⌈ VERICTUM is a Polish company specializing in filtration of power supply voltage and passive EMI/RFI filters. Starting from their first product, the X Bulk ground filter, which we tested in 2015, it introduces refined, different than any other, products. Its name consists of two Latin words VERI + ICTUM, meaning 'real influence'. ⌋

he flagship VERICTUM power distributor, Cogitari, is one of the most expensive products of this type available on the market, not only Polish one, that this manufacturer comes from, but also anywhere in the world. While testing it in December 2016, I was fully aware of this fact. Despite such a high "threshold" it turned out that it is a refined product offering excellent performance. It delivered beautiful, golden colors, deep sound, and a nice bass. Together with top Demiurg power cables, it can be used to build a true reference power system – a very expensive one, with specific sonic signature, but delivering a reference performance.

Recently, the company proposed a new power distributor, called Aria. It is significantly less expensive than Cogitari, but also somewhat different. It utilizes some solutions sourced from the top model, but it includes also some newer ones.

PAWEŁ CZUBRYT
Owner

After the success of the Cogitari power distributor, we decided to design and introduce a new power strip. We address this product to customers who are looking for a product with exceptional sound qualities but available at a lower price. The Aria is not, however, a "worse performing" copy of Cogitari, because it offers a number of features that fundamentally differ from those of Cogitari.

Initially, the new power strip was to be a product simply from a lower price range. However, this assumption would force us to make too many compromises in sound quality, and in Verictum we consistently want to offer our customers products with the best influence on sound quality in every price range.

Aria's housing, just like Cogitari's, was made of selected merbau wood. It is made entirely using CNC machines. This time we used Furutech sockets from the NCF series. During the development of the product, and later during the multi-stage "tuning" and listening sessions, we selected the optimal components and solutions to achieve certain sound concept. As a conductor we used our new, cryogenized, monocrystal 24-carat gold-plated silver.

We also used a passive EMI/RFI filtration custom developed for Aria. The base of the strip is filled with a special substance for resonance stabilization to eliminate vibrations that degrade sound.

| ARIA

Aria, the latest Verictum product, is much smaller than Cogitari. Its housing is, however, similar because it is made of wood, same as its feet. This is the hallmark of this brand. Unlike most other manufacturers - apart from the Swedish Entreq - who try to shield the interior in the best possible way either with aluminum, steel, or copper - Verictum chose another solution.

Housing | This is a well-thought-through choice. On the one hand, it was about mechanical properties of wood, which translate into specific influence on the sound. As it reads in company materials, the housing is made of merbau wood using CNC machines. And then: "Varnish and glue used for our latest distributor play an important role in achieving great performance, as they cause adequate stress to the housing itself and influence its own resonance which is so significant for the sound. Each bolt has to be properly tightened too, because it also plays a significant role. We use non-magnetic screws.” Long story short - Aria's housing was made the same way as musical instruments are made.

On the other hand, however, a technical side of the design was equally important - it was about the best possible use of a passive EMI / RFI filter, integrated with the strip. The filter was placed in a resin brine in the distributor's base. A very similar solution can be found in the Acoustic Revive RTP-4EU Absolute power distributor, the design of the anti-vibration platform featuring an EMI/RFI filter, the Asura Quality Recovery System Level 1 is also similar.

The performance achieved this way was fine-tuned using selected feet. They are made of wood and the front ones are made of a different wood than the rear ones. The dark ones should be installed on the side with the Verictum logo and the IEC socket, and brighter ones on the opposite side.

A matter of nomenclature | A filter plus sockets usually equals a conditioner. And that's how we call products of - for example - GigaWatt, that feature passive filtering components, but also products of the American Shunyata Research, that feature only piezoelectric, ferroelectric and other materials that minimize noise by being placed around the conductors.

That is also how Verictum describes Aria on their website, although we can see the product a "power strip" is the first thing that comes to mind. From the technical point of view, it is identical with Shunyata's products, so there is no reason not to call it in this way. It's just that the name "conditioner" or "AC power supply conditioner" does not indicated whether a given product only distributes the voltage between several sockets, or whether it additionally filters it. Usually, we use this term when referring to products that in their form resemble other audio components. In turn, longitudinal "conditioners", such as the aforementioned Acoustic Revive RTP-4EU Absolute, that I use in my audio system, or as the Verictum Aria, are called "AC power strips". And that's the term I will be using in this text.

A matter of sockets | The Cogitari that I reviewed, featured a gold-plated version of Furutech sockets. This version significantly differs from the NFC rhodium-plated version. It is probably not a secret that Mr. Paweł Czubryt, the main Verictum's owner and designer, prefers the sound of the "golden" version. I prefer the NFC rhodium one. But there is no such thing as the "right" and "wrong" version of these sockets, it's all about our individual preferences. You can find out more about it from the column titled *System Magic**.

In order to take full advantage of the qualities of cryogenized Furutech sockets, Aria features conductors custom made for Verictum using a specially developed metallurgy process - it is a gold-plated silver. Also the whole cryo process was developed exclusively for this project. The strip is "directional". The power cable connecting it to the wall socket must be correctly plugged in with the hot pin on the correct side of the IEC plug - see the drawing below:

The Verictum Aria power strip was not the first one made by this company, which I reviewed in my system. As already mentioned I had a chance to test the Cogitari, and then, together with brand's owners, we listened to the full Verictum power system that Cogitari was a part of.

