In Parts 1 & 2 of my Today's Fresh Catch series of posts about the new Acoustic Revive AC power supply components, I introduced the RTP-6 Absolute NCF six-outlet AC power distributor and the Power Reference TripleC NCF AC power cords, respectively, which you could rightly consider to be the exotic bespoke Aston Martin DB4 GT Continuation versions of the AC power supply world.
Vintage Aston Martin DB4 GT, courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.
Personally, I'm lusting after the Aston Martin DB4 GT Continuation that's based on the 75 original racer DB4 GT's produced between 1959 and 1963, to the tune of £1.5 million each. Alas, a dream that will be unrealized unless Aston Martin decides to take pity and sponsor an audio writer!
Heck, I'd be totally thrilled if one of you took me for a ride in your vintage or Continuation Aston Martin DB4 GT!
Ok, back to reality & audio, which is actually pretty wonderful too!
The Acoustic Revive RAS-14 TripleC NCF Power Conditioner.
In Part 3 of the Acoustic Revive Today's Fresh Catch I'd like to introduce you to the Acoustic Revive RAS-14-TripleC NCF Power Conditioner ($2025 USD).
Regular readers may remember that I reviewed the original RAS-14 way back in Issue 55 (2011) of Positive Feedback, in Chapter 9 of The Acoustic Revive Chronicles (photo below), and the new Acoustic Revive RAS-14-TripleC NCF Power Conditioner is intended to be the ultimate evolution of the RAS-14 concept through the addition of the TripleC conductors and the NCF connectors.
The original Acoustic Revive RAS-14 AC Power Conditioner that I reviewed for Positive Feedback in Issue 55 (2011).
The appearance of the Acoustic Revive RAS-14-TripleC NCF Power Conditioner might take you a little bit by surprise, because it doesn't look like what one would expect from the usual boxy 'power conditioner'.
Acoustic Revive RAS-14 TripleC NCF.
Rather, it looks more like a fancy version of a very short Acoustic Revive Power Reference TripleC NCF AC power cord, but with a mysterious carbon fiber chamber surrounding part of its length.
2-meter Acoustic Revive Power Reference TripleC NCF AC power cord.
It turns out that RAS-14 TripleC NCF AC power conditioner is really a hybrid device that melds the performance concepts of the RTP Absolute NCF power distributors (below), which use a combination of vibrational dissipation and passive AC filtration achieved through the clever applications of materials science, and the Power Reference TripleC NCF AC power cables (above), which are an ultra-performance AC power cable.
The Acoustic Revive RTP-6 Absolute NCF power distributor.
Like the Power Reference TripleC NCF AC power cables, the RAS-14 TripleC NCF AC power conditioner is constructed with materials that are picked 'by ear' to provide the best musical & sonic performance, and are hand-crafted in a very laborious process that is signature of Acoustic Revive products.
Acoustic Revive RAS-14 TripleC Nano Crystal Formula (NCF) plug end.
The plug ends of the RAS-14 TripleC NCF power conditioner are the specialty Nano Crystal Formula (NCF) material developed by Furutech, which are also used in the plugs of the RTP Absolute NCF power distributors and the Power Reference TripleC NCF AC power cables.
I’ve never seen the Furutech Piezo Ceramic Series of AC plugs until now, and I have to say they’re rather astonishing devices in and of themselves.
In the past I’ve used the Furutech FI-11M Gold series ($70 USD street price), and the Furutech FI-25 Gold series ($80 USD street price), with excellent results.
The street price for the Furutech FI-50 series is approximately $385 USD!
Acoustic Revive RAS-14 TripleC Nano Crystal Formula (NCF) plug end.
Here’s what Furutech says about the FI-50 NCF Rhodium series of plugs:
“Furutech’s Pure Transmission FI-50 NCF Piezo Ceramic series connector bodies and housings feature several breakthrough construction techniques.
A multilayer nonmagnetic stainless steel and silver plated carbon fiber shell incorporates a special damping and insulating acetal copolymer. Furutech settled on stainless and silver plated carbon fiber for the outer housing after extensive listening sessions with Japanese industry figures and audiophiles.
The body of the connectors incorporates an “active” damping material: Nano Crystal² Formula – Nano Crystalline, Ceramic and Carbon Powder.
