"KE-POWER STRIP - Powercords and distribution blocks" by Henk Peters and Hans Vaatstra
When in the fall of 2001 Theo Wubbolts and Henk Peters were visiting Polyhymnia (recording studio Philips) it occurred that there were several rooms to let. How well did this occur, because the office in Hilversum should be left within a month and a new and appropriate accommodation was not yet found. The nicest part of this new space was, that there was not only an office available, but next to it a master listening room as well. Theo and Henk were happily pleased by this. They got visions of an acoustic sound listening room, what quiet unique is in Europe, and probably outside of it too.

Widescreen Review is probably the only other magazine which has the same professional rooms. Multiple rooms indeed, Americans love it! Such a room has to be filled of cause with reference sets. We decided to supply those sets with clean power. Although Ron Kemp of Kemp Elektroniks not the only is, whom have specialized himself in this area, is he the only one whom start at the source, the main switch equipment, and like a real electrician installs a separate group for the A/V installation, including the pulling and placing of the cables. It was quiet obvious to go for his products, because he delivers a total solution.

KE-HI Power Cord
HVT make use of the KE-HI POWER CORDS and two KE-POWER STRIPS. All the equipment in the listening room is connected with KE-HI POWER CORDS. The KE-HI POWERCORD is an power cord which is selected not only due to the specific technical details, but also by listening. Its sound is neutral and it is heavy shielded with relative sturdy conductors. The normal power cable which is standard provided for your equipment rather reflects them instead of absorbing the disturbances like the KE-HI POWER CORD does. All the other cables are in the possession of the nuisance of having a distortion field, what gives an antenna effect. Except for the KE-HI POWER CORD which takes care of antenna and sending problem by itself through the way it is manufactured. Both of them are of importance for an undisturbed listening.

KE-POWER STRIP
The KE-POWER STRIP is a totally shielded aluminum distribution block, with 4, 6 or 8 power sockets supplied with a 1,5 meter (5 feet) KE-POWER CORD. (Other lengths are available upon request.) The aluminum housing serves as a real shielding. It is connected through a special cord with the shielding of the KE-POWER CORD. The plug itself is as special as well. Kemp Elektroniks use a 16 A type (normally one uses a 10 A plug) by this is the power flow much more powerful. The KE-POWER STRIP has, like a good audio distribution block ought to have, an internal star wiring. Through this method every socket has its own power supply. This means that the current of the first outlet almost to nothing influences the next outlet and vice versa, and so that the connected components almost to nothing influences each other. The KE-POWER STRIP is filtered with a parallel filter. The profit of this is that there is not a limitation of the supply of the current to the different components. So you can use the power strip for your power amplifier, without having the well known loss of dynamics which is normally (almost) always caused by other filters. The KE-POWER STRIP is also provided with an over voltage protector, very nice indeed.

Installation
The other day Ron Kemp came along, accompanied with lots of KE-HI POWER CORDS, the new KE-POWER STRIPS and a very assorted case with tools, for to provide the listening room with an audio group. HVT-author Hans Vaatstra was invited for to listen at and to watch to the effect of the installation. Together with Hans Vaatstra and Dick Steffens, Ron listened and watched some DVD's, before he started to work. One and a half hour later he was ready and again they listened and watched to the same DVD's. Hans Vaatstra thought that he could detect a slight difference, but was not sure about it and took some KE-HI POWER CORDS with him to his home, for listening over there.

Discovery
The next morning after a listening session by Henk Peters and Theo Wubbolts. They discovered that there had gone something wrong with the system to which they had listened before. The used Linn speaker system (Ninkas in the front and Katans in the rear) is multi connectable: passive, biwired passive and active. As a gesture for the consumer, one has made the different kinds of connections at the rear of the speakers so that one has not to go back to the importer with the speakers when one wants to bi-amplify them. All of the five speakers were connected, but there was not a single uniformity to find in the used connections, let it be that the speakers were connected in the right way. Yeah, well it is not easy to form an opinion about the alteration when one is listening to such a mess. We made a second test setting at the distributor/exporter "Analogue Audio Products" because we still wanted to tell you about the performance of Ron Kemps' products. There were three listening sessions by Henk Peters, Hans Vaatstra and Hans de Ligt. The authors were not allowed to speak with each other about their findings, as well as the distributor Wim van Kraanen had to keep his mouth closed.

Listening
We were listening to two kinds of test settings. Henk Peters was listening to an Unison Research S2K amplifier and a Synthesis Pride CD player. The speakers were from Diapason. Hans Vaatstra en Hans de Ligt were listening to the Paganini CD player from Audio Analogue, the Unison Research S6 amplifier and the same Diapason Adamantes speakers. The total amount of this set, including the HiDiamond cables was about £5500.00, slightly more expensive than the set where Henk was listening to. All the three authors found the same differences. Below you can read the findings of Hans Vaatstra en Henk Peters.

Hans Vaatstra
Hans did not hear a sufficient difference between the listening sessions at his own home and in the HVT-room, but at Wim van Kraanen he did. The listening sessions were done in A/B with an interval of one minute. First one listened to a 'normal' electricity audio group, so not the special Kemp audio group. The power cords were in this situation the standard supplied Euro power cords and one used a plastic distribution block, which one can buy at the DIY-shop. The second session one listened to the special audio group and the KE-HI POWER CORDS and the KE-POWER STRIP. After that the KE-POWER STRIP was replaced by the KE-POWER SOURCE, then again, back to the normal group with the standard supplied Euro power cords. Hans Vaatstra heard that with the Kemp audio group in an increasing way, very substantial the perspective and the staging of the sound picture were become better. It also seemed to be as if the high frequencies became less masked by a residue of noise. The difference is subtle, but very convincing! Hans found that you do have to have a good installation and a good listening room for to get the optimal benefit out of it.

Henk Peters
Henk had the same understanding as Hans Vaatstra. One could hear the difference very well. He listened to 'De Amor' by Sierra Maestra. He found the guitar much more in balance in the 'clean' situation and found the voice and especially the clave more articulated, as well that the voices were more clearly distinguishable from each other. The guitar and the rest were more in balance. With the 'dirty' power the guitar sounded somehow greasy compared with the rest. With the 'clean' power was it more in balance. There was quite a lot of music we listened to, but every time the conclusion was the same: 'the total amount of the Kemp products had a huge impact in the performance of the music by the audio equipment'. Wim van Kraanen was even changing power cord by power cord, so that the effect of each step was very audible. All the differences between the several steps makes it very clearly that one has to take care of the mains supply in one drought, so that one can notice the difference at the most. Hans de Ligt arrived at the same conclusion but was more specified with his opinion.

Baarn
At Baarn (a city in Holland) we are only able to change the cables and power supply sockets. But for to install a special 'dirty' audio group is in our opinion a little bit overdone and a waste of time. But it will not do for not installing the KE-POWER STRIPS, KE-HI POWER CORDS and the mains conditioners for to compare them. The gentlemen importers should keep in mind that we need at least five power cords pro type so that we are able to provide our audio group with the right amount of cords for to be able to draw a conclusion.

published in: HIFI Video Test; no.1, January 2003, pages 49, 51