Sunday, December 13, 2020

ADD-Powr Wizard Review



The ADD-Powr Story

ADD-Powr started in 1999 with 2 products that if you've been an audiophile long enough, you may recognize. They were called the Quantum Symphony and Symphony Pro. They were highly regarded and critically acclaimed products that caught the attention of Stereophile, The Absolute Sound, and other audio magazines. Quantum Resonance Technology was also used in other well known products from Walker Audio (the Velocitor) and Combak corporation.

Nordost purchased QRT technology from the inventor, Bill Stierhout, in 2008 and are to this day still manufacturing products using Quantum Resonance Technology.

Flash forward to today, and Bill has advanced his technology greatly. This time he has decided to keep the technology to himself. Marketing products under the ADD-Powr brand.

ADD Powr Technology (somewhat) Explained

The ADD in ADD Powr stands for Algorithm Digital Defined power. What this means is that ADD-Powr products use an algorithm generated field to affect power going to your components. The ADD-POWR website says it this way:

ADD-Powr™ technology is Algorithm Digital Defined Power™. It is unique because it addresses the quality of electrical environments: Energy is added to electrical signals and systems. ADD-Powr™ products are electrical environment conditioners rather than AC power line  conditioners.

According to the ADD-Powr Web Site

"The ADD-Powr algorithm incorporates a low frequency complex signal of a specific oscillation pattern. Mathematically speaking, a periodic complex waveform such as a square wave can be expressed as a harmonic series summation of sine and cosine waves interacting in various time phase relationships. This was the discovery of Joseph Fourier (1768-1830), the revered French mathematician and physicist..."

"...The Wizard and Sorcer designs use an amplifier to interface with the secondary of an AC power transformer and induce  a small signal of varying amplitude onto the primary side. They also generate and propagate a small field of low frequency through a system of coil antennae. The Fourier harmonics contained in the signal act to resonate with the audio signals in the hi-fi system. 

A complex wave "disturbance" rides  along the AC line. Since it is a low frequency signal, it is not filtered away by power supplies, such as a/v component power supplies. Instead, it passes through the filter stages and becomes part of the DC reference supply voltage.

The Fourier transform concept can now be understood. The Fourier series contains the fundamental driving frequency and its constituent related frequencies or overtones. These are called harmonics.

Since the harmonics are sine and cosine waves of varying energy or weight (amplitude) and of varying time phases, it is the fundamental frequency that contains the most energy. As the frequency band is scaled upward, the harmonic series' energy or amplitude diminishes exponentially.

So what used to be a direct current / DC voltage reference, is now a direct current / DC voltage reference with harmonic sine waves. The reference has been modified significantly.

But what does that mean to the performance of an audio  system?

When an audio signal (a complex function in time), with significant frequency information at around 100 Hz enters an amplifier stage, it will be processed/amplified as usual. But if the harmonic series that has been imposed upon the DC supply voltage also has a 100 Hz fundamental, then, we now have a condition of resonance at that exact instance. 

So the input signal will resonate with the DC reference fundamental frequency.

There will be an increase in the overall energy or amplitude of the audio signal in the amplifier. The 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc. harmonics scaled upwards (out to infinity) in frequency from this modified DC reference will also harmonically resonate. Finally, the audio signal emitting from the loudspeaker will reveal an increase in its integrity, or an increase of as much as 1 - 2 dB in energy..."

Does your head hurt yet?

This is so completely different from typical power conditioning which use transformers, capacitors, coils, etc. in series or parallel to reduce the noise riding on incoming AC lines. Many complaints about the conventional approach to power conditioning is a limiting of dynamics, and I have heard alterations of tone, blurring of bass and flattening of the soundstage in the worst cases. To avoid sonic drawbacks like these, one has to spend good money, component amounts of money, to get power conditioning that minimizes on the offences and maximizes sonic benefits. It ain't easy or cheap to do.

Add Powr avoids all of the drawbacks of conventional power conditioning with a very creative approach. One that does not mechanically insert itself into the power chain of one's audio system.

Look Ma, no AC receptacles!

The Wizard

The Wizard sits roughly in the middle of the Add-Powr product lineup and utilizes 8 small coils to generate it's algorithmically determined field. It has a steel chassis with anodized aluminum front panel whose dimensions are 12" wide x 8" deep x 2" high. It weighs about 5 pounds and sells for $1995.