Incorporated into select Furutech products, Nano Crystal² Formula (NCF) is comprised of a special crystalline material that has two “active” properties. First, it generates negative ions that eliminate static and secondly, it converts thermal energy into far-infrared. Furutech then combines this remarkable crystalline material with nano-sized ceramic particles and carbon powder for their additional “Piezo Effect” damping properties. The resulting Nano Crystal² Formula is the ultimate electrical and mechanical damping material – only found in Furutech products!
Nano Crystal² Formula eliminates static, “interconverts” thermal, mechanical and electrical energy and damps vibrations—all for the finest Furutech Pure Transmission signal imaginable.
Floating Magnetic Field Effects & Furutech Earth/Ground Jumper System:
How far will Furutech’s engineers go in their attempts to reach Pure Transmission reference quality? Their concentrated examination of each and every element of signal transfer has resulted in another breakthrough technology, the Furutech Earth/Ground Jumper System. It eliminates EMI (Electromagnetic Interference) induced in metal parts like connector housing screws.
Current flowing through the power connector creates a magnetic field, just as an insulated conductor creates both electromagnetic and electrostatic fields. Furutech engineers found this magnetic field induces current flow (and a small magnetic field) in the screws holding the connector together! These magnetic fields interfere with the larger magnetic field around the conductor and connector.
Furutech’s total attention to detail and elegant engineering neatly solves the problem. The Earth/Ground Jumper System connects the securing screws to a ground terminal within the plug completely eliminating the field disturbances they cause. The stray fields are grounded by a series of interlocking parts within the connector that attach to the ground conductor. The Jumper System is available in Furutech NEMA Power and IEC Connectors. The Earth/Ground Jumper System Carries US Patent No. 6,669,491″
The Furutech FI-50 NCF Rhodium power plugs are mini-components all by themselves!
Acoustic Revive RAS-14 TripleC Nano Crystal Formula (NCF) plug end.
NCF is a combination of a crystalline material incorporating nano-sized ceramic particles and carbon powder, which exhibits piezoelectric damping properties when exposed to the mechanical stress provided by the vibration in mains electricity, which for example, is a 60Hz in the USA.
The NCF’s piezoelectric effect puts the mains AC vibration to work to generate negative ions that helps eliminate static, and it also dissipates AC mains vibrational energy by converting it into electrical energy, which is then converted to thermal energy in the far-infrared.
The NCF’s piezoelectric effect puts the mains AC vibration to work and reduces noise in the AC coming into your hi-fi.
The conductors in the RAS-14 TripleC NCF are the PC-TripleC, the same as used in the Power Reference TripleC NCF AC power cables, about which Acoustic Revive says:
“A dream new conductor PC-Triple C by forging manufacturing method developed as the world’s first audio conductor. Acoustic Revive will adopt this PC-Triple C for all cables in the future. PC-Triple C uses special OFC (oxygen free copper) which completely removes micron unit impurities in raw material, and arranges the direction of grain boundary in the direction of electric flow by forging manufacturing method which is Japanese craftsmanship. It is a revolutionary technology.
Acoustic Revive PC-TripleC cable.
In addition, small micro-voids, which could not be avoided even in PCOCC, which is a single crystal material, are eliminated by forging, and the conductor density has been improved to the limit.
With high-density sound quality not experienced with other conductors, with ultra wide range, natural & smooth tone color, and texture expression, energetic and full of dynamic feeling, all items have reached another level of quality. PC-Triple C is a conductor for sound of Japanese Patent No. 5871985.”
“Most cables on the market use a stranded wire made by twisting thin wires together to form a conductor. However, twisted wires are subject to stray current from the “strand-jump” phenomenon from the electrical field which circulates around twisted wires. This stray current effect causes incidental sound, noise, distortion, and makes the sound less transparent. Acoustic Revive uses single-core conductors because there is no method other than using a single core conductor to get zero stray current.”
The Insulating Material:
“In the single core cable series, fluoro-resin, which is the material with the highest non-dielectric constant presently, is adopted as the insulating material.
Most commercial cables use PVC or polyethylene (PE), which have a poor non-dielectric constant, and remarkably deteriorates the sound quality.
Also, cables using Teflon, which has the same type of fluorine composition, are domestically priced more than 500,000 ¥, but Acoustic Revive adopts fluoro-resin insulation even for our entry-level cables, realizing high-cost performance in a less expensive cable.”
