Power distributor by Musical Affairs

Quite interesting, a huge power distributor made out of wood. Not the most logical material, is it? Well, maybe it is..
This distributor was created by Hans Kortenbach of Musical Affairs after an idea by Fritz de Wit from STS-Digital. Fritz found out that most power cables and power distributors are shielded but the power plugs most of the time are not. So he put copper tubes around the plugs, both on the equipment side and the outlet side, and connected them to ground. This resulted in an improvement, background noise seemed to be less and details in the music were clearer. However all those copper tubing dangling around the power plugs were far from a comfortable solution so the idea for incorporating these in a power distributor was born. That is, from the outlet side.. One day when Hans was visiting Fritz this was discussed and Hans agreed upon making one for testing. This worked out very promising and here we are.


By design STS-Digital.

Copper shielding with Furutech outlets.

Musical Affairs has a reputation when it comes down to furniture making, so no ordinary types of wood are used. American walnut is used together with bubinga. Together with the copper tubing and the lacquering, the distributor has a very chique appearance. Compared to other distributors this one is relatively big as in height and weight.
The inlet and outlets are by Furutech and wiring is arranged in such a way assuring equal power distributing for all the outlets. The inner side of the ditributor is shielded as well (of course), thus forming a Faraday cage against radio frequency (RF) interference. The copper tubes form an extension of this Faraday cage so plugs are more or less shielded as well. I say more or less because each copper tube is not closed, obviously, allowing RF signals with a wavelength of 5cm and smaller to reach the unshielded plugs.. Maybe this is why these copper tubes are way longer than the plugs? Also the effect of damping vibrations by wood and its joints has to be taken into account. This is a very interesting aspect of wood is advantageous for use in audioracks, so why not for a power distributor? Weight of the distributor is about 3 kilos which is of a big help when pulling out the cables and will prevent falling over when using heavy power cords at equal audio components level. A disadvantage is that because of the lengthy copper tubing, power cables have to pushed in and pulled out by the cable in stead of by the plug, so be prudent with that.

Well, is there an effect when using it?
I replaced my Furutech TP-80 with the Musical Affairs distributor, next in line after the JJW powerline conditioner. Amplifier, CD-player and phono-pré were plugged in, as well as the Furutech distributor (I need more than 6 outlets). Because of the chicque look I placed the distributor on the bottomshelve of the audiorack (not only ears need pleasing).

Placed in the rack next to the amplifiers power supply.

Yes, this distributor makes a difference and it is very well noticeable. At the same time it is funny how things can be of influence without immediately being able to exactly describe the reason. In other words, I had to switch a couple of times to be able to exactly describe that influence. And what more is funny, is that I already knew it from Frtz first attempts, just needed to explore and confirm it..
The effect is less background noise: we audiophools like to call that a more "black" background. As a result microdetails are presented more clearly and the stage gains in depth. As said the effect is immediately noticeable and has certainly a positive effect which I call an improvement (and since I switched several times this improvement is not because of scraping possible tarnish from the pins of the plugs by inserting and removing). I like it even better than my Furutech TP-80, to be honest..
So the Musical Affairs power distributor improves sound quality and is visual appealing.. What more to wish for?

Available at Musical Affairs and STS_Digital for about €950.