This is the Chord Company, who do cables and the excellent EE switch. Chord Electronics make the Hugo and the other visually challenging boxes. I guess if people will buy a £4,000 mains lead they will buy a £550 aluminium tube full of magic ingredients.
3 Likes
I think I have seen a documentary about this on some website, I think it’s called pr0nhub or something
1 Like
Does a bottle of Barolo helps as well?
1 Like
Well, what would be the point of that? I think everyone has already decided by committee so why bother?
I must say I find it a little dubious, but I certainly wouldn’t dismiss it out of hand. It’s good to keep an open mind. Trick or treat?
A well respected dealer was plugging these (see what I did there!) on their Facebook page.
If it is bollocks then they should know better but their reputation suggests they are not in the habit of making a quick buck.
6 Likes
OK. That’s fair enough.
I’ve got one here to try at the moment and I’m a little perplexed, tbh.
I’m also a little disturbed by both the enthusiasm for sticking them up ones arse and that £550 appears to be accepted as a reasonable price for a dildo 
8 Likes
You are on a website where people are accustomed to spending tens of thousands for sensory pleasure
2 Likes
Similar thinking to what Entreq offer (ground boxes)
Never trust a company that thinks the plural of factor is factor’s. Or that the the plural of box is box’s.
4 Likes
The most important question is.
Do they burn-in?
And, how long do they take to burn-in?
4 Likes
The English is very, very poor on that website.
It doesn’t engender much trust.
Their repeated incantation of the magic words “ceramic” and “tungsten” is more worrying 
When I saw this for the first time, my reaction was much as above, and I was astonished that Chord, who I’m very much wedded to, would produce something as Beltian as this.
I had a chance to try one (the DIN variant), so I did.
The only place I could stick it (no matron, not there, at least the DIN version) was a spare input on the 552, so I did. The result?
Nothing. Swap out? Nothing different. Try a different input socket? Nothing. Common sense the victor, it simply did nothing, which I was expecting.
Then I read the Facebook post of a well respected dealer, which was about making sure the input socket was activated. Ah, so shoving it where the sun don’t shine would have been as useful!
So, with input socket activated via the Naim app, I tried again. This time I could hear a difference, but to be honest I wasn’t sure whether this was just an expectation thing. So I kept it going for several days (I use the system most of my waking hours) with the intention of reverting to a known state.
When I did this, there was a noticeable reduction in dynamics…the music was snappier and with more space around it. Not to a huge degree, but there regardless.
The final test involved the innocent ears of my wife. Blind testing (single blind, sports fans). A few back and forths and she picked the Chord device every time as “better”. Anne doesn’t do inky blackness, 3D imaging, shimmering highs, just better as a piece of music that’s more enjoyable.
So, it’s a keeper. Like the EE8 switch it wasn’t a change that warranted a “Ooh, I must see what this does to the rest of the collection”, but in the context of my system and the expenditure (what the heck, I’ll be dead sooner rather than later) it’s a genuine upgrade. I’ll be interested in hearing what is gained by adding another thingy does, this time with an Ethernet connector fo one of my switches.
And no, I don’t know what the thingy contains (for all I care it could be Pixie dust).
11 Likes
Hmmm, the blurb says it’s a low impedance path to ground for HF noise… so that’s a capacitor between the floating signal pins and ground isn’t it? All packaged up in a nice alloy tube. I remain to be convinced. And I’m not sticking one up my arse either.
4 Likes
If it does work, it shows that the digital side of hifi is still in it’s infancy…….surprising since CD was launched long ago?
A well-known “manufacturer/retailer” in the north west of England was selling something similar a goodly number of years ago but at more reasonable cost of a tenner for 5 (RCA connector). I bought and tried a couple of packs. I could hear no differences.
Slightly surprised at some people’s antipathy towards ‘sticking it up my a**e’ - in these days of tolerance and acceptance 'don’t knock it 'til you’ve tried it ’ 
4 Likes
Only one way to find out, ask a statement owner to buy a set or two to try out and report back to the forum.
I did not know Nigel left. Retired…or on to somewhere else?
Best
Gregg
PS nice gentleman and excellent service and support. I was a Guinea pig for the original Sarum cables on introduction and even though I am onthe other side of the pond Nigel was always attentive (as obviously was my dealer Peter S)