The Audiophile Man X6 Review
Tuesday, 27th January 2015
Paul Rigby (The Audiophile Man) takes a good look at our X6 mains extension block.
"Offering a firm, secure suite of lower frequencies plus a focused and developed array of upper midrange detail, the X6... will provide an enhanced performance for any hi-fi".
The review compares the X6 first with a standard high street extension and then with a competitors offering.
"Turning from a basic, bog standard, High St. power block... playing Dexter Gordon's I Was Doing All Right and plugging in the X6, the soundstage sprang to life with a layered complexity that immediately forced a smile" he says. And the improvements continued, especially in the musicality of the performance.
Listening to Gordon's sax with the X6 brought more emotion to the music and "was a lot smoother" than before. The double bass, which had been "largely absent from the basic power block" now provided the "rhythmic foundation" for the track. In fact, he observes, "you could hear the nuance of the plucked strings for the first time".
Moving onto something a bit more upbeat in the form of The Who's My Wife and the performance of the X-Block is just as impressive, prompting Paul to observe that "Keith Moon’s centre-stage powerful drum performance was crisp with greater precision and clarity while the background synth effects, introduced later in the track, lost the horrible upper mid bloom effects of the basic block".
So far, this has been in comparison to a standard extension lead, so how does the X-Block compare with some stiffer competition?
Comparing a competitior's rhodium-plated block, the X-Block was found to be clearly superior in the bottom end frequencies, with greater "weight and heft". But it wasn't just in the lower registers that improvements were to be found: "there was also a greater focus to the [Who] track. With the [competitior's] block, there was a touch of upper mid bloom on vocal crescendos. That was removed with the X6, giving the track a sense of maturity. The synth effects had a larger, more rounded output too that gave them body and guts".
In concluding, Paul writes that"Offering a firm, secure suite of lower frequencies plus a focused and developed array of upper midrange detail, the X6... will provide an enhanced performance for any hi-fi".
N.B. X-Blocks are available with 2, 4, 6 or 8 sockets.
theaudiophileman.com, 'Groovy' Award, 2015
Click here to buy the X6 Block
Read about the What Hi-Fi review here
Written By Simon Dalton
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