Power Conditioner Reviews




	" As I continued listening, it became clear that the Audience’s levels of midrange and lower-treble resolution were standard-setting -- again, that vanishing noise floor paid big dividends in the listening chair. The upper midrange and lower treble were nuanced, finely shaded, and highly resolved, presenting harmonic decay and inner detail that I’d never heard with any other conditioner. The decays of the piano’s upper registers, previously obscured by a fine layer of glare, were more fully illuminated and harmonically developed with the aR12-TS in the system. I felt I could see into the lowest, previously obscured levels of harmonics of pianos, guitars, cymbals, and even voices. Piano lovers will love what the Audience does. " Ryan Coleman -- Mar '12 Read Full Review "And, in addition to what eliminating grunge does for the background, the improvements in dynamics, timbre, the soundstage and imaging are not subtle. " Nicholas Bedworth -- Mar 12 Read Full Review (PDF, 661k)		"Bottom line: The aR12-TS is the best power conditioner I’ve heard." Brian Damkroger -- Jan 12 Read Full Review "While it affords an convincingly audible advance over the landmark aR12-T, the degree of that improvement is, to my ears, nearly as incremental an advance on the T's performance as the T iteration improved upon the original aR12." Greg Weaver -- Oct 11 Read Full Review "I said in my aR12-T review that in my experience, this degree of overall system improvement simply cannot be achieved with ANY other individual investment, regardless of the dollar amount of the investment, and that claim is even more true with the aR12-TS." Greg Weaver -- Jan 12 Read Full Review

	"We love it because it sounds like you have just upgraded every component in the signal chain, making voices more articulate and natural. As we said back in issue 69, "the Audience adeptResponse aR8 makes a big, important difference to the sound, every bit in line with three grand upgrades to electronics further up the food chain." In other words, we like it!"		"No product is perfect, but the aR8 gets damn close. It’s strange; if a change this large is laid at the door of a CD player, preamp or power amp, few quibble. Even saying changing the interconnect cables produces this big a difference might be accepted with scant question, but to attribute these sort of improvements to a power product is always viewed quizzically. The fact remains that the Audience adeptResponse aR8 makes a big, important difference to the sound, every bit in line with three grand upgrades to electronics further up the food chain. So, set aside your preconceptions and prejudices and listen." Alan Sircom – Issue 69 Dec 09 Read Full Review

	"What these units do is as significant sonically as would be the substitution of s superior tubed electronic unit into your music system." Harry Pearson - February '10 The Absolute Sound Editors' Choice Award for 2010 “The sonic results of the two sibling aR-12s are not even close. Where the original raised the bar and set a very serious standard, the Audience aR-12 T creates an entirely new benchmark. Further, in my experience, this degree of overall system improvement simply cannot be achieved with ANY other individual investment, regardless of the amount—$8,000 or $80,000.” Greg Weaver – Sept 08 Read Full Review Positive Feedback Online's Writers' Choice Awards - for 2008		“There was a kind of transparency I hadn’t experienced outside a few concert halls, and not in any of my systems. I mean transparency here in it’s original sense (as first used by J. Gordon Holt). There was simply, a greater “invisibility” between you and the experience." "Perhaps the greatest strength of the upgraded Audience power conditioner lies in the way it captures the human voice. You hear it as if anew, and with a harmonic integrity never quite fully there before." "So, it was into this system that I plugged the new Audience aR12-T, replacing its predecessor, the just plain aR12. And the transformation of that system was transfixing. Maybe even "staggering" and "astonishing", according to the first impressions I jotted down. Rather than taking those words textbook literally, take them as a measure of my surprise at the transmogrification I was hearing." The Absolute Sound HP’s Workshop A Breakthrough in Sonic Transparency Harry Pearson -- Nov 08 Print Version

