December 2008 Reviewed by Howard Kneller	Richard Gray's Power Company Substation and 1200 Custom Power Conditioners

Description Model: SubStation Price: $2995 USD Dimensions: 13"H x 9.25"W x 6.625"D Weight: 70 pounds Model: 1200 Custom Price: $2195 USD Dimensions: 17"W x 6.2"H x 11"D Weight: 55 pounds Warranty: Five years parts and labor	Features SubStation: Isolated power delivery Four 20A outlets with individual fuses Multiple SubStations can be daisy-chained for complex systems Isolates ground loops 1200 Custom: Parallel filtering system High current on demand Surge suppression for lightning and other power anomalies 12 nonfiltered AC outlets Art-deco design available in black or silver Rack-mountable

Richard Gray’s Power Company has been around for about ten years -- impressive when you remember that power conditioners themselves haven’t been around for much longer. In that time, RGPC products have been used by a number of audio manufacturers in their reference systems and at trade shows. In light of this, I jumped at the chance to review some of their products.

When I first spoke to the RGPC representative, he told me that, for my home theater, he’d put together what the company calls an Isogray system -- several RGPC products combined to create a complete power-delivery system. I provided him with detailed information about my system, and several weeks later received a 120-volt SubStation ($2995 USD), which uses an isolating transformer, and a 1200 Custom ($2195), which uses several parallel chokes.

Features and technology

An isolating transformer is placed between the AC outlet on the wall and your components. It typically contains two windings, each of which consists of a heavy iron core wrapped in an extremely long copper wire. Through induction, electricity is magnetically transferred between the two windings, thus creating a physical separation of the components from both the outlet and any other devices connected to the same circuit. This eliminates ground loops, which can be caused not only by system components improperly designed or installed, but also by devices outside your system. Locating the source of and fixing a ground loop can be extremely difficult, if not maddening; cable TV boxes are notorious for causing them.

Rated at 2000W, the RGPC SubStation contains one isolating transformer connected to four 20A hospital-grade Hubbell outlets, each with its own fuse, into which you plug your components. The 120V version of the SubStation that I received doesn’t protect gear against power surges or spikes. RGPC does, however, make a 240V version for the same price that does offer such protection. (Check with your electrician to ensure that your house wiring can accommodate the 240V version.)

Except for the fact that parallel chokes (also called inductors) like the 1200 Custom contain only a single winding, they’re based on the same principle as isolating transformers. Unlike the latter, however, parallel chokes are wired in tandem to the AC line. This means that electrical current doesn’t flow through the choke, but instead maintains a direct path from the wall to your components. To operate, the choke need only be plugged into the same circuit as your equipment.

One benefit of a parallel choke is that it reduces noise without limiting current. In simple terms, it does this by filtering out frequencies that are above its own resonant frequency. (Every object, including the Earth, has its own resonant frequency.) Up to a limit, increasing the number of parallel chokes on an AC circuit will lower the noise floor of any component plugged into that circuit. It is for this reason that the 1200 Custom, unlike some other RGPC parallel models, contains two chokes. According to RGPC, this makes the 1200 Custom 50% more effective in reducing noise.

In addition to lowering the noise floor, the 1200 Custom can supply what’s called power on demand. When plugged into a wall outlet, the choke creates a magnetic field that stores energy, which is then released into the circuit when the demand from the components becomes greater than the supply. According to RGPC, the 1200 Custom can provide up to 12,000W of power on demand -- twice that of the other models referred to above. RGPC also claims that their parallel chokes decrease crosstalk between components.

RGPC recommends that its parallel chokes be placed as close to your equipment as possible; the farther away they are, the more they’ll be subject to the resistance inherent in all metal wiring.

On the 1200 Custom’s rear panel are no fewer than 12 nonfiltered, hospital-grade Hubbell outlets. Should you need more, the RGPC Extender ($329) offers an additional six outlets. You’d think that the combined 16 outlets of the 1200 Custom and SubStation would be more than enough for any home-theater system, but this may not be the case. My own system, which includes active speakers and cables, requires almost 30 outlets -- and that number seems to be growing.

Setup

With a 1200 Custom, a SubStation, and one or more Extenders, you might be a bit confused about what to plug into what -- the number of combinations seems infinite. The optimal configuration will depend on the complexity of your system and how hungry individual components are for power. RGPC sets out the possible configurations clearly in the manual; it’s easy to determine which is best for your system.

If you want to connect more than four components to the SubStation, you can daisy-chain or cluster them. Just be sure that you plug the most power-hungry components into the SubStation closest to the wall outlet.

The 1200 Custom has no On/Off control -- just a switch labeled Blue on one side, Orange on the other. I wondered whether these words related to something electrical, but in all my experience with audio and home theater, I’d never heard them used in that context. After a few moments, I realized that the switch selects the color of the backlit RGPC logo.

Be careful when moving these products around: the SubStation weighs 70 pounds, the 1200 Custom 55 pounds. Like all RGPC products, they’re made in the US, and their build quality is top-notch. Their appearance, however, is utilitarian and industrial.

