QSA : My take on their expensive products

[marty]

I hate to say it but the same could be said for tube swaping.

Good one, Will! As I see it, the differences are 3-fold.
To begin, tubes cost a hundred bucks or so, not thousands.
Second, you have a better chance of hearing differences w tubes than plug conditioners although the later may be more useful getting you a ride on alien spacecraft.
Third, tubes will be around in 50 years. $7000 Lan adapters and $2500 AC plug conditioners? I'm skeptical.

 

[kennyb123]

Second, you have a better chance of hearing differences w tubes than plug conditioners although the later may be more useful getting you a ride on alien spacecraft.

Which of the Power Jitters have you tried yourself?

 

[ozzzy]

I have tried the Red/Black AC plug. It was ok, nothing worth the price tag. And I couldn't get past adding such a cheap looking plug to the end of my AudioQuest Dragons.
ozzy

 

[kennyb123]

I have tried the Red/Black AC plug. It was ok, nothing worth the price tag. And I couldn't get past adding such a cheap looking plug to the end of my AudioQuest Dragons.
ozzy

I hear you on the challenge of getting past the look of these things. So far I’ve used Jitters in my AV system. I reported on them being a worthwhile upgrade above in this thread.

 

[Willgolf]

Marty
That is why this hobby is so interesting. In the past, I've had more luck with different fuses then I have had with changing tubes. I cannot speak to jitter plugs especially if you already use a power conditioner and have a dedicated electrical line for your electronics.
Not all tubes are inexpensive. I had 16 Western Electric 300 B tubes in my previous amplifier. And then in my horizon DAC,I was considering a TAK 274 B tube which is well over $1000. I end it up spending $200 for a Sophia electric aqua 274 B tube.

I have often said, or at least I'm finding out in the last year that many tweaks and even tubes do not improve the performance of your audio system. I have upgraded component racks, isolation pods, cords, and cables and for me, it is hard to determine which has the biggest impact on my sound.

My take would be fuses and tubes have made the biggest impact on my system. The one tweak we have not talked about is room acoustics. I am in the process of having a professional acoustic company do my whole listening room ceiling as we speak. So I will be interested to see the results once they are completed.

I think my last tweak will be trying a red-black fuse in my Lampi Horizon. After that, I will focus on a preamp which I am still not sure that I need. If I do, it will be the Aries Cerat Ianus Ageto.

As always our search will evolve and continue!

 

[marty]

Which of the Power Jitters have you tried yourself?

I'd love to listen to any of them!! But laying out 7500 to do so is probably not the wisest use of my money. How about you?

 

[marty]

The one tweak we have not talked about is room acoustics.

Will, I think there are pages upon pages in the WBF about the importance of the room and considerations for its improvement. Always a good investment decision when you can get a pro to help make the room better! I'm sure it will be productive for you.
Marty

 

[kennyb123]

I'd love to listen to any of them!! But laying out 7500 to do so is probably not the wisest use of my money. How about you?

I have only tried the more affordable ones. I don’t have as pessimistic view of these given that experience. Several folk in whose ears I trust have claimed that these things bring a more significant improvement than power cords. We don’t think twice about a $7500 power cord, but if this doohickey moves the needle even more, maybe it’s the expensive power cord that becomes not the wisest use of money.

The QSA treatment is effective. What one is paying for is how long the item has been put through the treatment process. That process is less effective when the metal is high purity. That’s why cheap plugs were chosen for the Power Jitters. The process somehow reduces how the metal’s resistance to the flow of current.

I am looking forward to the new QSA Lanedri products.

 

[kennyb123]

Will, I think there are pages upon pages in the WBF about the importance of the room and considerations for its improvement. Always a good investment decision when you can get a pro to help make the room better! I'm sure it will be productive for you.
Marty

Great feedback. I solicited the advice of ASC as far as deploying their tube traps. It was transformative.

 

[marty]

The QSA treatment is effective. What one is paying for is how long the item has been put through the treatment process.