	"This is a remarkable product. And, in my experience, audibly superior to every other "conditioner" I have tried out (and given the peculiarities of the power network in New York, I have tried more than a few over the years). It is, to use a word from the earliest days of the hi-fi delity movement, simply much more transparent than the competition. And Audience lets you hear more ambient information, more definition and articulation of the musical images, and all that with what sounds like a reduction on those hard-to-describe distortions that ride atop a musical (or electrical, one supposes) signal. More to come." Harry Pearson -- July 08 Print Version "I've used a wide variety of power-conditioning systems over the years, but none has ever produced the type or magnitude of benefits I got with the adept response." Brian Damkroger -- Recommeneded -- Apr 07 Print Version "This expensive but extremely effective 12-outlet conditioner delivered significant improvements in bass definition and depth, overall resolution, and soundstage depth. Build-quality is exemplary." Robert Harley -- Editors Choice Awards -- Oct 06 "The Adept Response made a phenomenal difference in my system. Fundamentally, it improved the clarity of recordings by eliminating a previously undetected lack of definition, without introducing any brightness or most importantly any coloration. That is worth repeating. I did not hear any coloration from the Adept Response or any obscuring of the rhythm of the music. The Adept Response just made every recording I listened to more natural and in turn more musically engaging." Max Shepherd -- Jun 06 Print Version "I can say with certainty the Adept Response is among the elite of AC conditioners, and if you’ve not tried one, or haven’t had much success with other brands, then you need to give Audience a call." Clement Perry -- Aug 06 Read Full Review "King Of The Passives - If you are seeking the ultimate in passive power conditioning performance, especially for the reproduction of high-end caliber audio, the AdeptResponse is as good as it gets." Doug Blackburn -- Aug 06 Print Version "Conclusion. The Audience Adept Response line conditioner is a beautiful machine to gaze upon and use. Unlike so many other line conditioners with substantial prices, the Audience does give one reason to feel that the hardware involved justifies the price charged." Martin DeWulf -- #170 -- Mar 06 "Uniformly, those rooms with the Adept Response were some of the best sounding at the show." CES Show Report -- #169 -- Jan 06 "In carefully considering the architectural and equipment specifications of my new studio/demonstration room, I chose only the best. Audience Cables and their Power Conditioner deliver the kind of reproduction quality that our high resolution recordings demand." Mark Waldrep, Ph.D. -- Aug 06 Equipment List "Treble with the Adept Response is superb, coaxing some of the finest highs I've heard out of a number of components. But, it's the clean dynamic action that I've obtained with the Adept Response that to my way of thinking sets it apart from other AC line conditioning devices that I've used in the past." Martin DeWulf -- #166 -- Aug 05 "Greater bass clarity, an increase in overall resolution and detail while improving the organic nature of instrumental texture left no doubt that the Audience Adept Response would remain a permanent fixture in my system." Greg Petan -- Editors Choice Awards -- Jun 05 Print Version		"...these two units beat the crap out of any other power conditioners I've had in my system." Bill Gaw -- Nov 07 Read Full Review "Because BluePort's live recording work is subject to the caprice of strange power sources in a constantly changing variety of venues all across the United States, the challenge of filtering and stabilizing current flow to multiple pieces of high-end recording devices is staggering. I've used nearly a dozen different "power conditioners" over the last ten years or so, each promising spectacular sonic results. The only one that delivers sound with utter purity, clarity, and freedom from extraneous electrical grunge and gremlins is the AUDIENCE *"adeptResponse"* . . . a product, in my overburdened world of recording work, I regard to be on the top rung of contemporary power conditioning excellence. When I have a project that must have all of its elements as technically perfect as possible the adeptResponse twelve outlet box sits at the outset of my "on location" recording rig. I seldom build a work station without it." JIM MEROD, BluePort Jazz High-Definition Recording Engineer "I doff my cap to the generous audio enhancement that adeptResponse subtlety brings my musical universe." Jim Merod -- Mar 07 Read Full Review “This high-end conditioner filters the incoming AC as well as isolates each of the 12 hospital-grade AC outlets from each other. The result is a cleaner overall sound, better bass definition, a more spacious presentation, and greater ease and involvement. Expensive, but worth it." Robert Harley -- Editors Choice Awards -- Dec 06 "If you have already dialed-in your amps and source components, and are looking for one final piece that will yet again leap-frog your system to a new level...try the Adept Response." Sherlock -- Oct 06 Read Full Review "List an attribute you would expect to have from your power conditioner, and this one actually delivers." Greg Weaver -- Writers Choice Awards -- 05 Print Version "The Audience adeptResponse is perfect in every way. With its gorgeous silver cabinet, it gets a ‘10' for looks. With enough outlets to power even the largest of systems, it gets a ‘10' for practicality. And lastly, with its ability to improve the sound of every piece of gear that I plugged into it, it gets a ‘10' for functionality." Fown-Ming Tien -- Writers Choice Awards -- 05 "I have a fair amount of experience with high-performance AC power conditioners, but the Adept Response took me by surprise. Comparing my system's sound with the components plugged into the Adept Response and straight into the wall, I heard a wide range of obvious, musically significant improvements." Robert Harley -- Sep/Oct 05 Print Version "At $3800, the Audience adeptResponse is not inexpensive, but given its ability to improve the sound of everything connected to it, I feel that it is worth every penny. Audio gear is always about compromise. The Audience adeptResponse is the first and only component I have experienced that represents zero compromise." Fown-Ming Tien -- Nov 05 Read Full Review

