not a charming day with snakes

so, all afternoon and into early into this evening, i listened to the digital side of my rig with a power snakes hydra inserted at different positions. my older son, a second-generation audiophile, was present during the greater portion of this session. during our time together, i began by plugging my pre/dac and transport into the hydra. we played numerous disks, mostly in the “groove rock,” “acid jazz,” “adult rock,” and “folk/pop” genre, including some direct-to-cd recordings done in the past few days ( this son is a consultant to radio stations and record labels, which gives me some awesome access to the current music scene). some examples of discs on our play list: radiohead, “kid a”; air, “moon safari”; phish, various; pink floyd, “echoes”; oysterhead, “the grand pecking order”; mark knopfler, “sailing to philadelphia”; the bobs, “cover the songs of.....”; dylan (also my 1st son’s name), “slow train comin’ ”; dave carter & tracy gammer, “drum, hat, buddha”, etc. (yeah, I know “etc.” doesn’t quite make it with this lineup but, hey....). after listening for an hour and a half or so to numerous cuts on the “play list,” our initial reaction was: wow, the soundstage has really widened but something’s not quite right. then it hit us both, almost simultaneously: the PRaT’s all screwed up. everything sounds constipated, slowed, without rhythm or pace. we then took the hydra from the frontend/source and moved it so i could plug my amp into it. at first, things improved. the supreme quickness of the system returned, while the huge soundstagen remained. as the hydra “warmed up,” however, the constrictions to the bowels increased. constipation again. the flip-side of PraT. unplugging the hydra brought everything back as it had been. the quickness was heard again in the cymbals, drums, lead guitars and mandolins. the bass tightened. voices were back where they should be, separated, focused and steady. thus my query: has anyone else had this experience with the hydra? i’ve heard so many good things about it that I was completely unprepared for the negative things it did in my system.

associated equipment (digital side only): boulder 1012 pre/dac; accuphase dp- 90 cd transport; jeff rowland 8ti amp; avalon eidolon speakers; tara, the one ic’s (pre to amp) and speaker cables; accuphase st att&t optical and accrotech 99.9999 coax digital connections; tara, the one and power snakes python pc’s; 5 dedicated 20 amp circuits w/ hospital-grade outlets.

-cfb