Power Bar

The best upgrade would be to lose the “power bar” and plug your Powerlines directly into unswitched wall sockets with dedicated mains. Is that possible in your situation?

I use the Ansuz powerdistributor and also a powercable of the same supplier. The upgrade was significant and I can recommend it to everybody. A bit later I also changed the Fuse in my electric system and again it was a step up (however smaller than with the Ansuz upgrade. 

I used a Cablepro Revelation for a few years. It was a significant upgrade over the Monster power bar I had been using. About 6 months ago, I replaced the Cablepro with an Audioquest Niagara 1000. The AQ Niagara 1000 is truly great! 

Lower noise floor, more detail and nuances in the music. None of the smoothing over or dulling of dynamics that some power bars and conditioners do. The Niagara 1000 also has none sacrificial surge protection and over voltage protection. One of the best upgrades I ever bought.

I have two Naim products plugged into it: Supernait 2 and ND5 XS. The AQ Niagara plays very well with Naim gear. 

I use a Furutech power distributor.  I believe the model is e-TP309.  My 272, Core and 250DR are plugged into it, as is my Dave DAC.  The Furutech is plugged into the wall with a short run of Odin power cable.

Musicworks Megablock here. I think their nearest current model is the Reflex Lite.  There's one higher in their range. We run a PL into it. I don't know what kind of "upgrade" this would be over a Chord power bar.

When the spur went in, the electrician couldn't understand what we wanted a dedicated spur for. We ended up with three unswitched double MKs on a 10mm dedicated spur. Except we didn't. Some months later I discovered that we had a double unswitched MK on a dedicated spur and a pair of double unswitched MKs on the lounge ring.

Our dealer loaned us a Megablock and a PL. It didn't take many notes to convince us. It was the kind of "cleaned up" presentation which we later also got when we put it on a Fraim.

Music Works Reflex Lite used with Powerline from a dedicated double unswitched socket then Powerlines to the Black Boxes as required works well.

If you can't plug the gear directly into the wall......

MK Duraplug.  It just works.  Like an i-phone, except it actually does.  

PS Audio Dectet here. 

Musicline Netzleiste (Naim cable).

I upgraded my old Russ Andrews power to one of these earlier this year:

It's a MusicWorks ReFlex Ultra G3 power block. Rather expensive but a home demo showed instantly a very noticeable performance improvement. As Harry says of his experience of the MusicWorks MegaBlock, it just seemed to clean things up, and in my case gave better definition to the bass.    

I tried a music works above the reflex lite, cleaner but some of what it cleared away was music, not all but enough that I minded. The Lite had a similar effect on the sound to my home made block of dissimilar woods and unswitched MKs so no gain in buying that for me but coming from a Wickes basic it would be a good pick, don’t know the Chord.

I think I'll have a look at that G3. Well, have a listen at any rate.

docmark posted:

I use a Furutech power distributor.  I believe the model is e-TP309.  My 272, Core and 250DR are plugged into it, as is my Dave DAC.  The Furutech is plugged into the wall with a short run of Odin power cable.

Considering Furutec supply the non UK Powerline plugs, a Furutec non filtering (important) block would seem the closest thing to a non existant Naim solution to me. 

But I agree, going for dedicated unswitched mains sans any power block would be even better. And that on a dedicated mains ring better still.

Another option is a cordeless block. They cost next to nothing and have a simple IEC socket. You supply the cable which could be a Powerline. I think Furutec also have one in their non audiophile product lineup.

I use Nordost Qb8,mainly because I now live in an apartment building,and only have one outlet.Before this i was in a house with dedicated lines,and must say,I don’t notice any degradation of the sound at all,so at the very least,I am not missing anything.Hard to say if things are better with the Qb8,because I am in a new room etc,so that needs to factor in,but my system has never sounded better.