Interesting. I had no idea there was a "treatment". Do you mean sort of like a cryo process? Irradiation? Other? Is there a place tor read about this treatment? I can't imagine some sort of treatment whereby a little dab will do ya and it cost, say $100 bucks, whereas prolonged treatment of the same would be $7500. What are they using, a cyclotron? The CERN reactor in Switzerland? Can't wait to learn more, assuming it's public info.

 

[kennyb123]

Interesting. I had no idea there was a "treatment". Do you mean sort of like a cryo process? Irradiation? Other? Is there a place tor read about this treatment? I can't imagine some sort of treatment whereby a little dab will do ya and it cost, say $100 bucks, whereas prolonged treatment of the same would be $7500. What are they using, a cyclotron? The CERN reactor in Switzerland? Can't wait to learn more, assuming it's public info.

I'm sure you understand that a company who freely shares their intellectual property is only shooting themselves in the foot. That a company isn't forthcoming tells us nothing about the actual effectiveness of a company's products - though I think it's more likely the case that the more closely a company guards a secret, the more likely what they are guarding is the real deal. This is certainly the case when we at the same time witness that company experience fast growth. It's my understanding that that QSA has been unable to meet the high demand for their products.

The treatment isn't something that's applied with a dab. As I mentioned previously, the cost is related to how long the treatment is applied. That's the extent of my knowledge of this matter.

Shunyata has a process that they call KPIP. They likewise don't disclose the secret sauce behind this, but that doesn't mean that it's not the real deal. If you watch the video recently posted of the tour of their facility, they show some of the apparatus they use to apply this process. They even talk about the amount of time cables are left to cook in this process. I imagine that QSA is doing something similar. And like I said, QSA cannot now meet the demand for their products. The longer a device undergoes treatment, the less able they are to meet demand. Hence the price goes up pretty dramatically the longer a product holds things up.

I imagine that had QSA dressed up their Power Jitters to make them look as if they are deserving of their high prices, we might not be having this conversation. I have enjoyed reading your posts over the years so I thought I would jump in nonetheless. Tweek Geek offers 30 day money back on these things so why not dip a toe in to see if your suspicions are correct? Despite all that I've said about them, I'm still in the toe dipping process myself. I opted for the lower priced ones to determine if I wanted to spend a heck of a lot more. I do and did - but even those will come with a money back guarantee just in case. We don't have to judge books by their covers in this hobby.

 

[CKKeung]

Tweek Geek offers 30 day money back on these things so why not dip a toe in to see if your suspicions are correct? Despite all that I've said about them, I'm still in the toe dipping process myself. I opted for the lower priced ones to determine if I wanted to spend a heck of a lot more. I do and did - but even those will come with a money back guarantee just in case. We don't have to judge books by their covers in this hobby.

Hi Kenny,
I agree with you 100%.
Listening is believing and my own motto is : No listen No buy.

The Tweek Geek 30-day money back offer is great!
Why not open our mind & ears and step into this new arena?
Zero harm for sure!

 

[BruceD]

Great feedback. I solicited the advice of ASC as far as deploying their tube traps. It was transformative.

Indeed I've used a small but selective set of ASC tube traps consistently since 1990--they are part of my listening mantra and work

exceedingly well for my setup.I've had excellent support from the factory ever since.

I realise they are despised on WBF but horses for courses and they can, and do serve a useful purpose in some but not all situations.

Good listening,
BruceD

 

[kennyb123]

Indeed I've used a small but selective set of ASC tube traps consistently since 1990--they are part of my listening mantra and work

exceedingly well for my setup.I've had excellent support from the factory ever since.

They promote the concept of “drying up the head end”, whivh is essentially the front of our rooms. The idea is to make sure that we only hear sound that’s coming directly from our speakers by drying up excessive energy bouncing off the walls in front of us. It’s remarkable what happens to tone and timbre and the starting and stopping of notes when we do this. I was left astonished by the fact that my walls had been doing so much harm to the music.