	The sound of the aR6-TS was, in a word, stunning. Eyes bulged. Ears stretched out and snapped back. This wolf whistled. My mouth drooled. I wore my Depends. I wondered where the heck all this new information was coming from. Doug Blackburn -- Jan 12 Read Full Review "What these units do is as significant sonically as would be the substitution of s superior tubed electronic unit into your music system." Harry Pearson -- February '10 The Absolute Sound Editors' Choice Award for 2010 “By contrast the Audience aR6-T's effect on my system's soundstage was as I described earlier: It has a very coherent, whole soundstage. It is a soundstage that is more lik you are at the event than the event is in your room, and as I said above what really made this soundstage so real is the way it handles the vertical dimension of the soundstage. Another difference is that the soundstage varies tremendously from recording to recording. That too can be a little disconcerting for some listeners. Still, I expect that through the Audience the system is just letting you hear the differences from recording to recording. The Audience also has an uncanny ability to let the system reveal the different size of different instruments in the soundstage.” Jack Roberts -- July 09 Read Full Review Audience has kindly sent me various products to audition. Their Au24 "e" audio interconnects are VERY neutral. Pleasing sound that tells the HONEST TRUTH about what your components really sound like while still being tuneful and musical. The "e" powerChord adds dynamics and the Adept Response Teflon power conditioner is great at cancelling noise while bringing out authoritative dynamics hidden in your playback system. The power conditioner is really amazing. If I wasn’t already married, I’d marry it. Add the Au24 "e" speaker cable and you have a true neutral, musical presentation! Steve Hoffman using all Au24 e and Audience powerChord e cables to remix Nat King Cole album to 3 channel SACD. Steve Hoffman, recording engineer -- Dec 08		“The insertion of the aR6T brought a new, dance-like, joyful aliveness to the recording, (a slice of what I had heard at Ozawa Hall), with a natural flow of notes into a wider and deeper soundstage than I ever thought possible in my system.” “In my auditions of the aR6T, I kept coming back to that analogy of a sage usher who knows the recording venue he has worked in for many years and seats you in the best seat to hear every nuance of performance and recording venue that a given recording may offer. With the aR6T, everything on recordings is just more vital, more musically engaging and inviting. As such, it is indispensable.” Nelson Brill -- September 09 Read Full Review “There was a kind of transparency I hadn’t experienced outside a few concert halls, and not in any of my systems. I mean transparency here in it’s original sense (as first used by J. Gordon Holt). There was simply, a greater “invisibility” between you and the experience." "Perhaps the greatest strength of the upgraded Audience power conditioner lies in the way it captures the human voice. You hear it as if anew, and with a harmonic integrity never quite fully there before." "So, it was into this system that I plugged the new Audience aR12-T, replacing its predecessor, the just plain aR12. And the transformation of that system was transfixing. Maybe even "staggering" and "astonishing", according to the first impressions I jotted down. Rather than taking those words textbook literally, take them as a measure of my surprise at the transmogrification I was hearing." The Absolute Sound HP’s Workshop A Breakthrough in Sonic Transparency Harry Pearson -- Nov 08 Print Version “But none of the +85 power-conditioning products I’ve reviewed can touch what the Audience adeptResponse aR6-T did for the sheer amount of listening enjoyment I got from my reference system. Nothing else has produced a soundstage as large, or a more convincing sensation of instruments and performers being physically present in my room. Details of texture, harmonics, and space were terrific. My expectations of performance are very high for this kind of money, and, offering only six outlets for $4600, the adeptResponse aR6-T is deep in no-compromise territory. But the Audience delivered.” Doug Blackburn -- Sept 08 Read Full Review

