"CLEAN SHIP" by Jo Mullers
This is an article especially for those people whom believe they have arrived. Those people who have a separate pre- and power amplifier, a single DAC and drive, special cords, nice speakers and a reasonable subdued room in which the acoustics are more of importance than nice and warm curtains. Satisfied? Enjoy it for a while! Because when you have read this article, your peace has gone forever. There is namely more to get: lots and lots more and for a fair price. Interested? Good! You will encounter them over the whole world, even in this small country, although statistically you will see them over here less. So one has to be on the look out, but again we succeeded in finding on. A real 200% Hi-Fi world improver of world class. A man, Ron Kemp, whom followed the road for to reproduce his child, a line conditioner. During four years, he has been busy in an absolutely non-economical way to produce a worthy audiophile product by modifying, improving and measuring an already good design. A retrospective. Ron Kemp is an electronic engineer whom has worked in this country with several large and reputed companies at their research departments for to improve their products. Furthermore is he a real audio lover whom used much time with listening to and discovering better High End systems.

WHY FILTERING?
Until short, filtering was a suppositious child, but nowadays it is getting more and more the attention it deserves. This attention is not really strange, because everyone knows that a certain A/V set sounds different at a certain place and a certain time (e.g. daytime or nighttimes). Everyone knows as well that our mains is polluted with distortion by the use of apparatus which can lessen your enjoyment of your A/V set quite considerably. Although this is a fact we are not doing much with it, and that is strange. An A/V set is still as strong as the weakest chain. To neglect one part is blocking the road for the performance of the rest. And there is quite a lot of distortion at the mains, next to the distortion we produce ourselves through refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, computers, halogen lamps and other household goods there are the harmonics of the basic frequency of the mains itself, which is a kind of a poltergeist on its own and is able to do its destroying work. Your A/V set is nicely amplifying that together with your music and vision so you will have a shadowy report. In other words: there is a nice piece of work to do for such a filter.

POWER SOURCE
A closer look at the filter itself. The Power Source is a heavy weight, certainly when you take its measurements in account. The chassis is 25 x 25 cm but is almost not liftable. That is due to two reasons. First of all, the chassis is filled to the brim, with parts and second the chassis is filled up with synthetic resin. What is inside of it, and more important, why is it inside? The hart of the filter is not made of one transformer, but two. Each one of them is in the possession of a large centre for to prevent premature saturation. One of them takes care of the power amplifier, the other one takes care of the rest. The wire is coiled by hand and is very thick one. For this reason there are much less coils than normal, so the road the signal has to take is much more shorter, which is an advantage. The number of coils is reached by many listening sessions at various locations and different A/V sets. The same counts for the used capacitors. Trying, looking for an alternative, does it sounds better, and when it is better, than it stays. This whole process took four years until the researcher was satisfied with, please note, the results which came fort by listening. The synthetic resin does not only keep the nosy eyes of critics outside, but it puts everything unyielding stuck. Than the next step in the filtering. The heavy filter takes care for cleaning the electricity that comes out of the filter. To you, to keep it that way! How? Well, very simple. Take care that the power cords of the various pieces of the A/V set are not going to work like an antenna cable for distortions. Also the best for this is to use shielded power cord, preferable with a twisted metal coat. As an additional option one can buy the special KE POWER CORDS, moderately priced and very well made.

IMPLEMENTATION
The KE-POWER SOURCE gives place to eight inlets and is dived in three sections. First of all, there is a place reserved for a couple of amplifiers and that is quite extraordinary. In the past I had to find that, when I wanted to connect a amplifier to a line conditioner, I had to take two steps forward and one backwards. And that step backwards meant a quite considerable loss of dynamics. Not a real solution! The KE-POWER SOURCE can take and clean more than 16A, so that should not be a problem in practice. I will come back to this. Then there is a digital section for two apparatus, which are extra buffered, and a couple of extra inlets for a pre-amplifier, cassette player, etc., eight in total. The mains is clean, the cords are shielded and are nicely phased in the KE-POWER SOURCE and nothing is able to stand in the way of a new and satisfying way for to enjoy your A/V set with all the performing musical qualities which are possible. Wrong!! The words of Ron Kemp: "What do you think of a better mains spur?"

IMPROVEMENT OF YOUR MAINS SPUR
Yes, I had certainly thought about that. In my latest version of the auditorium, I had made four separate groups for my A/V set, so I could connect several apparatus to a separate mains group. It was done with normal wire, led through some stone provision cabinets, so distortions caused by other apparatus would be as minimum as possible. Ron Kemp told me that he had token care for creating a separate A/V group for some people and that the results were stunning. I became anxious by his words. And before I was really aware of it, a man was drilling holes through my walls and a very heavy version of the KE-POWER CORD was led upstairs. Ron Kemp took care of grounding and fixed everything quite well. So, not the amateurship kind of work of someone without any installing experience. If we put everything together than we have to recognise a couple of principles. We have to do here with a mains filter which states that it is capable for every kind of source, and with this I mean explicitly as well the power amplifier (16A). The apparatus is build in an audiophile way, so only with good sounding parts. The power cords have become a part of the filter, because when not, they are able to destroy the total result when they are not shielded. Due to the enormous amount of amperage the KE-POWER SOURCE can handle, is a fuse not necessary. The mains spur has been changed from a one-lane way into a highway.

LISTENING
To installate a filter in a huge installation is not a kids play. That is why I took time for it, connecting each part of the equipment piece by piece. The results, which I am going to state here, are not universal. It depends at the kind of distortion at the locally mains. Some apparatus are sometimes in the possession of a certain kind of filtering. Interested? Try it yourself is the slogan here. Right, there we go. First the Jadis a two times hundred Watt tube amplifier connected. Café Blue in the Forsell and listening to the low frequencies. The picture was brought back from about 1 meter, to the half it. The dynamics, for which I feared the most, increased. The plucking of the bass became brighter and the sound was more fulfilled. That was not a bad beginning. Than, step-by-step, the rest of the set followed and the sound became accordingly better. The performance and placing is more powerful, the voice is beautiful high and in front of the instruments, by which the amount of reality increased. The visualizing of my favourite female singers becomes increasingly easier. Then the next test, namely the mains spur. The results were absolutely good, and a part of the improvement mentioned before was due to the mains spur. However, that came straight from the reel, and as every cord, had to be worked in. Sharpness in the mid high kept reminding me of it. This was remarkable reduced in a week time. A couple of days later I dared to take a bold venture. I removed the mains plug from the mains spur and connected it to a standard group. The reproduction of music became harsh, shrill and eerie. Only one solution was left. The removal had to be undone.

CONCLUSION
This is a very good conditioner, better than any other one, because one has thought about it. The profit of the reproduction of sound is enormously, but that a thick well shielded main spur could make such a difference, was something what I had not thought for being possible. To wind up with some tips for the do-it-your-self type. Please, phase those mains plugs in the right way. Clean a multiple socket from time to time (disconnect it first). You will be amazed. Disconnect the antenna cable before listening or use a mantle current filter and be prepared to be astonished. This conditioner and the mains modification are a huge improvement and definitely the money worth.