The Acoustic Revive RPC-1 Power Supply Conditioner: Power to the people!
By Jeff Day
Acoustic Revive RPC-1 Power Conditioner, front view.
The intrigue usually starts with a message from Yoshi-san or Elia-san from the MuSon Project in Osaka, Japan, who export Japanese audio exotica to The World.
Every time I get a message from Messrs. Hontani I get pretty excited, because long experience has taught me that with their extremely good taste in all things audio that something very good is about to happen!
Take for example, it is Messrs. Hontani who have introduced me to the joys of Japanese audio exotica from the Leben Hi-Fi Stereo Company, Acoustic Revive, and the Spec Corporation, and the colorful & creative personalities behind those companies, like Mr. Taku Hyodo, Mr. Ken Ishiguro, and Mr. Shirokazu Yazaki, respectively. What a joy it has been!
In this particular case the message came from Elia-san, who told me he had just sent me an intriguing new audio device from the creative mind of Mr. Ken Ishiguro at Acoustic Revive, the new RPC-1 Power Supply Conditioner.
The Acoustic Revive RPC-1 Power Supply Conditioner
Acoustic Revive was founded by Mr. Ken Ishiguro to make ultra-quality high-performance audio products in 1997, making 2017 Acoustic Revive’s 20th anniversary as a company.
Ishiguro-san is a talented and creative audio designer that develops and produces a wide range of specialty audio products that includes speaker cables & interconnects, AC power supply related products, personal computer & network audio products, loudspeaker stands, equipment vibration isolation devices, room tuning products, equipment tuning devices, EMF canceling & grounding devices, digital & analogue disk treatment devices, and ultra-quality connectors.
I have written about many of the Acoustic Revive products over the last nine or so years, and towards the end of this article I’ll provide links to those articles so you can do some additional reading if you wish.
The subject of this article, the new Acoustic Revive RPC-1 Power Supply Conditioner, has already caused quite a stir in Japan, winning the 2016 MJ Technology of the Year Accessories Division Excellence Award, so I was very curious to hear what all the fuss was about!
Acoustic Revive RPC-1 Power Conditioner and packaging.
Like a child when Christmas morning arrives, I couldn’t wait to tear open the FedEx package containing the RPC-1 Power Supply Conditioner when it arrived.
Acoustic Revive RPC-1 Power conditioner, side view.
I wasn’t disappointed either, for when I pulled the RPC-1 Power Supply Conditioner out of its shipping box and held it in my hands, I could tell that it was built to an extraordinary level of quality, and with the beautiful level of fit & finish that I have come to expect from Acoustic Revive products.
The RPC-1 has a beautiful furniture-grade Hickory enclosure that measures about 6.75-inches square by about 3.25-inches tall, and weighs in at about 2.63 pounds on my digital scale.
Acoustic Revive RPC-1, angle view.
The power cord that exits the RPC-1 is the ultra-high quality PC-Triple C Acoustic Revive Power cord, and is about 16-inches long.
On the bottom of the Hickory enclosure are six little protective pads to keep its fine finish from getting abraded.
Acoustic Revive RPC-1, bottom view.
The Acoustic Revive website says that inside the RPC-1 is a circuit with special coils that reduce & homogenize high-frequency noise in the AC lines, but the RPC-1’s enclosure is permanently sealed, so I could not peer at its innards to snap a photo of it for you.
The principle of operation of the RPC-1 is based upon the research of the late Mr. Jun Shibata, and has been developed as a commercial product via a collaborative project between HWT and Acoustic Revive.
Mr. Jun Shibata was the developer of infrared mouse, and he found during his research that high-frequency noise on the AC line caused his prototypes to malfunction.
Shibata-san developed a method to eliminate the high-frequency AC line noise that caused the mouse to malfunction, thus fixing the issue.
Shibata-san’s method was based on using a capacitor, a resistor, a choke coil, etc., like a conventional noise filter, but then by taking the difference between two signals through sets of special coils, he figured out a way to eliminate the high-frequency noise on the AC line without causing the deleterious effects that noise filters are known for.
The President of the HWT company, President Fukushima, inherited this technology through Shibata-san’s will, and then developed it to sell as commercial noise elimination equipment for the industrial sector.
Mr. Ken Ishiguro says the method of Shibata-san allows the noise to be removed from the AC line in a way that doesn’t negatively affect the feeling of energy, tone, or the audio frequency extremes, for audio equipment, the way that more conventional noise filters can.
Mr. Ken Ishiguro was very impressed with the technology of Shibata-san, and formed a collaboration between the HWT company and Acoustic Revive to develop an upgraded and more powerful version of what HWT sells to industrial clients, that is optimized for high-performance audio use, and thus the Acoustic Revive RPC-1 Power Supply Conditioner was born.
Oyaide R-0 AC outlet and Acoustic Revive Acoustic Revive CB-1DB Receptacle Base Plates with CFRP-1F Carbon Fiber Outlet Plate.
The directions for use are to simply plug the RPC-1 into a wall or power strip outlet, and it will filter the in-wall AC before, so the high-frequency line noise is gone before it can get into your hi-fi gear. Acoustic Revive says you can plug it into an outlet in a different room than your hi-fi gear is in and it will still have the same effect, as it filters all the AC on the same circuit in the house.
The Acoustic Revive RPC-1 Power Conditioner plugged in and conditioning in-wall AC before it gets to the system.
Listening Impressions
For listening evaluations, I have four audio systems in different rooms in my home that I press into service for reviewing audio equipment, which allows me to hear how a new piece of audio gear in for evaluation will perform across a variety of system contexts and room sizes so I can get a more complete perspective of its performance.
Altec A5 Voice of the Theatre loudspeakers in primary music system.
Like most hi-fi reviewers, my various hi-fi systems are in an almost constant state of change as I try out new things, whether it be new equipment, new equipment modifications, new interconnects, new speaker cables, new power cords, or in this case, a new high-performance in-wall line AC conditioning device, the Acoustic Revive RPC-1 Power Supply Conditioner.
Review system as of January 2017.
For this review the bulk of my listening impressions took place in my primary music system, which you can see directly above as well as in the accompanying photos. If you wish, you can read more about the review system specifics at the time of the review here, if you would like more information.
***
The full review of the Acoustic Revive RPC-1 Power Conditioner will be available to read at Positive Feedback in the near future.
I hope you have enjoyed this little preview, and as always, thanks for stopping by!
