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EVS Music Purifiers - Amazed by how much improvement they make! Anyone else try them?

A few years ago I had Ric Schultz at EVS modify a VTV Class D amplifier for me.  As part of that mod I bought a pair of what he calls ‘Music Purifiers’.  Small black cylinders with + and -  wires to attach to binding posts of your speakers.  I put them on my Gallo Strada 2 speakers, but with the new amp and other streaming equipment I was adding at the time, I never did careful A/B listening tests to see if they improved my systems sound quality or not.

Fast forward to 2023, when I hooked my old VPI Scoutmaster back into my system for the first time in years.  I quickly fell in love again with the sound of well recorded records and set out to upgrade my analog gear.  Early this year I bought a Sutherland Little Loco phono stage, a Lyra MC cartridge and a Schiit Kara preamp to handle volume control.   The path I traveled to arrive at my current analog system involved many rounds of A/B testing to find what gear sounded best.  The new set of components is now more musically satisfying than my DAC or streamer and I’m spending more time each week listening to new records and old favorites.

One afternoon while fooling around with my speakers (with EVS Music Purifiers attached and Audience Au 24 SE speaker wires), I decided to
A/B test to see if the Purifiers improved the sound as EVS claimed.

So I played one of the tracks I’d been using frequently for my earlier A/B tests, to see if having the Purifiers attached improved the sound.   After I disconnected their positive leads from the speaker terminals, I played the title track from Joni Mitchell’s Court and Spark.  I could tell immediately that something special in the sound was missing.  I quickly reconnected the Purifiers positive lead on both speakers and cued the track again.   Playing the track with the Purifiers reattached restored all of the SQ characteristics I’d come to love in Joni Mitchell’s iconic song.

The 3-D feel of the sound stage space, greater detail and so much more involvement in the music were all back.  I was blown away to find how important these inexpensive Purifiers were to hearing all the sound quality my new components were capable of producing!   Additional A/B tests with other tracks I love and know inside out confirmed the first test.  My experience so far makes me suspect that the better a given systems sound quality, the easier it is to hear the improvement these Music Purifiers make.  Using the Music Purifiers gives me so much added musical enjoyment there is no going back.  Listening without them is not an option.

The results of my listening tests with the Purifiers has been so surprising to me I’d like to hear from others on Audiogon who have tried them.  I’m curious to learn if you have found them as important to enhancing your systems sound as I have in mine.  If you do like what they do in your system, I’d love to hear what aspects of musical quality they improve and how much.

Thanks for any feedback!  If there is interest, I can post some further details about the tracks I used, and what things I noticed as improvements in each test.

bobfitz1

Showing 1 response by gstewtoo

gstewtoo
10 posts
 

I've had 2 pair of Music Purifiers in my bi-wired pair of Eminent Technology LFT-VIIIB's for a couple of months now.

I liked what I heard when I first put them in, more spacious, sound sources were better defined and separate. BUT like the OP (Bobfitz1), I find the best way to evaluate a change is to revert back after I have gotten used to the new sonics.

What I heard when I disconnected the Music Purifiers was a more diffuse and less specific sound-field that had many of the sounds anchored on the speakers. The level separation and definition I had come to treasure had dropped. Music became less enjoyable and less engaging.

Reconnecting them immediately brought back the benefits.

When I say separation and definition, one thing that I listen for and that brings enjoyment to me is hearing the inner detailing of the interplay of notes, how they are played/sung, and emphasized/synced with the other instruments/singers, melodically, harmonically, and temporally. This increases my emotional connection with the music and the intention of the musicians. When these subtle details are audible, I often lose myself in the music listening to their artistry, as I did last night when I only intended to have the setup on 15-20 minutes while preparing to audition some upgrades... and stayed to listen for another couple hours.

I know everyone here has had seminal audio experiences, like my 1st time hearing a setup with then-high-end pretentions back in the late 1970s... a well-regarded Kenwood table with a Black Widow arm hosting a top Grado, Apt-Holman preamp feeding an Audio Research tube amp, and a pair of LS3/5As. I never knew a stereo could sound so good. What I heard started me down my audiophile path.

Another was at a mid-80s Chicago CES... Pink Triangle turntable with a Kiseki Blue, Rowland pre and amp (it was their room), and the fabled, beautiful, and rare Xstatic speakers. The sax on track 2 of Bernie Krause's Citadels of Mystery, "Heights of Machu Picchu" was the first time that reproduced music brought tears to my eyes. AND that launched me on a search to bring that to my system, which I only realized when I added tubes into the mix.

BUT the one that I was reminded of while I was listening to my setup with the Music Purifiers was during a tour of Audio Research back when I lived in Minneapolis. The local audio society arranged an annual tour of either ARC or Magnepan (with Wadia thrown in the mix those years when it was active nearby). While what I heard in the ARC listening room on my 1st tour was impressive, it did not compare to the 2nd tour a couple years later. I forget the turntable and cartridge but remember the Magnepan Unitrac arm and the Warren Gehl platter mat, IMHO one of the best ever. ARC electronics and cables of course, an SP-11 and a pair of M300's as I remember. Speakers were a pair of the then-fairly-new Infinity IRS Betas. They played "Mean Daddy Green" from Radka Toneff's Fairytales album. Beautiful. BUT what struck me after I listened to most of the piece was that I was hearing how she physically sang... the final phrase of the piece are the words "Mean Daddy Green" and I heard how she opened her mouth, held her lips, and moved her tongue. WOW!

I've worked to gain that level of insight into the music since then, in the mid-1990s. While I have had glimpses of it, the Music Purifiers made it gell. AND not only on well-recorded Audiophile recordings, but on many mass-market jazz, pop, and classical recordings too.

That setup (I have 2)... DIY'd digital front end with bits from Allo.com, Ian Canada, and Uptone Audio, with the endpoint and DAC powered off the grid via a massive amount of Ultracaps (~20,000F!) and batteries. S&B TX102 transformer volume control. PS Audio BHK-250 Amp and P15 AC Regenerator. MIT MI-330 Shotgun and MH-750 cables. Eminent Technology LFT-VIIIB speakers. And lots and lots of tweaks.

Finally, I've been both a customer and a follower of Ric at EVS since the early 2000s. Have purchased several of his amps and modified DVD players and used techniques from those and what he shares online (and privately) along with purchasing various bits from him, like that S&B TX102, in my own DIY efforts.

Thanks Ric!

Greg in Mississippi

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