That’s what I thought too!
Here’s the answer and explanation from Graham’s: “As I said the Hydra is solely for Naim equipment. Naim use star earthing, everything back to one point, which is the premise behind the Hydra and why Naim recommend it”.
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Yes but star earthing is not going to be detrimental to anything that wasn’t designed that way. I don’t understand their response at all.
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As James says above, there’s no issue using a Hydra with other brands or in a mixture of Naim and other kit. I do just this myself, fitting an in-line IEC socket in place of a mains plug on any kit with a captive lead. Only things I might not connect to the same Hydra would be anything with a SMPS.
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I don’t have the slightest idea of what star earthing is and what difference does it make!!
Thank you Richard! And how can I tell whether my Technics Turntable and my Audio Research pre-Phono have SMPS? As you see I’m extremely well trained in electronics! 
Your Audio research will almost certainly have a linear supply. Your Technics though, harder to say. If it’s a recent one then I think they now use SMPS? Which model is it?
It’s a newer one indeed, SL 1210 GR…
It simply means that earth points don’t merge with each other but rather all converge at a single point. The idea being that the resistance to ground at that point is lowest for all arriving points so that noise flows there rather than towards another component en-route.
It’s kind of like a poor man’s earth shunt acheived just via wiring layout. Though acheiving it can require some board layout acrobatics.
Star earthing can be chained for maximum reduction of cross component noise. In other words, star earthing within a unit connected to a mains block with star earthing connecting to domestic star earthing. The latter you are almost guaranteed to not have. It takes one earth from each socket to all meet at a sing point and no other point. It’s a crazy amount of wires. Your better off just having a dedicated earth installed with a star arrangement for the hifi. Probably cheaper too.
Personally, if adding a dedicated circuit for the hifi, I’d just ask the sparky to install a shunt of my choosing to stop noise from other things flowing that way. Leave star earthing for board layouts and mains blocks and stop there.
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It has a smps…hence the number of companies offering linear supplies as an improvement.
So, in summary, I could use a Hydra for 2 Naims and the Audio Research but better not for the Technics…right?
There is an assumption here that all SMPSs are bad, and all linear supplies are good. Neither are always the case. If a quality bit of HiFi has a switching supply I would expect it to be a decent one with low levels of EMI and therefore fairly benign. It’s the cheap wall warts that come with some routers, switches, light fittings etc. etc. that give them a bad reputation, and which certainly should be kept away from the HiFi where possible.
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Indeed. Linn, Chord use SMPS to name a few.
But they don’t cost $5.
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I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if Naim followed suit sooner or later. I reckon it’s only a matter of time before energy efficiency regs push them in that direction. If fact they are probably sailing quite close to the wind already on that issue.
Well linear PSUs still account for what I would guess is well over 90% of high end gear. I don’t think Naim have a unique position here.
Besides, a PSU only draws current if it has load. If they want to be more energy efficient they can design lower idling states. But already they are not power sucking class A designs. My new Luxman amp is 10wpc class A. It draws 98w doing nothing. Thats far higher than all 7 of my Naim boxes together.
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