	"...calling the adeptResponse an accessory may be misplaced, as it is really a world class component in and of itself.” Andre Mark -- Jan '11 Read Full Review Positive Feedback Online's Writers' Choice Awards - for 2008 "Audience Adept Response aR6 should be more than satisfying to any stereo music lover. I can only highly recommend it to anyone who is pursuing the high end reproduction system. $2,800 is a lot of money. But when you're building the high end system you don't want to save with quality power handling. It's a building block of high quality playback system." Matej Isak -- April 08 Read Full Review The 4th Annual Positive Feedback Online's Writers' Choice Awards for 2007 Positive Feedback Issue 34, Awards Page Two Bob Neill -- Nov/Dec 07 Award		“I am now hearing deeper, and with greater definition and detail into the music. Most importantly, that slight metallic sound I had in my system before placing the aR6 in my rig is now gone. Both micro and macro dynamics improved along with soundstaging which is now larger. Soundstaging has become more three dimensional on all planes of the musical stage. Images that sounded slightly opaque and recessed are now more pronounced and brought to the forefront and with greater clarity.” Jeff Parks –- March 08 Read Full Review "The improvement in audio quality the aR6 produces is significant and easily audible -- it gives music an exciting character that’s habit-forming.” "Every voice, every instrument had an aura of excitement I don’t hear from other power-conditioning products. Dynamic prowess and harmonic richness were enhanced, and there was something happening with the timing as well." “The degree of improvement is on a level that sends dedicated audiophiles into hours of debate and comparisons in their quest to elevate the performance of their systems to new heights. If the aR6 represents your sonic direction and price point, you can’t do better.” Doug Blackburn -- Nov 07 Print Version "...these two units beat the crap out of any other power conditioners I've had in my system." Bill Gaw -- Nov 07 Read Full Review

	Though the phrase "First, do no harm" is not actually part of the Hippocratic Oath, my listening has convinced me Audience has not only taken that charge to heart, but successfully implemented it in the adeptResponse aR2-T. It is only the second power product with which I've had extensive experience that introduces neither dynamic limitation nor nonlinear filtration artifacts -- each a significant achievement. Peter Roth -- July '10 Read Full Review “ … the system was the quietest that it's ever been. While I've stated in the past that the system was silent, one cannot contemplate any further decrease in the background noise unless one actually hears it. It always amazes me when a further decrease in electrical junk leads to further delineation of the soundstage, ambiance, and a more musical presentation.” Bill Gaw -- August '09 Read Full Review		"What these units do is as significant sonically as would be the substitution of s superior tubed electronic unit into your music system. We just inserted the aR2-T unit, deisnged to handle big power amplifiers (vide, the 300-watt McIntosh 2301), and found a great amplifier achieving state-of-the-art status." Harry Pearson - February '10 The Absolute Sound Editors' Choice Award for 2010


	“I would place the adeptResponse aR2p at the top of my list of next purchases, even ahead of interconnects and speaker cables.” Frank Berryman -- Dec '11 Read Full Review		“ If you want your system to be unshackled from the nasty AC power coming out of the wall outlet and hear what your system is truly capable of – try this reasonably priced high quality power conditioner from Audience. You will never plug any of your gear directly into a wall outlet ever again.” Jan '11 Read Full Review

