You may not know it yet, but no matter how much you’ve invested in your hi-fi system, if you’re a “doubting Thomas” when it comes to anti-noise accessories then your sound is being “swamped by parasitic noise” and “trapped under sonic rubbish”, writes Paul Rigby on webzine The Audiophile Man. Thankfully, effective solutions are available and, while the best ones may not be cheap, they come at at a fraction of the price of your beleaguered components.

Rigby is well qualified to make such assertions, having tried removing all of the noise-reducing accessories from his c.£80k system. The result was a sound so shockingly disappointing in comparison that he found himself preferring to listen to a £100 digital player with a pair of earbuds!

His conclusion: “Accessories are just as important as the main components. Just as important. Got that?”.

One could even argue that it’s possible to build a superior sounding-system on a limited budget by carefully choosing your balance of components and accessories. That said, Rigby freely admits that there are, sadly, some hi-fi accessories on the market that fall short of the mark. Japanese brand Furutech is, however, one of the leading “serious players” that can be relied upon to deliver the goods. While the company’s products don’t come cheap, they’re “often more than worth the money” in performance terms.

One such example is the NCF Clear Line, a passive signal line optimizer. Small enough to hold in your hand, these units come in RCA or XLR male / female versions and look very similar to termination plugs, except that they’re filled with a raft of unique anti-noise tech. They’re also a breeze to use – simply plug them into any spare input or output terminal. You can use a single unit or multiples – for example one per channel in the case of truly dual mono equipment – for even greater improvements.

Paul Rigby opted to put these little devices to the test and tried every possible placement and combination in his system. You can read the full details of how he got on in his review at https://theaudiophileman.com/ncf-clear-line-from-furutech. (Spoiler alert – if you just want the final conclusion: “They had an immediate effect that only improved as the hours progressed. The more units I plugged in, the better my hi-fi sounded.”)

Find out more about Furutech’s NCF Clear Line range at https://www.furutech.com. To audition a product, track down your nearest dealer via UK distributor http://www.soundfowndations.co.uk/site/Home.html