The Puron Power Filter
One of the most important things in your audio system is the quality of the power you are feeding it. Before spending a ton of your hard-earned cash on exotic audio accessories, consider sorting out the power first. The more artifacts you have in the power line, the more noise creeps into the audio signal.
The Puron is a small device that is not a “pass-through” device like a standard line conditioner, and it can be used in tandem with whatever current power conditioning you might be using. It looks somewhat like an old metal encased rectifier tube (for those of you old enough to remember that kind of thing) and is meant to be plugged into the same circuit as the components you are using, whether you have a line conditioner or not.
We are in process of trying this in a number of different environments and systems to give you a full report, but for now, the Puron proves successful.
The first trial in our main listening room, only yielded a small, but definite result on a system consisting of the T+A Caruso R all in one, and a pair of vintage ESS AMT1-b speakers, with Tellurium Q Black power and speaker cables. This was chosen because this system has a bit of a high frequency edge to it. The Puron definitely took some of the glare out of the presentation, and actually had more effect the following day after being in the system for about 30 hours. (Which incidentally is what Vera-Fi says needs to happen for optimum result.)
To put things in proper perspective, the TONE studio is a metal clad building (kind of a natural faraday cage), with it’s own dedicated power, attention paid to grounding, and Cardas outlets installed where gear plugs in. There is no wi-fi in my office – even the iPad is hardwired, and there are no wall wart or switching power supplies. Finally, there are no light dimmers of any kind. So, it’s fairly grunge free out here.
The house is a different story. Multiple appliances, wall warts a plenty, Hue light dimmers, and wifi everywhere. All in the context of a 60-year old house. The bedroom system consists of an LG 80” TV and a pair of Totem Kin Play Tower speakers. Nothing fancy, by any means. This was an immediate change for the better. Just watching the last two episodes of Picard shows less pixelation and noise in the blacks. Seriously, I’d buy one just for this. However, it really did clean up the sound coming through the Kin Plays by an order of magnitude.
We’d really like to try this in a few more configurations. But for now at $250, I can’t suggest this one highly enough. – Jeff Dorgay
$250