When it comes to hi-fi accessories, it pays to make smart choices. There are certain products, painstakingly developed by highly skilled audio engineers, which have the potential to transform the sound of your system so dramatically that you’d be forgiven for wondering if it’s the same system. US magazine The Absolute Sound singles out several such inventions in its 2024 Buyer’s Guide.
Computer Audio Design: GC1 Ground Control
‘Less noise, more music’ is Computer Audio Design’s (CAD) tagline, and you only have to hear the difference that one of their Ground Control units can make to your system to fully appreciate what that can mean.
Designer Scott Berry, an electrical engineer, had a revelation of sorts while designing CAD’s digital-to-analogue converters (DACs) and became convinced that high-frequency noise was key to preventing digital audio from attaining some of the attributes of analogue. His determination to do something about that resulted in CAD’s series of Ground Control units, created to tackle high-frequency noise at the level of the signal ground plane.
The units range from the diminutive GC1.1 to the mighty GC-R, both of which were reviewed by The Absolute Sound’s Jacob Heilbrunn in the magazine’s October issue, Heilbrunn being the perfect man for the job having gone to far greater lengths that most to lower the noise floor in his audio system.
“Deploying the units in my system turned out to be a head-snapping experience,” wrote Heilbrunn. “The overall presentation was audibly different.”
In the November issue, Heilbrunn also singles out the GC1 unit in the magazine’s annual Buyer’s Guide. The detail of the GCs’ design is a closely guarded secret by Berry, and so Heilbrunn freely admits that “he doesn’t completely understand how this passive device works; he only knows that it does work with most components, markedly reducing background hash, enriching timbre top to bottom, and adding a touch of three-dimensionality to voices and instruments.”
And, if that’s not reason enough to audition one, you can always have a browse through the raft of awards and rave reviews at www.computeraudiodesign.com/gc1-ground-control/
Find out more about Computer Audio Design’s multi-award winning innovations and track down your nearer specialist retailer at www.computeraudiodesign.com
Furutech: Pure Power 6 NCF
Continuing with the theme of noise reduction, Furutech’s “dense, mysteriousl-looking, CNC machined cube of aerospace-grade aluminium alloy” is described as “a virtual black hole for EMI and RFI.”
The aptly-named Pure Power is a six-outlet distributor that features rhodium-plated GTX-D duplex receptacles and Furutech’s proprietary NCF technology throughout.
“Music took on renewed vitality and visceral immediacy – the recordings sounding more than ever like hearing a live feed straight from the mixing board.” It exhibited “greater low-level micro-dynamic activity” as well as “tonal contrast and detail focus” in spades, as well as “more snap, image focus and soundstage dimensionality”.
Partnered with Furutech’s state-of-the-art flagship Project-V1 power cord, the Pure Power unit “redefined [reviewer Neil Gader’s] system, making it the quietest it has ever been.”
Find out more at www.furutech.com and locate your nearest dealer via UK distributor www.soundfowndations.co.uk
The Absolute Sound’s Buyer’s Guide 2024 is out now, in the November issue of the magazine.
David Denyer PR | The hi-fi specialist 