Here we have the H10 before and afters. I covered the IEC power input and completely shrouded the transformers. Then I gave the capacitors a top hat, enclosed the potentiometer, covered all IC's and shielded the XLR inputs ( I only use XLR). I even enclosed the headphone jack sleeve with its three metal tabs. I didn't expect this application to be as audible as the digital devices. AB5100S is an "absorber" rather than a true "shield," so it stands to reason that the most effective applications will be on devices and electrical components that create and throw off the most emi and rfi. I figured that there still would be a benefit from absorbing stray crud that made its way into the H10 through the power cord and XLR cables and also the emi produced by the transformers, voltage regulators and caps. When you already have the lid off and you have a whole sheet of the stuff to use, you end up saying to yourself, "what the heck, lets get crazy!"
The nice thing I have learned about the AB5100S product is that it doesn't seem to have a down side wherever you happen to put it. It doesn't make the highs dull or suck the life out of the music, so I think you can play around with complete impunity.
Let me digress for just a moment. I have read some commentary involving other shielding products (most notably Stillpoints ERS cloth) that warned against the sonic perils of an over-application. They would say things about the sound becoming dull and lifeless, lacking in "air"....yada yada. I would be willing to bet that these folks have not listened to systems that have very low emi and rfi distortions and are completely unfamiliar with how it sounds. It can, at first, be a little disconcerting. I think we get so used to the low level "white noise" hanging around the noise floor, that we think that it is natural and ascribe to it certain beneficial attributes like "air" and "liveliness." Not surprisingly, us older guys who cut our teeth on vinyl front ends often recognized this as the same kind of "air" we heard when playing a good vinyl pressing on on well appointed VPI or Merrill tuntable. There was loads of distortion produced from dragging a needle through a groove, but it was consonant distortion. It was a form of low level white noise that seemed to fill up the space around things and gave a sense of the ambiance of the recording venue. The first few times you hear music with that white noise absent, it sounds just a little surreal. This has really come to the forefront in the digital age because other forms of distortion are now so vanishingly low that the effects of emi and rfi "hash" can now be clearly heard on a good system. I had to come to grips with this phenomenon years ago when I auditioned and reviewed the Bel Canto Evo digital amplifiers with the Talon Khorus loudspeakers. Both of these products had ground breaking technology that produced music with extraordinarily low distortion. It was really weird at first and I had to re-calibrate my listening and even have some live music played in my listening room to make sure it wasn't self-delusion, a fluke or some parlor trick.
So, getting back to the AB5100S applications, yes, you will hear less of the white noise hash and the noise floor will seem to be lowered. Because there is less of that white noise haze filling up the spaces between things, I hear greater separation between images and the images themselves are more distinct, standing out against a blacker backdrop. There appears to be less smear - a sharper focus, that one could also describe as "greater resolution." I have not found there to be any change in tonality....virtually all of the improvements wrought by the AB5100S treatment are in the realm of soundstage and imaging. If you are following my reasoning and analogies, this really does make intuitive sense. With the H10 treatment, I got more of the same. Perhaps not as great as what I heard with the X12, but still an audible, appreciable improvement in that soundstage/imaging mojo that is like Pignip to your humble Cap'n.
