It seemed like it took me forever to get Chapter 9 of the Acoustic Revive Chronicles published at Positive Feedback Online. After I had received the Acoustic Revive RAS-14 AC Power Conditioner and the USB-1.0SP USB Interconnect for review, the North American distributor, Joe Cohen, ceased importing the Acoustic Revive product line. There wasn't anyone named for a quite a while as the heir apparent, so I put the review on hold.

Then a new North American distributor, Stewart Suda, stepped in to fill the gap left by Joe, but Stewart asked me to hold off for a while on publishing the review until he got everything in order to distribute Acoustic Revive in North America, and that took a while. Now everything is in order and I'd like to welcome Stewart to the wonderful world of Acoustic Revive in North America!

Man, it's good to have you!

Here's a couple of excerpts from Chapter 9:

"As I was going through the past articles of the Chronicles and thinking about all that has taken place it really hit home how well all of the Acoustic Revive products have worked in my Hi-Fi rig, taking it to musical and sonic levels that would just be impossible otherwise. So here are my long-term test results for using Acoustic Revive products in my reference system on a daily basis: They rock! It's really that simple, as these are great products, engineered to perfection, that deliver results that most other accessories can only dream of."

"Here is a brief summary of what I've learned about the Acoustic Revive products up to now: What I hear the Acoustic Revive products doing primarily in my system is improving the musical attributes of recordings. The timbre, meter, tonality, harmony, beat, tempo, syncopation, and melody all became more convincingly natural and life-like as I've added in different AR products. The overall effect has been to make the music more dramatic, bigger, more exciting, and more entertaining—more like you experience in life—more naturally life-like.

Also, I found that in many cases the sonic attributes of recording artifacts improved as well: things like sound-staging, imaging, transparency, perspective, and the sense of recorded space became more tangible and vivid. I must confess that I am not particularly focused on increasing the presence of those type of audiophile-style sound effects in my Hi-Fi rig, as I feel voicing a system specifically for those attributes often does far more damage to the music than it provides benefit from a sound-effects-for-entertainment standpoint. If those recording artifact attributes are improved in such a way that they act as a spice to add a little zest to the music I'm fine with it, but when the spice overpowers the flavor of the dish itself, so to speak, and my attention is drawn away from the music by the sonic artifacts of the recording process, then I'm not ok with it.

Fortunately the Acoustic Revive products provide a very nice balance of providing a big dose of improving the musical attributes, with an appropriately sized addition of sonic improvements that spices things up without diminishing the music, with the net effect being that I'm drawn deeper into the music. So all-in-all, the Acoustic Revive products have been winners in my home audio system, and have been getting me ever closer to Ken-San's (and my own) goal of a home audio system that "sounds natural and not as though it is being played back over an electrical device.""

"The Acoustic Revive RAS-14 AC conditioner is expensive at $1295 USD, but for your money you get a startlingly deeper soundstage, a big dose of increased clarity, an increased recovery of fine detail, improved timbre (like cymbals example above), and just generally the music comes across as more immediate and emotionally engaging, while never sounding HiFi-hyped. In other words, if you've got $1295 burning a hole in your pocket that you don't know what to do with, the RAS-14 is a no-brainer.

The Acoustic Revive USB-1.0SP USB Interconnect is $895 USD, and like the RAS-14, it kicks serious fanny. The USB-1.0SP has the Acoustic Revive house sound: a natural musicality with lots of sound-staging prowess, a big billowing sound-space, and lots of detail recovery. Along with that there are vivid and saturated tonal colors, lots of forward momentum, images with real body, lots of musically expressive subtleties, and a naturalness that rarely accompanies this level of sonic supremacy.

Both the Acoustic Revive USB-1.0SP and RAS-14 have continued to surprise and delight me over the review period. If you've got serious disposable money to play with during these recessionary times, can afford to keep the wife and mistress in Champagne & caviar for the requisite bribery period, then I can't imagine you'd be disappointed with these musical jewels in your system. If you're wondering how you're going to feed the kids and dog if you buy them, well then don't.

Read the whole story here.