There's Nothing Else Like It
Quiescent's extraordinary combination of electronic and structural design, materials, electronic noise reduction and acoustic noise reduction puts it in a league of one.
About The 300VA Balanced Mains Block
At some point in our hifi upgrade paths, we get to the question of balanced mains. Noise on our domestic mains can vary in quantity, and it changes throughout the day. And the damage this causes to sound quality creates a glass ceiling, holding back access to true high end performance in our view. There are many ways we can reduce the problem, and Quiescent have plenty of other important products that do that in different ways, but there is no doubt that going balanced 'opens the next window'.
This Quiescent block is a much more complicated machine than it looks – and it's pretty chunky too. It is in fact a hybrid device, with some outlets delivering unbalanced (but filtered) mains at your full mains power, and some sockets delivering proper transformer derived balanced power (max 300VA). Note that this is an 'all analogue' device – no noisy Class D amps creating regenerated mains here!
The principle of this hybrid design is you can use the straight through outlets for power amplification and the balanced outlets for your source components. This approach provides a very cost effective and relatively compact solution for a great performance upgrade. Indeed, we would go so far as saying that the Quiescent 300VA Balanced Mains Blocks is probably one of the all-time best sweet-spots of mains conditioning products – it delivers a huge bang for the buck.
Tech Insight
One of the things that adds significant performance to this product is the use of a custom-wound toroidal balanced transformer. There is a huge variation in the quality of 'off-the-shelf' transformers in the supply chain of course, so quiescent's specifications are extra stringent on the transformer's core quality, wiring quality and the extra magnetic saturation headroom that is built in to ensure no clipping when your mains is running a bit high (as it often does!).
There are two key benefits with using a balanced transformer. The first is that the input mains (live to neutral, 240V RMS in the UK) is not connected to the output (+/- 120V, in anti-phase, across the live and neutral). It is 'transformed' by a magnetic field, so no direct connection for noise to go straight through. And second, the configuration naturally introduces common mode noise rejection which means that any residual noise and spikes that does get through to the output. Check out our blog here for more discussion about common mode noise rejection.
Specifications
Noise Reduction
Transformer – Custom-wound 300VA balanced toroidal transformer for 115-0-115Vac, output to balanced sockets.
Mains In – patented high-frequency absorption matrix with wide-band multi-path technology.
Absorption Technology – EMI/RFI absorption – patented multi-phase, wide bandwidth electrical matrix and proprietary EMI tubing.
Mechanical absorption – proprietary casework design with 3D passive acoustic absorption materials.
Connections – Input, 220-230V a.c., 50-60Hz via IEC C14.
Outputs, Choice of either 2 direct and 4 balanced or 3 direct and 3 balanced.
Construction
Internal Cabling – Twin solid-core silver wiring per Live, Neutral and Earth (direct) and Hot, Cold and Earth (balanced) with star-earthed configuration.
Case, Ultra-low resonant high-grade aluminium casework anodised in a gun-metal finish.
Dimensions – LxWxH (mm), 525mm x 154mm x 120mm.
Weight, 7.5 kgs.
Matching & Setup
Physically, you use this balanced mains block like you would any mains distribution block. You need to position it near to your system with a feed cable connected to your mains. But then, when you come to connecting up your system to it, there are far more considerations to take into account.
The block has outputs that are configured differently, some are balanced and some are unbalanced outputs (4/2 or 3/3 depending on your specification). And the balanced outputs are limited to a combined power draw of 300VA. So you have to be selective in which components you use the balanced power for – large power amps need not apply and you should feed them from the unbalanced outlets. On a typical system you would run say streamer, DAC and pre-amp from the balanced sockets, and power amps from the unbalanced sockets.
And of course, going up to this level of mains conditioning is a significant upgrade in its own right, but it can be part of a wider strategy of system architecture development. This 300VA block has a natural synergy with the other Quiescent products, so an upgrade path that includes Quiescent cables and component couplers say, can elevate a systems performance to very high levels indeed.