|
|
Jack's CornerSome thoughts from Jack Van Lieshout |
|
|||||||
|
I find myself speechless….. which for me is big news. I have been upgrading my equipment as us Home Theater enthusiasts all want to do and recently I was informed by my local dealer about a product that rocked his world for a what he termed a very “reasonable” price. I immediately thought ok…and what is “reasonable”? “$200.00” says he. “Say what” says I ?? I thought that reasonable is not possible in today’s market. If a product is good enough to rock someone’s world the price would have to be exorbitant. With a wry smile he gingerly walked over to a rack of cable type components and pulled down this medium sized rectangular fiberboard box that had a picture of a what I thought to be nothing more than a power strip. Looking at the box I found the familiar Monster Cable logo and a description of what was labeled as not a power strip but a “HTS –2000 Power Conditioner”. (Pictured Below)
Looked like a Power Strip to me but what do I know.
He took it from the box and showed me what seemed to be a rather large
power strip type product alright but there was a twist. It is also a Power
Line Conditioner. Apparently several well known gentlemen in the field of high end audio have teamed up with Monster Cable and designed a component that is both a Power Strip and a Power Conditioner in a neat well thought out moderate sized package. I have been familiar with Powerline Conditioners in
the past and they are usually a black box that runs in the high dollar
price range. As such I had
not purchased one of the high end models and accordingly had little
experience with them. At the insistence of and after much head shaking by
the salesman however, I did in fact purchase 1 of these units and
immediately brought it home and connected it. The Power Conditioner is a triangular type power strip that is about 18” long, 4 “ wide and 2.5” high. It has outlets for 12 components, both audio and video, an in and out for a telephone line and in and outs for several coaxial products such as cable TV or Digital Satellite. The outlets are all color coded, well labeled thus making installation/connection is a snap. In addition, the outlets are apparently filtered differently depending upon the products that will be connected to them It also has several very important warning lights on
it that include a detection circuit that automatically tests for proper
outlet grounding. I knew not what to expect so imagine my surprise when I sat down to listen and watch. My eyes got wide and my ears were treated to a bevy
of major improvements over the typical power strip as well as just
plugging the equipment into a wall outlet. First and foremost was a complete lack of background noise. This is a difficult thing to explain if you haven’t actually heard it. In most every average system there is some background noise that permeates any signal that passes through it. Imagine sitting in a room in a home located in a city. There are always noises that are in abundance such as lawnmowers, autos, trucks, planes overhead etc. If one lived in the city long enough we get used to these noises and pay little or no attention to them. The sounds pass as merely background noise. Now, take a trip to the country and go outside at night and listen to a lack of noise. It almost sounds like your in a vacuum. You are very aware of the quiet and might even mention it out loud. Well, with the HTS – 2000 in the system you are
immediately aware of the silence in the background of the music. Rather
than music or voices emanating from a noisy room they emanate from
silence. A pitch black silence that is almost spooky and at first almost
distracting. It is a wonderful distraction however. Next I noted a great deal of improvement in detail of any given performance. The voices and instruments are provided on a very broad soundstage with silence between them. A good example is the Dire Straits, “Brothers In Arms” CD. Listen to cut 6, you will hear Mark Knopfler breathing through this piece with all the soul he can muster. Orchestral music was treated even better. I could hear the individual instruments with new weight and authority. Violins took on a sweeter airier quality and double bases became very tuneful. You want dynamic range ?
well here you are. Same Dire Straits CD cut number 2. The sound
starts out soft and sweet with Sting in the background doing his little
thing. As the intro progresses the sound swells to monster proportions
that must be experienced to be believed. This is not only true of CD’s
but movies as well. I could recommend many but 1 that comes to mind is
“Meet Joe Black”. There are 2 scenes in this movie that rolled up my
pants legs and gave me a start. The first is when Anthony Hopkins
experiences a heart attack early on in the movie. My room literally shook.
It was powerful before the insertion of the HTS – 2000 but afterwards
the sound was almost brutal in its power. The second and maybe best
incidence of improvement is at the end of the movie during the fireworks
scene. The dialogue is semi quiet as is the musical bed beneath the
dialogue. Slowly the music comes up and swells to an almost unbelievable
crescendo. I could do nothing but smile the sound was so real. And it doesn’t end there. Also added is a kind of “realness” or you are
there quality that is almost palpable. My wife who sadly has significant
hearing loss in 1 ear even was astounded by the IMMEDIATE improvement
in the sound of the system. Monster Cable also warrants against accidental
electrical surges or lightening strikes affecting the equipment for up to
$100,000.00. So what am I saying here ? If you are the owner of any system of moderate
resolution or above, run don’t walk to your nearest home theater store
and audition this product. I cannot rave about this product enough
particularly in light of the very much down to Earth cost involved. If you
wait too long, Noel Lee the head Monster as well as the actual designers
of this product including Mr. Richard Marsh, may come to their senses and
raise the price of the HTS – 2000 to where it could be and we would all
be the less for it.. Enjoy !!
|
Past Articles: Dec 98 - Introduction and Video Cables Jan 99 - Why no choice of screen format?
Have Questions about DVD? Get DVD Demystified and get all your questions answered!
|
|||||||
