Powergrip YG-2 power conditioner
Audiophiles tend to have one of the following three opinions about mains conditioners: A. Properly designed hi-fi equipment is designed to cope with the output from the national grid, so filtering is unnecessary. B. Active mains filters kill musicality and dynamics, so a decent mains distribution block is the best option. C. Today’s mains supply is polluted by switch-mode-power-supplies and airborne pollution from mobile signals and wifi devices, therefore active filtering should be considered essential. Whilst curious about such devices, I have tended to lean towards the second option, which is why it has taken me so long to try one at home. It will be interesting to see if the Powergrip YG-2 convinces me and, indeed, others that active mains filtering is worthy of further investigation.
Powergrip is a new name to me, as I am sure it will be to many of our readers. The better-informed may have read about or even seen and heard the now discontinued YG-1, or indeed the YG-3, which is the YG-2’s bigger brother in the current range. I was initially confused when the distributor told me the YG-2 had the same power output capacity as the larger unit. Still, it made sense once I discovered that the YG-3 has twelve output sockets compared to the YG-2’s six. The YG-3 is quite a beast and is wifi-enabled for app control over a plethora of options. Such features and flexibility come at a cost, though, and at £2,799, it will be for the convinced rather than the curious. The YG-2 retails for a more palatable £1,099, which is less than some passive mains distribution blocks.
As you would expect from this type of product, the Powergrip YG-2 filters mains interference and minor and major voltage surges. Additionally, it will power down the unit if it detects unsafe and potentially damaging voltage inputs, which is reason alone to consider using this type of device in your system.
The box
The Powergrip YG-2 is designed for both shelf and rack mounting. Fasteners are provided for the latter, but in my case, they remained in the box. Although at 440mm, the unit matches the width of the average source or amplifier, it is considerably less deep at 185mm, leaving a helpful amount of room for cabling. You will not be requiring extra rack space either as the YG-2 is only 8cm tall.
The aluminium casing seems pretty sturdy. It sits on vibration-dampening feet, which are not just for show as all electronics, even power supplies, are sensitive to the effects of microphony. There is an attractive blue display, which you operate by placing two fingers in the lower central area. It toggles between the voltage input, which in my case hovered around 240v, the supplying network frequency deviation to two decimal places of 50Hz, and the third shows the percentage of sinusoidal wave distortion. The three blue lights below the display light up to show which groups of filter inputs are active. The lower light shows blue if the mains input is grounded and of the correct polarity and red if not.
By pressing and holding the front-mounted power button for specified brief periods, you can adjust the display brightness, effect a restart, or program time delays between each of the three power input groups. The latter may benefit users of amplifiers that feedback noise when input components are switched on, but I chose to leave it in the default setting.
The YG-2 outlets are set at an angle so that the earth pin points to two o’clock if viewed from the rear, which makes things about as neat as you are going to get them. A Schuko socket version is also available. The main input is via a 16A IEC plug; a suitable lead was supplied, but I used a Chord Co Epic cable, which was previously employed to feed another mains block in my collection. The power outputs are in three groups, one marked General Filter and two marked High Current. Users may notice this differs slightly from the images supplied and the manual, which shows four of these outputs as Digital and Analog. I connected my Oppo Blu-ray player to the General outputs, my Melco N1 server and S100 network switch to the middle High Current output and my Moon 780D DAC and 600i amp to the second pair.
The YG-2 has a 12v trigger input/output for powering up connected components from a signal from the YG-2 or vice versa and a ground input post. I did not utilise the former, but I took advantage of the latter and connected it to a CAD GC1.1 ground box.
Music via the Powergrip YG-2
My current setup gets its power via a dedicated spur from the house consumer unit, feeding a high-quality pair of gold-plated double mains sockets from Furutech. The first feeds a mains distribution block designed for the purpose, which in recent months has been the Eros from Titan Audio. The second outlet employs the passive filtering skills of a Chord Co Power Aray. We are fortunate enough to be the first owners of our property, and I was able to convince the builders to install a dedicated earth stake for my system, which is connected to the back of the Furutech double socket via a conduit to satisfy electrical safety requirements. Whilst there is certainly more I could do here to improve things, such as a dedicated consumer unit and improved installation cables, I have been satisfied with this setup and feel that I have a better mains supply for my system than most. Therefore, I was pleasantly surprised by what I initially heard after installing the Powergrip YG-2. Maybe I should have anticipated improvements, however, as my house is situated on a well-populated modern housing estate, which provides many opportunities for noise to get into the mains supply.
Music via the YG-2 has the usual hallmarks that go along with a low noise floor – improved sound-staging, smoother top-end and blacker backgrounds. Additionally, percussion instruments and leading edge notes were slightly more defined and, for want of a better analogy, sounded more like my system. To qualify that, my now older generation Simaudio Moon components have a pleasantly soft and rich tonal balance. When all the planets align, the system throws an image that floats between and around the speakers, and the Powergrip YG-2 enhances this quality. The biggest surprise for me was in the lower frequencies, which benefited from a little more power and weight. With the Powergrip YG-2 delivering the volts, these qualities shone through with more recordings, and the system sounded at its best even at those times of day when the rest of my street was polluting the grid with their TVs, video game consoles and household appliances.
I have yet to experience any adverse effects with the YG-2’s version of mains filtering. Musical dynamics and life are all present and correct, and the music seems to flow as before, but it now sounds cleaner, better defined, and presented in a more transparent soundstage. Those with other equipment may have different experiences, but with my system, the effects of the YG-2 are wholly positive. I will add that as I was finishing off this piece, the Chord Electronics Ultima amplifier arrived for a future review in this publication. This amplifier is still settling in after a long journey by courier. Still, a brief swap with a passive mains block suggests this amplifier similarly benefits from the YG-2’s mains cleaning skills.
Hooking up the ground terminal to a CAD GC 1.1 box worked well, further improving definition and timing. Having only obtained the required grounding lead a few days ago; the YG-2 is the first component I have used with it. Based on this experience, a ground terminal will be something I look for in future mains distribution solutions.
Conclusion
This YG-2 turned out to be a surprise hit, chez Baillie. My preconceptions were that it might improve refinement, but perhaps at the expense of musical energy and dynamics. Here, I was proved to be completely wrong. Before writing these final paragraphs, I removed the Powergrip YG-2 from the system. I replaced it with a premium passive mains distribution block, which resulted in the music sounding brighter and sweeter but somewhat flat and lean by comparison, especially in the low frequencies.
The improvements the Powergrip YG-2 brought to my system are relatively subtle, but they are palpable, and now experienced will be hard to live without. When one also considers this unit’s surge protection skills, the cost of entry is more than justified. The Powergrip YG-2 has opened my eyes and ears to the importance of mains conditioning in audio systems. Naturally, with this kind of product, results will depend on just how much crud is in your AC to begin with; therefore, a home demo is recommended. If your experiences with the Powergrip YG-2 mirror mine, you will not be returning it.