Back then Cogitari was compared to the power distributor that I used at the time, which was the Acoustic Revive RPT-4eu Ultimate. Since then, a few things have changed in my system, including the power strip – currently I use the Acoustic Revive RTP-4EU Absolute in combination with the RPC-1 filter. However, for the time of this test I disconnected the additional filter. /p>

The sockets installed in my reference strip come from the Furutech; all are rhodium-plated and belong to the NFC series (Nanocrystalline Formula) - so they are identical to the ones used in Aria. During the test I compared one strip with the other, plugging my whole system first to one of them and then to the other and repeating this sequence a few times. Both strips were connected to Furutech's wall outlet.

And the system is powered using three different power cables: distributors were connected with wall outlet using a 2.5-meter long Acrolink Mexcel 7N-PC9500. The same model, although only 2m long, powered the Ayon Audio Spheris III preamplifier. The Soulution 710 power amplifier utilized the Acoustic Revive Power Reference cable and the Ayon Audio CD-35 High Fidelity Edition SACD player a two-meter long Siltech Triple Crown Power. The preamplifier and power amplifier also utilize passive Acoustic Revive RAS-14 Triple-C filters.

During the test both power strips were placed on top of the Acoustic Revive RST-38H anti-vibration platform.

From the very first moment of listening to the system plugged into Aria it was clear that I was dealing with a high quality power strip. I did not need to listen carefully, to focus to catch details and subtleties, to know that it was a a full-fledged, refined audio product. At the same time Aria clearly presented its "own character" so it wouldn't be a problem for anyone to decide whether it was something they were looking for or not.

Because it operates mainly using colors. Not "only" them, this is not the point, there is everything there that one expects from a high-end product. But it is also clear what the sonic signature is. It is served in a tastefully, non-aggressive way, which is why it is not a product that will cause your jaw to hit the floor, that will wow you from the very first moment. On the other hand, it won't hide anything from you and the sonic qualities observed from the start will stay with you permanently, although with every new album you will understand them better and you will see their impact on the performance more clearly.

As I've mentioned, it is a strip that uses colors. It delivers a powerful, rich sound with smooth, rich colors. The instruments have clear shapes, there is a strong foreground, although it is not exaggerated. It's a rather a pastel-like presentation not one expressed with strong contours. One of the reasons is the smoothness that I am talking about, and the other is a soft leading edge. I could hear it with both jazz albums, such as Marcin Wasilewski Trio's *Live**, which is a modern PCM hi-res recording, as well as with some older analog ones, for example with the Bill Evans Trio's *Portrait in Jazz**.

Aria's presents the foreground quite close to us and it seems to be the most important element of the presentation. However, this does not happen at the expense of the depth of the stage. This is an example of how to move the whole musical event towards listener, make listening about a kind of intimate meeting with the artist, and at the same time not suppress, not blur everything that happens behind the foreground. The following layers are greatly differentiated, both in space and in color, that is within one source. Listen to Peter Gabriel's *Mercy Street** from the *So** album, and you will hear a multitude of vocals put over the basic melodic line – the Aria facilitates that or even makes it easier.

This is a strip that is capable of a really good spacial presentation. It will deliver not only events happening in front of us, but also around us, and even behind us - if only such information is encoded in the recording. Listen to the opening track from the Aquavoice's *Silence**, and with the Verictum strip you will find yourself in the center of the events, the sounds will come out from behind your head in a clear, unambiguous way, you will not have to guess anything.

The tangibility that I am talking about creates, on the one hand, so shaped space, and on the other hand, it slightly directs listener's attention towards the midrange, especially to the lower midrange. There is something in this sound, which reminds me the sound of turntables, both from the upper shelf, like Kuzma Stabi R and Muarah Audio MT-2, but also from good budget designs, such as Rega models. It is a rich, saturated sound, maybe even a little too saturated, which makes this presentation extremely natural.

So one can say that the Aria strip models the sound in a specific way and it's true. But one has to realize that it is intentional, that the designers wanted to achieve certain set of sonic qualities, different from what other products offer. I have already talked about one of them, the vividness of the presentation, also its richness is very important, and we can't forget about how natural this sound is.

To achieve that, the lower midrange was slightly modeled and the both band's extremes were subtly rolled off. I would not go as far as to say that they are actually rolled off because it is not the case. Both low, massive bass on the *Silence**, as well as the resonant top on *So** are clear, clear and well-differentiated. However, it is clear that they are complementary to what is happening in the middle of the band,, same as in the aforementioned turntables. If, however, we will not compare Aria with other strips and conditioners that deliberately deliver emphasized band's extremes, we won't miss anything in these areas.

Summary

Aria continues the idea for the sound that Verictum presented already with their first products, EMI/RFI filters and ground filters. This is a sound that may be called "analog". It is saturated, rich, with a strong foreground. A powerful lower midrange makes the foreground seem placed quite close to us, which gives us a more direct access to the artist.

There is nothing missing there, the band is nicely extended, but the above mentioned impression is simply there. The strip does not emphasize selectivity and is not particularly detailed, it's not the case. It does offer good resolution and musicality though. Differentiation is good, but – same as selectivity - it is not the most important element. What matters most are colors, vividness and smoothness. It's a real high-end level of performance.

Technical specification (according to manufacturer)

- An enclosure CNC machined of exotic merbau wood
- All Furutech NCF Rhodium  sockets
- Wiring: cry-treated Verictum wire - conductors of 4N silver, gold-plated
- Build-in EMI/RFI passive filter
- Loading: max 15 A
- Dimensions (L x W x H):390 x 60 x 110 mm
- Weight: around 2,5 kg