ISOTEK V5 AQUARIUS power conditioner > HiFI+ review
Today’s V5 Aquarius is a multiple power cleaning system, featuring six independent power cleaning networks in a single chassis, two outputs running for high-current devices such as power amplifiers, while the remaining four are designed for preamplifiers, source and network components. As with the EVO3 it replaces, its role in life is to reduce Differential Mode Mains noise, and the risk of cross-contamination between individual inputs, so that the connected loads do not influence each other’s performance.
The V5 Aquarius, along with the rest of the new V5 range, might be the product of a total redesign from the ground up, but it still stays true to the company’s design principles. This meant IsoTek’s team subjected the EVO3 Aquarius to rigorous questioning to reconsider and ultimately improve its job in hand, the result being the V5 Aquarius. It appears no single element was overlooked in the V5-ification process!
- - - - -
If it were just those timing benefits and nothing else, the V5 would be something to shout about, but it’s more than that. One of the big excuses for holding out on a power conditioner is that – although it might demonstrably improve the spaciousness, the detail retrieval, lower the noise floor and let the components ‘time’ better, they mess with the dynamic range… so I’m out! I can sort of sympathise; a power conditioner that improves nine out of ten things, but wrecks the last one, isn’t worth keeping. And when it comes to dynamic range, for power conditioners, the only way is down; you can’t extend that range because the limit is the AC mains itself; all a good power conditioner can do is reduce the loss to the dynamic range. And the V5 Aquarius once again scores a hit here. Play something with a spot of bombast – Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances [Telarc], for example – and many conditioners just flatten out the sweeping power of the orchestra. Once again, the IsoTek Aquarius EVO3 did good; the IsoTek V5 Aquarius did better. Much better.
There wasn’t any test I could perform where the EVO3 scored better than the V5. The EVO3 scored extremely well in all these tests; detail retrieval, sound staging, image stability et al. The V5 improved on the EVO3 in each area of performance, and then went further, it drew the sound together in the way only the very finest of this type of product can. That’s a joy to find at any price.
I’m not finding anything to dislike about the IsoTek V5 Aquarius; it looks great, it brings the best out of the sound of your equipment and if its predecessor is anything to go by it will be hugely popular and be incredibly reliable. Excellent!
- Alan Sircom, HiFi+, May 2022
Link to product: IsoTek V5 Aquarius
Link to review: Hi-Fi+