regardless of scheme to reduce ground potentials between electronics, a plethora of wires must make the physical star-ground connection. At least these links won't grow endless doubles like ancient Hydra did whilst we unplug them during comparisons. Before I overstate for effect, careful ground-wire routing perhaps with the occasional zip tie should keep any tangling mess to a hopeful minimum.
I told Robert about three prospective test beds I had for his quad-outlet box: four mono amps in my downstairs system; a DAC, active crossover and stereo amp upstairs; and a server, bridge, DAC and amp in the main headfi rig. If he could handle 2-way shipping between Canada and Eire plus VAT, I was in. Though audio sex maniacs prefer shiny amps and speakers whenever their upgrade budget refreshes, proper power management—decidedly less sexy and routinely out of sight—is key to complete satisfaction. It's mundane but essential hifi housekeeping.
Whether this gig might amount to the "lllllongg" review Daniel proposed "would be profitable to your readers" for this "new class of product", I couldn't predict. Any given loaner determines page count with its backstory and tech then in-situ performance. We've already covered the what shy of the geek bits of carbon-fibre chambers and cryo-treated 4-gauge copper hookup wiring in three short paragraphs. The black chassis can be had with a 1cm faceplate in silver or black. Whether Poly would play nice with my kit remained to be heard. Of course except for one active AC/DC Vibex filter on the main system's front end, all my other outlet multipliers are passive Furutech versions whilst Akiko noise traps based on their own crystalline compound augment two systems.
I was already aboard Daniel's general passive crystalline concept aside from its virtual ground aspect. On that score, my most impressive prior experiment involved the small active ground stations from Telos of Taiwan. Meanwhile CAD's passive solution had barely registered. For external grounding, call me half-baked at best so still relatively inexperienced. And we all know what must be done then: collect more experiences whose sum, eventually, becomes singular experience. For those tangled webs I asked for four of Dan's ground cables at 1.5m/ea. to spider up all my test rigs. Though I own suitably UK-terminated power cords to make our Irish wall connection, he demurred. "I will send you a Red Fire Supreme. I strongly believe that's part of the dynamic." At $6'495 for that 1.8m power cord where I needed 3m, this was a (cough!) very loaded proposition. Crickey!
As it turned out, Rob didn't actually have the longer option nor one with UK termination. "DR cables are always part of the performance equation. Knowing what they can do, I can send you the standard US-terminated 2m power cord and you can use an extension to cover the rest of the length." A cheap extension cord of completely different makeup seemed to rather defeat the whole purpose. So I declined that particular detail. Would Polynice really mind running with top-shelf Furutech and LessLoss cords with proper UK wall plugs? Even if Rob believed his own superior still, surely the avoidance of a nasty extension would more than level that playing field. "This doesn't work for me. I absolutely believe that a DR cable is needed to optimize the ecosystem. We did tests with cords like Shunyata, Furutech, Audioquest and the results were always far from what we experience with our own." With Dan not able to make a cable to my length or UK plug requirements whilst rejecting my own cables, that didn't work for me so the planned review got cancelled.
That's how it goes sometimes. Having already penned the above before this hammer fell, I decided to let it stand and share it here as a basic promo piece. If you find the concept interesting, follow up on their website and peruse existing reviews. After all, we can't investigate what we don't know about…
DR Acoustics website