Noise Reduction with Fine Met Beads:
“Fine Met Beads (Fine Met Beads® is a registered product of Hitachi Metals) are newly installed on power cables to eliminate noise on transmission. Fine Met beads are a material for removing soft magnetic noise by boron, iron and silicon alloy, which is characterized by no sound quality side effects like ferrite core. Acoustic Revive has adopted Fine Met beads at the optimal size for various cable applications, and succeeded in eliminating normal noise and common mode noise without any negative side effects. Without any side effects, the S/N ratio dramatically improves, the music emerges from the silence, and you can experience the pleasure of a realistic super-stereoscopic sound image in a vast sound field.”
Cable Structure:
“The ideal cable is one that is not diminished by transmission loss or alteration. There are no cables that will improve sound quality, rather it is only by reducing transmission loss and transmission alteration that more of the original sound quality can come through.
In order to eliminate transmission loss and transmission alteration, Acoustic Revive jointly developed with various specialized material manufacturers the ideal cable structure.
In particular, we use a single core conductor of PC-Triple C in an elliptical shape, which excludes resonance inherent to a single wire, that is created for us by the world’s best forging manufacturing method by FCM Co., Ltd..
We jointly developed a flexible Teflon coated copper tube to use as a shield, which provides ease of handling with complete shielding characteristics. For inside the shield we collaborated with Eisai to develop a natural silk tube that we use to separate the conductors and suppress vibration by combining dissimilar materials.
Finally, we jointly developed a new screw fastening method with Matsugane Co., Ltd., which eliminates the sound quality degradation of solder.”
Ok, so that's a description of the power cord part of the RAS-14 TripleC NCF, but let's now talk about the AC power conditioning aspect of the RAS-14 TripleC NCF, which is also quite interesting for its use of vibrational dissipation and passive AC filtering.
RAS-14 AC conditioner.
The AC conditioner that surrounds the power cord portion of the RAS-14 TripleC NCF is a carbon fiber tube like you might find in an ultra-high end bicycle frame, like my BMC Granfondo bicycle, that you'd see at the front of the peloton in the Tour de France or Paris-Roubaix.
On my own carbon fiber framed BMC Granfondo bicycle I marvel at how much the vibration from the road surface to my body is reduced by carbon fiber's ability to damp vibration, and that same vibration damping materials science idea is why a carbon fiber tube was chosen by Acoustic Revive for the RAS-14 TripleC NCF.
RAS-14 TripleC NCF hickory end caps.
On each end of the carbon fiber tube are wood (hickory) end caps, with both being chosen by ear for their ability to damp and break up mechanical vibration pathways which deteriorate sound quality, and for having natural sonic signatures.
RAS-14 TripleC NCF hickory end caps.
The inside of this 'AC power conditioner' chassis is filled with a combination of green carborundum powder (the purest form), tourmaline powder, and natural quartz powder. Green carborundum is a man-made compound of silicon and carbon that Acoustic Revive says absorbs "electromagnetic wave noise which is produced from receptacles and internal wiring. Green carborundum is the only electromagnetic wave absorbent material which improves sound quality and S/N ratio."
Acoustic Revive also says the piezoelectric mineral tourmaline reduces static electricity through the release of negative ions, and that the quartz powder "releases far infrared rays, which has a surface activation effect. This leads to very realistic sound filled with a feeling of throbbing pulse."
Note that this AC conditioning chassis surrounds the power cord portion of the RAS-14 TripleC NCF, and that all of the filtering is done passively by absorbing radiated AC noise, rather than running the AC directly through the minerals and absorbing it that way.
Acoustic Revive RAS-14 TripleC NCF.
The whole RAS-14 TripleC NCF is then cryogenically treated.
The RAS-14 TripleC NCF AC power conditioners are intended to be inserted between AC power cords and hi-fi components.
Acoustic Revive says that the use of the RAS-14 TripleC NCF will reduce distortion and colorations in the sound across all frequency ranges, which will give greater transparency, better channel separation, and better sound staging performance as a result.
My Altec A5 Voice of the Theatre project loudspeakers in their new home, the 'theatre' room.
Acoustic Revive also says the same performance enhancing attributes apply to video as well, giving a noticeably better picture, so I'll report on that too in my Altec A5 Voice of the Theatre video system.
I'll be trying the RAS-14 TripleC NCF Power Conditioner with a generic AC power cord, with the original Acoustic Revive Power Reference AC power cables, and with the new Acoustic Revive Power Reference TripleC NCF AC power cords, as well as comparing it to the original Acoustic Revive RAS-14, so stay tuned for lot's more interesting comparisons to come!
The Acoustic Revive RAS-14 TripleC NCF Power Conditioner.
As always, thanks for stopping by, and may the tone be with you!
