LessLoss Firewall Current Conditioning Unit

Introduction

Mains conditioning is often an essential tool in achieving good results from quality equipment, unless you happened to be blessed with good mains power. You have transformer based solutions, such as isolation or balanced power transformers. You also have capacitor based filtering, which tackle a certain frequency range based on the tuning of the circuit. There are also other approaches such as choke filtering and power regeneration. 

Description

The LessLoss Firewall Module uses the company's proprietary skin filtering technology first seen in their power cords. The wire surface is treated to allow the mains frequency to travel through efficiently (50 Hz or 60 Hz as the case maybe), while attenuating high frequency noise. Since no capacitors are used in the process, there is no limiting of current.

The LessLoss Firewall Module (hereinafter referred to as "Firewall") is available in two versions, a module with C13 and C14 connectors, and a module with screw terminals. The former would allow quick hookup between any component and  your existing AC cable, while the latter would be more suited for direct installation inside a component, mains distributor or any other application limited by your imagination. 

C13 / C14 version

Deploying the Firewall definitely made a difference to the sound, although its effectiveness seems to be quite dependent on the component being used. In my office head-fi setup, using a single piece on my Marantz CD 6003 cd player worked best in firming up bass lines, reducing harshness on high frequencies, and improving the preciseness of imaging and staging. However, the system became overly dull and smooth when adding a second unit to my Schitt Lyr headamp. Similarly underwhelming results were obtained when I tried stacking two modules together.

 

I had mixed results on various locations, such as my Gryphon Diablo integrated amplifier and my Zodiac Antelope Platinum DAC. I hit the jackpot when I moved the LessLoss module to my Audio-Gd NFB 10.2 DAC / headamp, with very similar improvements as noted on my Marantz CD 6003.

 

While the Firewall did not work as a fit-and-forget solution, the results under ideal conditions were intriguing enough to warrant further investigation. I promptly bought two units of the DIY version for further experimentation. 

To be continued ...