Performance

No home-theater system is complete without the five-channel version of the Eagles’ Hotel California (DVD-Audio, Elektra 60509-9). The title track begins with the chords of an enormous 12-string guitar, shortly joined by the percussion and vocals of Don Henley. Later in the song, the sounds of Don Felder and Joe Walsh’s electric guitars appear in the right and left channels, and the song ultimately builds to a sizzling three-guitar climax.

With the RGPCs in my system, the noise floor did indeed fall, causing the 12-string to sound a touch more detailed. While it’s not easy to reproduce this recording of the instrument without significant amounts of haze and digital grunge, the RGPCs made these sound somewhat more pleasant. The percussion, too, was improved, aided by slightly improved transients. Though I noted similar differences throughout this album, their effects were more subtle improvements than metamorphoses.

On to movies, the bread and butter of the RGPC gear. First up was The Marksman (2005), in which the US is tricked by Chechen rebels into sending a group of fighter jets to bomb a nuclear facility that the rebels have captured from Russia. Painter (Wesley Snipes), who has parachuted deep into Chechen territory, has discovered the plot. Unable to use his two-way radio, he must find a way to stop the American jets from dropping their payload on the facility and killing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians.

In chapter 9, the US jets, almost at their target, are engaged by a pair of Russian MIGs, and an aerial firefight ensues. With the RGPC gear in my system, I could hear improvements in the low-frequency sounds of the jet engines, which sounded throatier than without the RGPCs. And when the American jets blew up the MIGs, the explosions had better transients and sounded a bit faster with the RGPCs in the chain.

Although the Wachowski brothers’ Speed Racer (2008) is a flamboyant feast of color, its Dolby Digital soundtrack is a disappointment. Nonetheless, I could still hear the effects of the RGPC gear. In track 16, for example, Speed (Emile Hirsch) is in the midst of a race in which the other cars try to sandwich him in. But Speed activates his Mach 5’s "aero jacks," which propel the car into the air and out of harm’s way. With the RGPC gear in-circuit, the sound of the Mach 5 landing on the ground had more slam and weight.

None of these improvements, whether with music or with films, threw me back in my chair, and they were discernible with only some albums and films. For example, with the RGPC gear installed, I heard no change at all in the sound of Shirley Horn’s midrange-heavy You Won’t Forget Me (CD, Verve 847 482-2).

The RGPC gear brought a number of improvements to video images, including increased color saturation and contrast. Nowhere was this more evident than in Speed Racer, whose deliberately oversaturated colors were now even more vibrant. In the scene in chapter 1 in which young Speed shows off his trademark lucky red socks, the color of that footwear was even more vivid with the RGPCs in the system. Such improvements contributed to the hyperchromatic look that the Wachowskis were obviously aiming for.

Comparison

The RGPC gear appears to be based on tried-and-true designs executed with quality parts and workmanship. On hand for comparison were my ten-outlet Synergistic Research PowerCell ($3995), and a friend’s eight-outlet Shunyata Research Hydra Model-8 ($2495) that has done an extended tour of duty in my system.

In my system, both the Synergistic and the Shunyata wrought sonic improvements that were more profound and more pervasive than those I heard with the RGPCs. The noise floor was even lower, transients were faster, and there was less digital harshness. With "Hotel California," for example, the Shunyata Research Hydra Model-8 revealed more detail and removed more glare from the sound of the 12-string guitar. Also, percussion further improved in size and weight, while sounding less bloated. The Synergistic Research PowerCell reduced the glare of the 12-string even more, permitting an extremely refined presentation of the chords. At the same time, the PowerCell displayed more dynamic extension than did the RGPC gear, and dramatically increased the width and height of the soundstage, giving the music a three-dimensional quality.

Unlike some of the RGPC gear and the Shunyata Hydra, the Synergistic PowerCell doesn’t provide protection from power surges. According to Synergistic, surge protection can occur only at the breaker box; by the time a surge reaches a component, it’s too late to protect against it. In any event, I wasn’t about to test these competing claims with my own equipment. However, RGPC does claim that, in all the time they’ve been in business, they’ve never had to replace a failed unit due to a power surge or spike.

Conclusion

Excluding their surge-protection and ground-loop features, which I was unable (or unwilling) to test, the Richard Gray’s Power Company SubStation and 1200 Custom worked as advertised. However, at a combined price of $5190, they’re not cheap, especially when you consider that there are other designs that, at least in my system, resulted in more significant audible improvements. However, those other models aren’t claimed to stop surges, spikes, and ground loops, and likely don’t provide the massive number of high-quality AC outlets that the RGPC gear does. If these are features you need, you may want to give the RGPC SubStation and 1200 Custom a try.

Manufacturer contact information:

Richard Gray’s Power Company
5500 Prytania Street, Box 334
New Orleans, LA 70130
Phone: (504) 247-0300
Fax: (708) 395-2508

E-mail: info@richardgrayspowercompany.com
Website: www.richardgrayspowercompany.com

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