MusicWorks ReFlex Ultra G3 Distribution Box

No more a loony than the rest of us. Oh… :grimacing:

The perk sparkly bottom would have made a great Tommy Cooper prop for a sketch.

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Dare I post some observations, as Im flying over the cuckoos nest?
Before people start playing with a different interface between the G3 and a engineered wood floor make sure that the distribution box is under no tension from the hefty mains cable entering it, ie it should rest nice and passive on the floor. I have tried various soft interfaces today; felt pads, folded cleaning cloths and wollen carpet.
In the confines of my system with Fact 12s I didn’t find any difference in soundstage width, however I share HHs finding in a presentational difference where the music/ lead vocal moves slightly more forward and appears to me to have a slight increase in emphasis on leading edge, which suits me listening to blues a lot. I felt that carpet induced a slightly more laid back character in my listening room. I cannot say say that retaining the G3 on my wooden flooring resulted in loss in musicality in fact more leaning towards an increased sense of rhythm in my case.
Ultimately this may all boil down to choice of speaker, the listening room and as always personal preference. Maybe even a pair of ageing ears with a slight loss of high frequency response could play in here ( At the age of 61I could be guilty of that sadly).
Based on what I have heard today, I have decided to live with the unsparkly bottomed G3 gently sat on my wood floor. It is sounding pretty good, as Im typing this. Great thread and lovely smile inducing banter! :+1:t3: All the best Peter

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i will try some absorbing material i have at home, vs the granite i use for now, under the titan eros powerblock.

i will try something like that

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A while back on this thread a few of us including me, mentioned to try plugging the power amp into the upgraded G3 rather than using a wall socket which I have always understood previously to be the preferred option.

Having tried it for a day or two allowing things to settle I had a visit from DB yesterday and we decided to revert back to plugging the 500 into the wall… we both preferred it this way a lot more control particularly in the bass. So although an interesting experiment in my system it was better to revert to the old formula of everything in the block apart from the power amp which shares a double socket with the block fed by a Powerline on the dedicated supply and the Radikal which is on the main house ring.

Obviously this is a system dependent thing and you may still prefer the power amp in the block. My block is on carpet btw. !!!

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Had my 552/500 dr installed yesterday, i also went back to the power amp plugged into the wall.

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Enjoy listening to your music collection anew.

Ah… going back, in my experience, is a real teller as to whether a new product, or tweak, is something better or not.

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Yes totally agree.

Perhaps part of the original improvement you heard was caused by the act of unplugging and moving and replugging the power amp cable - and also switching the amp off and on?

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Yes it could well be, anyhow it costs nothing to try these things.

An interesting session - as it was also my first chance to hear Mike’s new speakers. Obviously people get used to how things sound and normalize themselves to an extent - but I was really struggling to enjoy the system when I arrived, as it was booming away with a thumping bass I really did not expect to hear in Mike’s system. I carefully asked about the Power Amp as I know that can do that on a system with a lot of Bass response, not so bad with smaller speakers but the big Titans were not happy.

Long story short - as Mike said - relief for me as I perhaps am overly sensitive to bass being very wrong and hate any out of control low bass; now the system does clean controlled bass and overall clarity top to bottom also improved with all the LF mush harmonics gone.

My view is that the only item in the system that is not Class A (meaning it draws a near-constant current) is the Power Amp which draws the current it needs moment to moment as music requires to drive the speakers and imposes a large distorted music-varying signal on the mains. Not having that pumping through the Mains Block makes it quieter for everything else on the block and gives the 500 a more direct access to what it wants.

In any case - I enjoyed Mikes system and think the several recent upgrades (Speakers, Cisco2960, Block) he has made have significantly lifted the bar on the musical replay experience he has now.

DB.

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Hi DB. Please correct me if Im wrong, but are you actually saying, that the 500 is drawing so much peak current, that the PSs down the line ie 555/552 are suffering a deficit to the point, where they are no longer performing to their optimum. If that is the case I will have to look back at all the time I have spent moving speakers around to an end degree and treating the room with pro absorption/ diffuser units to tame unwanted bass as somewhat of a waste. Well well, as Churchill said: “It is no use saying ‘we are doing our best.’ You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary.”
I am aware that Facts 12s are physically smaller than 808’s, but from a load point of view, I cant help thinking they are fairly similar. Surely with a pair of speakers installed only this week at Mike’s I would from experience have imagined, that speaker positioning and tweaking there of would have been of the first priority.
All the best Peter and also congrats on your new speakers Mike :+1:t3: ( my room is roughly the same size as Mike’s btw)

do you enjoy his Kudos titan 808? honestly

Yes also intrigued by this and realise it is something that you have advocated for a long time. Is it a Wireworld block you use? In one way the block puts distance between the poweramp and the rest if the block is off the same double socket (fed by dedicated radial) as the poweramp. What else could the block do?

I have the 500 PS in the first of 5 daisy chained doubles.

Phil

I am not a sparky but if the mains wall sockets are on a single spur or a ring main (and not individually wired back to the fuse board) then the (varying) load on that leg of the mains system is the same whether the power amp is plugged into a distribution block (and then plugged into the wall socket) or plugged directly into the wall socket. Plugging the power amp directly into the wall socket also loses the benefit (?) of star earthing, doesn’t it?

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Thats where i am/was…getting confused. The 500 dr does seem to like its own power socket, admittedly very little experimenting with new kit.

Well Gazza, give it at least 3 months :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: ATB Peter

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A friend of mine did all that - then found he needed his Amp serviced with new Caps …and the ‘room resonances’ disappeared when done.

DB.

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Hi DB. For clarification my 500 was serviced and DRed 8 months ago and seems to sound pretty good to me! ATB Peter
BTW. Room nodes do not disappear unless treated.