I’ve always wondered about so many super expensive power blocks etc and huge collections of Powerlines plugged in but do people not realise that the decoupling “advantages “ are lost if the plug hasn’t got the cable hanging vertical.
I don’t see how the Decoupling works lying down. 
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Fnar fnar!
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Finbarr Says 
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Thanks to everyone who commented on this post most of the thread confirms my suspicions about RA products.
ATB Graham
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Well, you might want to consider that, in 44 posts, I can only count three people who actually have one and only one (ahem, me) who tried comparing a Naim system with and without a Powerblock.
To me, that suggests an awful lot of opinions have been expressed without any first-hand experience to back them up!
Mark
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I had a Naim system too, with and without the Powerblock. As I’d bought it, I wanted to like it and it was better than a Wireworld block that I honestly thought did nothing, but the RA didn’t transform things and in my view didn’t provide great value for money in terms of an upgrade to my system. I thought the Kimber Cables that RA makes his PowerKords from, were more effective, but again, as the the prices rose, they didn’t represent great value for money compared to other products. Of course, in a different system, maybe different results.
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Russ Andrews was one of the - if not the first, to offer a full dedicated mains to wall socket, power cable to distribution block, signal and speaker cable foundation/coherent solution.
The naysayers said nay back then.
The naysayers say nay today.
I have the PowerBar that I use for my AV gear and it seems to have completely solved issues I had with earthing that meant all sorts of clicks and dings being audible.
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A long time ago, Russ Andrews had a retail shop in Edinburgh, where I was at school. I saw in his shop window some rather crudely-built gear, an amp and preamp - NAC12S and NAP160, perhaps, my first ever sighting of Naim equipment.
RA now runs a mail order business purveying snake oil to the masses.
In any event , a Hydra from Grahams HiFi in Canonbury, London, is so much better (and cheaper) - but Grahams advise that it should only be used with Naim equipment, so an Armageddon is fine, but not a Linngo.
I have a real problem with the advise of only using a hydra on Naim equipment, there is no reason for that and it makes me put it and Grahams in the snake oil bucket along with RA and unfortunately many others
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What I understand is that Naim use a ‘star earthing’ system, and that this works with the Hydra - as long as only Naim equipment is connected.
I am repeating there what I have been told. (I don’t know what it means!)
The star earth that Naim (and others) talked about is part of the signal circuit, not power.
Maybe Naim would’ve better call it star signal ground. But whatever it’s been taken up by the industry as a marketing feature, either deliberately or simple ignorance.
Incidentally all amplifier mnfts aim to have a single point signal ground, which is what ‘star’ grounding is, because it avoids noise.
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Can one really condemn a business as “purveying snake oil to the masses” without at least hearing the products? A rush to judgement based on what?
I’ve had two (second hand) fairly inexpensive items from RA; can’t say I noticed an improvement or audio penalty. But I balk at dismissing out of hand the percieved benefits or not of a lot of this hifi ‘stuff’, or indeed s/lavishly praising it, without hearing it.
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I bought two Kimber Cable mains power chords from Russ Andrews years ago for a couple of Tivoli radios, so I get sent their advertising booklet. They sell a few useful things, but there’s an awful lot of cr*p too.
In the days before cable dressing was a thing.
Left to right: Russ, Dave Watson, Jerry Ubysz, Roy McCullough. 1976
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He also had a dealership in Bournemouth which was taken over by the late John Chapman.
Russ delivered and installed a Rega Planer 3 to me back in 1980.
I seem to recall that there was once a Naim speaker developed with B&W - which may have had the model number 702?
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Good pics and chat about those Naim speakers here.
With Pictures.
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Nice to see a QUAD ESL57 with, I think, a Stand And Deliver stand instead of the three silly little feet that used to be factory-supplied.
PS A random fact about the ESL57 which people may not know - their designer Peter Walker (Mr QUAD!) enlisted the help of Christopher Heal (think department store in London’s Tottenham Court Road) in their design.
Some people still liken them to radiators, but they’re much more attractive than big wooden boxes, which (to me, at least) resemble coffins!
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