	"… the smallest Teflon-capped Audience conditioner has elevated itself from accessory to essential, enhancing the sound and my overall musical enjoyment as much or more than any other component upgrade I’ve made." John Acton -- Jan/Feb 2012 Positive Feedback Issue 59 Read Full Review		“Rarely does changing a component “make me rediscover my entire music collection”, as we like to say.” “Instantly with the installation of the aR2p-TO on the power amplifiers, the sound became much more vivid, alive, dynamic, pure, sweet, and resolved. The bass resolution improved as well, along with a smaller increase in the clean dynamic performance in the upper treble.” Jerry Seigel, Editor -- May '10 Read Full Review

	“This power conditioner is a champion at low level retrieval as it very clearly unveiled a natural sounding timbre as both music or vocals was played through it." Anthony Nicosia -- Sept. '10 Read Full Review		“Folks this is the real deal here. So if you have a high resolution system and want to elevate it just that much further then step right up. The aR2p-T is one of the champions at low level retour existing system. The increase in clarity and natural sounding timbre with both music and vocals was very addictive.” "The aR2p-T is one of the champions at low level retrieval and should help improve overall performance within your existing system." Anthony Nicosia -- Dec '09 Read Full Review

	“What started as an abstract soup of sounds now has import and purpose” “Interestingly, I found the sonic character and effectiveness of the adeptResponse to be very consistent from component to component, even when going from CD player to a power amp.” Bound For Sound – Sept. ‘09/The Urban Audiophile by Marc Yun Read Full Review "It’s a serious, effective, inexpensive upgrade for those of us with stable power, and for those with RF and hash aplenty, a little box from audio heaven." Anthony Kershaw, Editor/Publisher, Audiophilia Read Full Review “With the aR1p providing cleansed juice to my whole system, I noted a dramatically lower noise floor, greater image focus and improved sense of space between instruments. While my perception of recorded depth increased, individual performers, especially vocals, were projected more forcefully into my room. Musical pace appeared to quicken too. I did not notice any reduction in dynamics with my power amps. In fact, I noted an increase in dynamic contrasts plus an enhanced clarity and precision particularly on the leading edge of notes.” Paul Candy -- April 08 Read Full Review “The degree of improvement compared to wall power is as significant as a major upgrade to an analog amplifier or preamplifier. Not even many thousands of dollars of high-end power conditioning, including balanced power, could provide better or more desirable sound from analog components than the aR1p.” Used with the right components, the aR1p provides a heck of a kick in the pants—equaled only by the aR12, so far. Balanced power may provide a quieter noise floor, but no balanced power conditioner I have produces the same level of sheer music or soundtrack excitement and pleasure. The aR1p may not be for everybody, but if you’re on a quest for the best possible sound quality from your system, the aR1p should be evaluated.” Doug Blackburn -- Widescreen Review –- Dec ‘07 Print Version		“At its asking price of $495, the Audience adeptResponse aR1p has to be considered one of the true bargains in high-end audio. Evincing no sonic compromises that I could detect, the aR1p improved the performance of my audio system across the board, with noticeable gains in transparency, insight and immediacy, all of which translated into increased musical involvement.” John Acton -- March 08 Read Full Review “Believe me; I ain't messin' with this Clark Kent aR1p super high-resolution macho machine (better known around here as Guido): a self-effacing, tough guy body guard for aging recording engineers whose become a mysterious and generous companion.” Jim Merod –- Positive Feedback –- Nov 07 Read Full Review “This was a visceral experience. I don’t know how they do what they do, but compared to some flat cardboard-between-the-speakers CD soundstages, sounds were blooming all over the room. Amazing.” Bob Wood –- Ultra Audio –- Oct 07 Read Full Review "In fact, the aR1p's make a fundamental difference. They improve the overall transparency and clarity of the sound. They provide a fundamental increase in definition. Yet, they do this without adding a trace of brightness or any sense of an etched coloration. They in no way inhibit dynamics or micro-dynamics; they do nothing to obscure the natural rhythm and pace of the performances. What the aR1p's do is simple; they just made everything sound more like music and less like recordings." Jack Roberts -- dagogo -- July 07 Read Full Review “For the best audiophile grade sound, the Audience units are the way to go.” Bill Gaw –- Enjoy The Music -- Oct 07 Read Full Review