The System

The Room

  • 18' wide by 24' long with a drop ceiling with height of 9' 6". The actual height to the roof is about 15'. The drop ceiling is 2" thick Soundsulate drop ceiling tiles.
  •  8x Acoustic Fields 24" x 48" x 2" foam panels on the side walls to control slap echo and absorb midbass frequencies.
  • 6x Ready Acoustics NEST corner mount bass traps
  • 12x Stillpoints Aperture 2 panels in critical locations (first reflection points, front and back, centered)

Evaluating

My evaluation of the Wizard begins with taking the Sorcer X4 out of the system and acclimating myself to the sound of my system without any ADD-Powr products in it.

System with No ADD Powr - A fine sounding system in my opinion. In a word, natural, with excellent tonality and transparency. The Innuos has a well deserved reputation for being a great streamer, and the Frerot R2R style DAC with optional linear power supply is a very musical and satisfying DAC only $2100. It outshines DAC's in its price range and above with very clear, and unfatiguing sound top to bottom. The Modwright has plenty of power to drive the relatively inefficient Harbeth speakers, and most of the time was in Class A operation. The Harbeth speakers are extremely natural sounding, especially with vocals and acoustic music, but really anything played through them just has more realism, depth and finesse than most speakers in their price range.

I had acclimated myself to the sound of the system with the Sorcer out over the course of a few days. I tried to evaluate the system as it was without using my memories of the sound with the Sorcer in. It took a few days to gain that perspective.

Adding the Wizard

I placed the Wizard on my rack, top shelf, next to the Modwright integrated and plugged it straight into the wall. I let it settle in for a few minutes, but even as I plugged it in, standing behind the speakers, I heard and felt the sound change. I left the room, and came back about an hour later. The changes I observed were as follows:

A more relaxed presentation - My whole system is more or less already designed with that in mind, but the Wizard took it to another level. Music flowed more naturally. 

Clarity, Delicacy, Sweetness - There was also more clarity, delicacy and sweetness in the highs. I could hear individual strings more clearly for instance. Not separated into something artificial, the naturalness, wholeness of the instrument, and sweetness were there. It's just now I could hear a little more deeply into the individual pieces that made the whole.  All presented with significantly less graininess and blurring of sonic edges.

Improved Harmonic Richness - Harmonics seemed to benefit from this improved clarity as well. The totality of clearer, more delicate and sweet highs with better harmonic richness also led to a greater soundstage width and depth. Instrumental decays had more "float factor" to them. In fact the Harbeths disappeared a bit more with the Wizard in the system than without. 

Solidity - What do I mean by this?  In this situation I mean that the images and soundstage had a more solid, wall to wall , front to back feel to them. I am guessing this contributes to the "float factor", where images and the entire sonic landscape do not appear to be coming from the speakers at all.

No Negative Artifacts - There were no shifts in frequency, tone or dynamics. The Wizard is not a component that emphasized the upper range of frequencies to give one the initial impression of more air, space, or the cliche veil being lifted. 

Bottom Line

The Wizard took a system that I consider very natural and satisfying to listen to and made it better, clearer, more transparent and at the same time even more natural sounding than it already was.  The improvement it yielded in an already very good system was equivalent to a component upgrade of at least $2000 in my opinion. I use it in conjunction with the Dark Matter Stealth power conditioner (with no series components) DMT X1, Stein Harmonizers. It works and plays well with others (just remember, plug it into the wall and not your power conditioner). It raised the performance of the system in terms of clarity, richness and engagement factor by a margin that easily justifies the price.

I would recommend that anyone looking to upgrade any component, source, amps, speakers, that they audition the Wizard before making such a move. Seriously. The Wizard does most all of the things we as audiophiles are looking for in our quest for "better". Air, space, sweetness, transparency. Something we can listen to all day long without having to turn down the volume, or worse yet, walk away with ringing ears.

But I am a dealer for this product. Of course I am going to say these things, right? No, I don't play like that. If I don't like something, I'm not going to carry it, nor am I going to recommend it. I would also not let you borrow it. But here I am, enthusiastically recommending the ADD-Powr Wizard, and offering to let you audition it if you are in the market for such a component if it lives up to the hype. 

Thank you for reading this far, and contact me if you would like to try the Wizard in your own system.

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