Review Isotek Titan (EVO3)

Intro

Current – energy – electricity – remains a difficult subject in our world. Power is power, right? Unfortunately, it’s not. Energy is increasingly polluted by switching power supplies of, for example, LED lamps, dimmers, PCs, laptops (adapters) or chargers of smartphones. And when you consider that a hi-fi system actually does nothing more than modulate energy to convert it into moving air, you can argue that pollution eventually becomes audible. It’s a shame. But fix it! We test the brutal approach: the Isotek Titan (EVO3). A filter, made for powerhouses

Sexy? No. The Isotek EVO3 isn’t. It’s actually just a big block of metal with a discrete blue LED at the top when it’s on and at the back two mains connections and a large switch for on and off. Simple. Effective. However, if you take the Titan out of the box and put it in place, you will notice that there must be quite a bit inside. Because the Titan is definitely heavy. And when we open it, we see why: there is a very large transformer in it. And on the bottom plate we also see four small transformers on top of a plate under which there should be more electronics.

Direct Coupled

Isotek regularly mentions Direct Coupled technology. This means that the connected device actually makes a direct connection to the mains. Now, of course, that’s not quite the case, because then you might as well not filter. What we are actually talking about is a galvanic separation without any extra components. So just a transformer. A big one, though. And yes, that works.

What we see next to this galvanic isolation is four extra transformers and under those transformers another plate with extra filters (parallel). Isotek calls this the ‘nine stage conditioning network’. This is a serial network that is parallel to the power supply. In fact, some kind of Parallel Filter On Steroids… With a thick galvanic separation in front of it. That sounds cool, right?

Common Mode and Differential Mode

The Isotek EVO3 Titan suppresses both Common Mode and Differential Mode ‘pollution’. Common Mode pollution is between earth and zero-phase and flows in the same direction. Differential Mode pollution is between the phase and earth in opposite directions. The Titan can suppress both forms of pollution with 82dB. And it can do that up to a frequency of 5 Hz. So low-frequency is also tackled thoroughly, which is important in audio applications.

High Current

The Titan – and this is crucial – is a filter made to supply a lot of power: 20A at 230V is no problem. Right: 4600 Watts is not a problem. And, of course, that can’t come from one wall-socket. But we would rather see an over-dimensioned device than a model that immediately creates a bottleneck.

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