A Little Black Box - Part III

This is an old post of ours in the blog we previously contributed to.

Ken & KM Ng, in their comments to my earlier posts, asked how the performance of the 'Quantum Tuning' little black box would be if it was plugged into my Hydra 8 instead of into the wall outlet or if different powercords were used.

I spent the last few days checking these out, and here are my conclusions:

1. Plugged directly to a wall outlet vs. Hydra 8
Conclusion - Plugging it directly to a Wall Outlet is way better

I used generic powercords for this test. Plugging the little black box into my Hydra 8 seem to negate its effect altogehter. All the postive qualities that I noted earlier were gone. The music did not hold my attention so much anymore.

In fact, I felt something extra was added - on first listen, the leading edges of transients seem to have been improved upon (faster and better defined), but in less than an hour, I felt that it was not natural, and in addition there was an edginess to the sound. I concluded that listening with the little black box plugged into the Hydra 8 was worse than using the Hydra 8 alone.

Plugging it into a spare power outlet brought all its positive effects back.
(This spare outlet is beside and linked to the one powering my Hydra (and thus all equipment). It is wired directly back to the distribution box.)

2. Changing powercord
Conclusion - this device responds to powercord changes so you have to experiment

The only 'audiophile-approved' powercord I could spare was an old Transparent Audio Powerline Super powercord (the one with 3 network boxes). I used it to compare with the generic powercord I have been using on the little black box (the picture above shows the Transparent powercord and the generic cord used in this comparison).

The Transparent powercord improved on many areas - quieter background and blacker spaces between instruments, even clearer sound and better resolution, and a sligtly more energetic presentation.

However, there was one anomaly that showed up on slower and 'atmospheric' music like 'Tempting Hearts' from 2V1G's album and 'Where are you?' from Sonny Rollins' 'The Bridge'. With the generic cord, taking 'Tempting Heart' as example, the little vibrations in Regine's singing and the way she controlled her voice to 'close out' each sung phrase were resolved more clearly and those were what gave me the 'goosebump' moments. The entire presentation was more ethereal and the emotional factor more pronounced.

With the audiophile cord and these tracks, it was like the sound was cleaned up just a tad too much and some subtleties were lost - akin to when the contrast of a tv set was set just a mite too high, shapes and colours were clearer but some shading in the colour was lost.

The positive effect wrought by the Transparent powercord was greater than what it lost, of course. Ovrerall, the Transparent powercord won out, especially with music that emphasized more on rhythm, speed and impact. However, I was not totally sold, honestly.

I could only conclude that this device responds to powercord changes, you would have to experiment.

Ok, I think this is as much as you'd hear from me on this little black box for the time being. :-)

Happy New Year To All - and wishing everyone's hifi dreams come true in the new year.

Posted by hifikaki 27 December '08

A Little Black Box - Part II

This is an old post of ours in the blog we previously contributed to.

This is a follow-up on the blog entry I posted a day ago on the little 'quantum tuning' black box from Happy Audio Visual.

A couple more days of listening to this 'quantum' box does not change my perception of its performance, it continues to be effective during night time at my place. I really love the way it freed my system from the effect of bad AC. A listening session each in the morning and in the afternoon also confirmed that its effect was not so pronounced at these time though there were still minor improvements, probably the Shunyata Hydra 8 could do the job appropriately and the AC quality wasn't so bad to start with.

As I am rather smitten by its performance, I made a call to the distributor, Mr. B.T. Gooi of Happy Audio Visual in Penang to find out more. Mr. Gooi turned out to be quite an affable guy. He confirmed that the unit is locally designed and made to his specifications by some electronics company in Penang (Penang has the reputation as the silicone valley of Malaysia). The price set is RM1,400/unit nett. Any out-of-towner who is interested may either call him (+60 4 2260179 or +60 12 4703365) or email him at btgooi@streamyx.com. You can also find the link to Happy Audio Video's website on the right hand side of this page.

He also offered a few tips on the unit's usage. He said that the unit should be placed on the floor and in front of your equipment, not on the equipment rack and not at the back. This way, it would give the best bass performance and the most balanced sound. These sounded rather tweaky to me but I did try it out, and I preferred the unit placed on the floor as he suggested, the sound was more solid and denser this way.

He also told me that to get the maximum effect, 4 units of the 'quantum tuning' device should be used (gulp!), the sound quality would be transformed, according to him. Naturally I would like to take him up on this. Let's see whether we can do a follow-up later when he has more units to spare.

I'd recommend anyone who suffers from bad AC to check this little black box out.

Posted by hifikaki 21 December '08

A Little Black Box Can Make A Difference?

This is an old post of ours in the blog we previously contributed to.

Maggielurva passed me a little black box, he told me it is locally made and the distributor was showing great enthusiasm for it (but of course :-) ).


The black case is rather sturdily made. It has no connection except an IEC connector. There is a switch at the back and a little blue pilot light at the front. Those are all the things you can do and look at. From this description, I think many of you would have clued on the fact that it is a power conditioner and that it works in parallel to your equipment. I can't tell you anything more about its workings as there is no manual or literature that come with it.


It is devoid of any label except a little sticker at the back proclaming 'Quantum Tuning'. Seeing the 'Quantum' word set a few bells ringing. Is it one of those 'quantum' emf/emi filtering devices that purportedly do wonders at the atomic particle level? Well, whatever I read about these 'quantum' devices' application in audio, I could not understand, so I am not going into that here. I once had a dealer trying to explain the workings of another 'quantum' device from an European brand, he said that it made the 'electrons all flow in one direction smoothly', that set off my BS detection meter. Anyway, I'd keep an open mind, probably one day there will be a plainer explanation for me :-).

I previously had only one listening experience with a 'quantum' device in my system. Used in parallel with my Shunyata Hydra 8, that device had an effect on the sound. Basically, the sound became cleaner, but to my ears this cleanness caused the loss of some harmonic richness and the music was also robbed of some of its emotional content.

That device also ran cold. Not so with this little black box, it runs very warm, so probably it is working under different principles.

I have this little box for only two days, but its effect was clear to hear. It was quite pronounce at the middle of the night, when a lot of lights and air-conditioners were on in the neighbourhood. Its effect was less during early evening. I'll also test it out during daytime this weekend when the electricity is not so dirty and see its effect.

I got an idea to do a blind listening test Friday evening to confirm I could really hear a difference. Admittedly what I did may not be totally scientific, but I just like to relate this experience. To start, I asked my children to switch it on or off as they please, without me knowing, I then listened to a track, then they switched the device to the opposite position, then I listened to the same track one more time. I did this for three cycles. For each cycle, I guessed whether it was first on or off. My guess was correct for all 3, confirming that this little black box did make a difference. (I admit that this probably would work for me in my system with my own music choice only, as I have the required familiarity)

With the device on, the harmonic richness in the sound came through more, there was a little grittiness in the treble that was reduced , the entire sound was a little more relaxed, more composed and cleaner. The sound quality difference became less between the good electricity / bad electricity time, i.e., sound quality was more consistent. I'll continue to listen to it and report any new discovery here.

The device was installed on its own outlet on the same circuit that powers my entire system. In my opinion, the result is impressive, especially when there is a Hydra 8 in the system already at the same time.

Contact: Happy Audio Visual 04-2260179 Hp : 012-4703365

Posted by hifikaki 20 December '08