Acoustic Revive RR-777

A new Revival?

I’m hardly the first to have written enthusiastically about Ken Ishiguro’s RR-77 Schumann Resonance Generator, otherwise called the RR-77 Ultra-Low Frequency Pulse Generator. As a guess, it’s probably the most popular item in Acoustic Revive’s catalog. The Generator’s electronic pulse occurs at 7.88cps, which is said to correspond to a beneficial frequency within Earth’s magnetic field. Wikipedia covers the German physicist W.O. Schumann’s midcentury, mathematically predicted phenomenon with MEGO thoroughness.

The RR-77, long an invaluable adjunct to my audio system, has been succeeded by the outwardly identical RR-777. Weighing, again,about as much as a mourning dove, the Generator asks to be positioned well off the floor and some distance from the audio system. My listening room bears an eerie resemblance to the Noble Pile’s parlor. It is, in fact, the Noble Pile’s parlor. To the left of the sofa where I take my sound-soaks stands a slender shelved tower my wife’s husband’s Dada and Surrealism collection occupies. As sat the RR-77,so sits the RR-777 atop the tower at an altitude of 6.5 feet.

The RR-777 is packaged with the same 12v wall-wart power supply that accompanied the RR-77. Many RR-77 users, including me, replaced it with a 12v linear power supply, and later, a deluxe13v model, from KingRex, a Taiwanese electronics company. I don’t think anyone else makes these. The 12v PSU lists for $295, the 13v PSU Mk2 for $419. For US info, see www.moon-audio.com. You can also try, in Canada, www.libertytrading.ca.

When one model succeeds another, there ought to be a reason. Yoshi Hontani, my Acoustic Revive contact, tells me that the RR-777’s pulse is four times more powerful than the RR-77’s and that the S/N ratio has also been improved.This needs to translate to what I hear.

A Naïve CD of Iannis Xenakis’s chamber music begins with Dikhtas, for violin and piano (1979). Xenakis is not an easy composer. His work is brutal and harsh, and for this listener, exhilarating. An excellent recording’s immediacy and punch, its soundstage’s size, dimension and proximity, this listener’s sense of involvement, diminished noticeably when I turn the RR-777 off. So yes, at this early moment, I’m willing to believe that the successor is the more potent device. 

Further sessions tell me that the RR-777’s participation is significantly beneficial. I nailed my impressions in place – as if I needed to – with a Wergo four-CD set I recently ordered from Harmonia Mundi USA: Morton Feldman’s long-duration chamber work For Philip Guston (my third recorded performance of this gentle giant). The music calls for three players on piccolo, flute, alto flute; glockenspiel, vibraphone, tubular bells, marimba; piano, celesta. As you can guess from the instrumentation, this very quiet, very long work’s feathery aspects dominate. With the RR-777 off, I noticed a loss of resolution and transparency. Translating that to one’s sense of satisfaction, involvement alsofaded a tad.

A recently arrived promo features conductor-composer Esa-PekkaSalonen’s Violin Concerto, “Out of Nowhere.” The third movement approximates an orchestral riot. The RR-777 infused the clamorousimagewith greater and therefore more involving detail. I can’t emphasize involvement enough. My last supportive gasp: I often get up much earlier than my wife, put up a pot of coffee, close the parlor doors and play something quiet, usually by my favorite American modernist, Morton Feldman. Today it was a mode CD of music for clarinet, including a major work, Clarinet and String Quartet. Sipping coffee, enjoying the music, reading about another culture hero, Marcel Duchamp, I lifted my nose out of the book to take note that a recording I value for its superb production values seemed less engaging. I’d forgotten to turn on the RR-777.

I think that the RR-777 betters the RR-77’s clout. Removing the new unit and replacing it with the old involves too much elapsed time for the comparison’s validity. Nothing is less reliable than precise recollections of differences. That said, and to say it again, I’m left with the impression of the RR-777 superior effectiveness. But, really, it’s not an issue. When the RR-77’s inventory runs out, if it hasn’t already, the RR-777’s the one. I couldn’t do without it.

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Acoustic Revive RR-777, $650 USD
acoustic-revive.com
US distributor, Simply Hifi Ltd.
Mooresville, NC 28115
www.simplyhifi.com
(704) 230 0029