An interesting day this week at the launch of the Chord Company PowerHAUS power blocks, full product details here. Chord Company, 38 years young, is based in Wiltshire on a commercial estate not 15 minutes from Stonehenge. The day was an introduction to the new PowerHAUS power distribution block for Audiophiles. The PowerHAUS is not cheap but in the context of proper HiFi and making it sing properly, why not spend a little more on power distribution and do it properly, rather than buying a cheap, electrically noisy extension lead from B&Q?
Alan Gibb, Managing Director, introduced the Chord Company PowerHAUS range, starring the £2,000 M6 and featuring the S6, a more affordable £1,000! In the Chord demo room, of course, all of the electronics were facing backwards to reveal the ultra-high-end ‘ChordMusic’ interconnects with their proprietary Taylon insulation and the ChordMusic power cables. The Demo room featured a pair of NEAT Acoustics Momentum floorstanders driven by a 20 year old (but beautifully sounding) German Bonnec Alto power and preamplifier. The sound, to start with, with a traditional star wired distribution box was terrific, the NEAT speakers, pinpoint and impressive. We started with Hurricane, by Dylan, a great track about the story of Rubin Carter, falsely accused of murder. The track tripped along impressively and all seemed pretty good.
A-B testing is a pretty easy thing to do, Play A, unplug it and put in B, play the same track. Decide if it is better, or otherwise. Here in the Chord Company demo room with the PowerHAUS, it was not quite so simple as everything had to be powered down, swapped over and powered up, wait for the App to not get confused, start again.
The introduction of the S6 was a noticeable improvement, my notes say ‘no brainer’. But what about the M6, the Master series flagship? Swapping to Elvis Costello’s Watching the Detectives there really was a noticeable step up in musicality and room energy, it was impressive to hear such a clear demonstration that cables, power blocks and power cables, really do enable systems, and speakers to just do their thing. Alan left us with Seamus Fogarty’s Van Gogh’s Ear as a sign-off, what a great track and demo.
It was pointed out that one of the more important things to do with a mains cable block, like the M6 or S6. would be to connect it to the power supply with a suitable power cable, starting with at least a Chord Clearway power lead (£125/m on top of the PowerHAUS). We were treated to a trip through the power cable range from Clearway (we missed out Shawline) to Epic (£500/m) to SignaureX (£1,000/M) with the M6 PowerHAUS. Thereafter you’re looking at the ChordMusic power cables, prices of which I didn’t dare note down. The highlight of the day was Van Gogh’s Ear and just appreciating really good quality British Engineering and more importantly hearing it.
The review of the PowerHAUS S6 power distribution block will follow after the weekend, I’ll be swapping the S6 block into the Active Crossover system, featuring the Kudos Super 20A speakers. There is an overview of this project here.