Shunyata Research Hydra

For sale is a Shunyata Hydra Power Conditioner. In good condition. 

Shunyata Power Conditioning Almost Anywhere: Ultra-High Performance in a Slim, Convenient Form

Shares Nearly Every Aspect of the Triton, Yet So Compact, it Fits Behind and Between Racks

Pictured With Optional Stainless Steel Feet for Superior Performance

Shunyata’s first reference-level compact power conditioner, Hydra AV is essentially a compact Triton power conditioner. It shares practically every aspect of the award-winning larger model—but costs almost half the price. Stuffed with patented technologies and built to Shunyata’s world-renowned specs, Hydra AV easily fits into smaller places—between racks, behind racks, off to the side of them—and if you decide to put it in your rack, it won’t even take up a single shelf. Which means you can have Shunyata power conditioning virtually anywhere. Better still, the optional Shunyata Hydra Stainless Steel Feet, available here, add additional levels of convenience and performance.

Just under 6" tall and 4.5" wide, Hydra AV features four top-mounted SR-Z1 duplex outlets. This slender, small overachiever immediately transforms your system and nearly disappears while doing so. After just an hour of warm-up time, improvements in clarity, resolution, dynamics, and soundstaging abound. Imaging becomes even more precise, tonal balance becomes more full-bodied and textured, bandwidth opens up, and the dynamic range unwinds. 

Such high praise might be hard to believe, but it's true. Try it risk-free with our 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee and hear what you've been missing without cramping your space!

Features:

• Reference-level performance


• Noise Isolation Chambers


• MPDA Multi-Phase Differential Array


• Surge and Noise Suppression


• 20A High-Current Capability


• L.E.D Fault Indicator


• Electromagnetic Over-Current Breaker

Construction
Although there is a large physical difference between the Hydra AV and its progenitor -the Triton- these two units are actually nearly identical internally. Both feature Shunyata’s patented MPDA, NIC & ZP-PDS technologies, Carling EM breakers, SR-Z1 outlets and 20Amp IEC inlets. To keep the price of the Hydra AV down and physical size to a minimum, Shunyata specified a folded 14Ga stainless steel chassis. Strong and elegant, this chassis is vastly less expensive than the Triton’s thick aluminum faceplates and multi-panel square steel chassis parts. This makes the Hydra AV Shunyata’s biggest “bang for the buck” power conditioner ever.

History 
For over a decade, Shunyata conditioners have graced the world's best systems, with substantial and unabashed acclaim from critics, industry professionals and music lovers. Introduced in 2011, Shunyata’s Triton delivers a broad array of new technologies that are absolutely unprecedented in the audio industry. Although these concepts are groundbreaking and revolutionary, the underlying premises having been tested and refined over 10 years. In 1999, Shunyata unleashed the original Hydra, turning the entire audio world on its head and garnering dozens of accolades in the process. Since then, Shunyata’s Hydras have dominated the power conditioning market with an unbeatable combination of outstanding sound quality, staggering dynamic range and unprecedented transparency and tonal accuracy.

Caps & Coils
A typical power supply generates noise at various frequencies. A typical power conditioner uses a combination of capacitors or inductors in an array to attempt to minimize noise. This is like using a chainsaw for brain surgery, a clumsy brute force approach which has damaging and unintended side effects. Capacitors, all of them, regardless of type, grade, material or date of manufacture have a resonant point. In other words, at certain frequencies, the capacitor starts to vibrate or ring. This can be heard in recordings with sharp pitch signatures, such as a bell or a piano, where the capacitor ringing appears as a pinging echo which follows the original event. Ringing can even change the timbre and tone of the system. Some manufacturers use inductors (coils) or ferrite elements to dull the resonance of the capacitors, but this further complicates matters by masking the problem, rather than solving it. Shunyata’s MPDA solution is more elegant and effective.

Multi-Phasic Differential Array (MPDA)
MPDA is an array of micro-filters, each element targets a very specific noise component. Each element acts like a notch filter, eliminating very specific frequencies of noise without affecting the broad spectrum; the technical term is “High Q, Narrow Bandwidth Filter”. Using Surface Mount Technology, Shunyata is able to place 30 of these high-powered elements onto a circuit board smaller than a stick of gum, virtually eliminating noise and without interfering with the conditioner’s massive current delivery. Most importantly, MPDA eliminates the use of capacitors and inductors.

Noise Isolation Chambers (NIC)
The most visible and striking features inside the Hydra AV are the NICs, three massive cylindrical chambers stacked in a pyramid inside the chassis, which deliver an enormous step forward in power-line noise elimination. NICs filter out noise in the megahertz and gigahertz range without slowing down AC current delivery. Made from pure copper, a single wire enters and comes out of each tube, one each for hot, neutral and ground, one wire per cylinder. Each tube is filled with Shunyata’s patented ZrCa-2000compound, a proprietary material whose unique molecular structure literally devours noise. Shunyata previously used this compound on both the Hydra 8 and the V-Ray, but these new NICs are vastly more powerful as they encapsulate each wire, ensuring ideal coverage and maximum contact area. The Hydra AV uses the NICs from the Triton, shortened and stacked in a triangle to fit inside this narrower chassis.

Zero Point Power Distribution System (ZP-PDS)
Shunyata has always taken their conductive metals seriously, carefully auditioning and testing every conductive element in the chain to ensure proper signal integrity and durability. Shunyata now uses exclusively high-copper content brass alloy for the conductive chain; every screw, buss bar, fastener, custom termination and end cap. Although other metals might have higher conductivity, each requires some form of electro-plating to keep it from oxidizing or wearing. Plating materials like gold, silver and rhodium each have their own sound; coloring and distorting the signal. Brass is durable, highly conductive and most importantly doesn’t need to be plated for corrosion resistance, eliminating potential sonic character changes. Using a single metal through the entire buss system also has substantial electrical benefits, greatly reducing resistance and lowering the impedance to negligible levels, thus improving conductivity and allowing power to flow freely. This is especially important in a compact device such as the Hydra AV as ZP-PDS improves conductivity and reduces parasitic losses due to excess heat.

VTX Wire Geometry
Long known for ultra-complex wire geometries which measurably improve conductivity and desirable characteristics, Shunyata has developed a new geometry specifically for use inside this new series of conditioners that greatly reduces the so-called “skin-effect”. Skin-effect is a distortion caused by differing speeds of conductivity between the center of the conductor (where the bass travels) and the outer part or skin of the conductor where the midrange and treble travel. Skin-effect plagues both stranded and solid core wire, causing smearing, timing and phase errors, in some cases even changes in tonal balance. The ideal conductor is a hollow tube, but this is wildly impractical in the real world, so using DTCD analysis, Shunyata created a new type of wire geometry which is a “virtual tube” greatly reducing skin effect and improving conductivity.

Power Cable Not Included 
All Shunyata Power Conditioners and Strips require a 20Amp cable, which is not included with this component. Shunyata does not include a power cable with their products because they believe that so called "stock" cables greatly impair the performance of their units and that including one would be the same as endorsing its use. We carry a broad selection of 20Amp power cables, or a generic 20Amp cable can be provided upon request for a modest fee.

No Trades

Paypal and credit cards are subject to 3% Surcharge

Sales in Ohio are subject to 7.25% Sales Taxes

You may audition in our store

Hanson Audio Video LLC 
3140 Far Hills Ave. 
Kettering, OH 45429

937.293.6200

www.hansonav.com