I realise they are despised on WBF but horses for courses and they can, and do serve a useful purpose in some but not all situations.

I was unaware of that. Ridiculous.

 

[highstream]

Agree about the ASC tube traps. I have two stacked in a corner almost to the ceiling and one on the outer side of each of my ATC 50 floorstanders. I found that dead even with the front of the baffle works best. If I move them forward, say literally 1/2 to 3/4", I'm "inside" the chests of singers, which is great, but other parts of the spectrum suffer.

 

[kennyb123]

I have two stacked in a corner almost to the ceiling and one on the outer side of each of my ATC 50 floorstanders.

The closer you can get to the ceiling, the better. Last year or maybe the year before, they had Black Friday special pricing on their SubTraps. Jordan from ASC had remembered from the photos I sent that there was still a pretty big gap so he recommended that I place my front corner stacks on SubTraps. This brought a massive improvement across the entire frequency band.

 

[highstream]

Nice. I put one of those store bought milk crates under mine, with fabric around it.

 

[highstream]

About the QSA fuses, Tweek Geek has been running an inventory sale on QSA fuses -- reducing overhead -- with a little more consideration with multi-item purchases. Last week I picked up a couple of red/blacks and a red, with two more reds coming for my subs (he didn't have any more red/blacks in the amperage ranges I needed). Since I'd already been using reds in my ATC floorstanders for many months, I thought I had some notion of what might be coming, but it turned out to be far more than I imagined.

The first r/b went into a Lampi Golden Gate 3 dac, along with a coating of NPS-Q45T contact enhancer, replacing an SR Purple (all are Purple replacements). Twenty minutes later the difference was obvious and a lot more than small. Clarity, quiet, soundstage depth, focus sense of rhythm, delicacy, tonally slightly warm, etc. was on a different planet, albeit with a bit of early burnin roughness at times. The next day, yesterday, even more of good things, such as more body (clarity alone can make things sound thinner). That led me to add the other r/b to a VAC preamp, also with a coating of Q45T. Even more of the same right off. Today, I inserted the red in a PS Audio Regenerator. More fullness, even clearer acoustic bass plucking. Overall, voices have been the slowest to show a similar change, perhaps because the Purple was already fairly good there, but am hearing a little today. In the Stereo Times article, the reviewer notes that with the red/black his amp had turned into state of the art. I won't go that far, but if everything ends up in the direction I've heard, this is one hell of a tweak.

 

[TDX]

About the QSA fuses, Tweek Geek has been running an inventory sale on QSA fuses -- reducing overhead -- with a little more consideration with multi-item purchases. Last week I picked up a couple of red/blacks and a red, with two more reds coming for my subs (he didn't have any more red/blacks in the amperage ranges I needed). Since I'd already been using reds in my ATC floorstanders for many months, I thought I had some notion of what might be coming, but it turned out to be far more than I imagined.

The first r/b went into a Lampi Golden Gate 3 dac, along with a coating of NPS-Q45T contact enhancer, replacing an SR Purple (all are Purple replacements). Twenty minutes later the difference was obvious and a lot more than small. Clarity, quiet, soundstage depth, focus sense of rhythm, delicacy, tonally slightly warm, etc. was on a different planet, albeit with a bit of early burnin roughness at times. The next day, yesterday, even more of good things, such as more body (clarity alone can make things sound thinner). That led me to add the other r/b to a VAC preamp, also with a coating of Q45T. Even more of the same right off. Today, I inserted the red in a PS Audio Regenerator. More fullness, even clearer acoustic bass plucking. Overall, voices have been the slowest to show a similar change, perhaps because the Purple was already fairly good there, but am hearing a little today. In the Stereo Times article, the reviewer notes that with the red/black his amp had turned into state of the art. I won't go that far, but if everything ends up in the direction I've heard, this is one hell of a tweak.

Thanks for the heads up about sales... do they have any more sales discount? As I cannot find discounted price on their website.

 

[TDX]

Saw the discount after I post the questions