Richard Dane could perhaps give me some reply on the topic, if available. I would really appreciate this.
I can't give you technical insight - I'd leave that to someone like Roy George or Steve Sells at Naim HQ (they will talk about impedance or some such thing) - but I can tell you of my subjective experiences.
The first was when we had a few mains conditioning units at the factory to try out. All bar one were highly recommended by the various forums, magazines, the odd one out was a special lab unit that had come from the States and had been recommended by a few "in the know". All made the music sound flat and uninteresting to my ears. One or two of them managed to do this by just being plugged in to the mains next to the system, rather than having the system itself plugged into the unit.
Next experience was at a dealer event in Sweden. I had spent the late afternoon clearing the main dem room of extraneous kit, ensuring all bar the Naim system (CDX2, Supernait) was plugged in and setting up the Fraim stand and speakers. Once all was just so, we sat down to try out some of the CDs and tracks that I always use and are now so familiar to me - this way it's easy to know when the system is doing things right or not. It was good in many ways, but it was also just a bit "flat" and wasn't soaring the way I knew it should have done. Around the room were curtains that hid flush shelving. I had left some items on the shelves because there was nowhere else to put them. Nothing else looked like it was switched on. However, I noticed what looked like a big silver fronted power amp and it had the logo of a well known brand of very expensive mains conditioners on its front. I pulled it out from the shelf and lo and behold, it was still plugged in to a mains socket. I unplugged it and put it back in place on the shelf. I drew the curtain and we all sat down again to listen...
Suddenly the system had life. It soared. It was quite a change - hard to pin down but undoubtedly the music seemed freer and less constrained, with better flow and much more "real". It was so profound a change that we all just sat smiling, laughing, slightly stunned that it should have made such a difference to the system.
So, that has been my experience.
