Richard Gray’s Power Company

A Company You Can Trust

by Grant Clauser

As important as it is to the performance of your audio and video gear, rarely do people give a second thought to the quality of the electricity that powers their TVs, DVD players and receivers. Until a short time ago, I didn’t put much thought into it either. Except under unusual circumstances, my electricity always seemed to be there when I needed it. My A/V system always turned on when I asked it to. I never knew that it was hungry for better power. 

As these things often happen, I heard about a new product while browsing the exhibit hall of an electronics expo. The company, Audio Line Source LLP, was promoting a product called Richard Gray’s Power Company. Richard Gray’s isn’t the name of the company, it’s the product and the name of the product’s inventor. The product, model 1200S in this case, is a power line conditioner (though the company prefers the term power line enhancer) that is supposed to enhance the performance of home theater equipment by supplying cleaner and more consistent power.

Looking at the unit gives you no impression of what it actually does. The front features only a small dimly lit logo of a power company building and the product name. Around back you find 12 sturdy, three-prong Hubble outlets for plugging in your gear. Out of the middle comes a power cord as thick as a rat snake.

Electricity is inherently noisy due to the backwash it picks up from all the electronic gear it travels through and the interference it has to fight to get to your speakers or TV. As most people don’t have their house tapped directly into the power company next door, electricity in most homes is filled with the detritus of all the homes it’s been to before it arrives at your doorstep. Add your own electronically noisy air conditioner, dehumidifier and dishwasher, and you’ve got some dirty power. Richard Gray’s Power Company is a car wash for electricity.

The technology behind this product is relatively simple. Inside this heavyweight (it weighs over 40 pounds) are two copper inductor coils wrapped around an iron core. The inductors are wired in parallel with the AC circuit, so they don’t interfere with the current. As wily electrons race though the coils, the power of induction creates electromagnetic waves which act a power reservoir, sort of like the overfill tank on a car radiator. When the current lessens, or your gear requires more current, the electromagnetic field collapses back and induces more current, so your gear gets the extra juice it’s hungry for. This same process has the benefit of cleaning the noise out of your electricity by filling dips and sanding out spikes, restoring it to power company cleanliness. It also has the added benefit of resisting jolts up to 280 volts before blowing the two 20-amp fuses.  

You can just plug the RGPC 1200S into an outlet on the same circuit as your A/V gear and let it clean up the noise there. You’ll notice some improvement in your system, but nothing compared to plugging your components directly into it. As simple as it looks, there is a trick to hooking it up. It’s recommended that high-power devices, such as your TV and powered subwoofer, get plugged into one side while the source components such as DVD players, satellite receivers and A/V receivers go into the other end.

So what does clean consistent power do for your gear? I tried it out on a modest home theater system consisting of an HDTV, satellite receiver, progressive scan DVD/CD player, A/V receiver and powered subwoofer.

After giving the RGPC a chance to work itself up, about 20 minutes, I ran a segment of Dinosaur on DVD that I’ve seen a hundred million times. The opening scene of this movie is filled with rich detail and depth, but with the RGPC I was astounded to see significant improvements in detail, black levels and depth. The image took on a more three-dimensional quality making it appear more film-like. There was not a trace of image noise in the picture as the prehistoric scenery unfolded in front of me. In fact, the picture actually looked more realistic and less like digital animation. I later tried it on a plasma TV and rear projection TV with the same impressive results. 

I then tried a few CDs and found that the audio performance of my system had also improved. The sound stage improved and I could hear more detail and texture to the music as well as clearer bass. Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue became more three-dimensional and richer.

The company also claims that the product allows your gear to run cooler, thus extending the life of your A/V products and anything else that happens to be connected to the circuit—in my case, a dehumidifier and a couple of lamps. I wasn’t able to verify this though, even though I use an A/V receiver that tends to run a bit warm.  

The manufacturer claims that Richard Gray’s Power Company is like having a power company in your own home, hence the name. This product will not be for everyone, due in part to its $2,000 price tag. Yet the RGPC 1200S delivers the goods as promised. It’s a system enhancement that anyone can appreciate, and if you take your system’s performance seriously, then it’s definitely worth a look.