Press Reviews

[Translated from the original Italian]

"greater emergence of the information contained in the midrange."

"Voices, reverberations, finer attacks, and certain harmonic reflections seemed less restrained."

"Certain inflections, certain cues, the microdynamics of the consonants, and the relationship with the club environment were easier to follow."

"greater clarity of the overall picture."

"better cleanliness of the edges of sound events."

"The mid-high information seemed more present because it was more separated from the background, and the tonal level was maintained."

"the result remained tonally intact and recognizable, yet more legible."

"The pizzicatos had a slightly sharper contour, the bow maintained its natural grain better, and the voice maintained greater continuity, as if perceived with greater presence and focus."

"greater precision and articulation, with benefits also in terms of speed. With the Stellars, the attacks were a bit more immediate, the decays richer and more reverberant"

"It became easier to distinguish the physical gesture. The bass not only increases in speed: it also maintains fullness and articulation."

"This is an important result, because it takes little to speed up the low frequencies and lose the rest. On the contrary, here the lower registers seem less burdened"



"more legibility in the internal details."

"background appears slightly tidier and environmental information emerges more naturally. It's as if the image weren't redrawn, but rather cleaned up in some critical areas."

"The LessLoss Firewalls for Loudspeakers Stellar Edition aren't accessories that add anything in an obvious or artificial way."

"They don't change the system's voice, they don't shift its tonal balance. Rather, they address that subtle and difficult-to-describe area where residual noise, micro-grains, and small inaccuracies end up limiting the full intelligibility of the musical message."

"In practice, what they do is make the overall picture more readable."

"The mid-high range, after an initial impression of greater clarity and brilliance, stabilizes in a more organic and full form."

"Vocals appear better delineated"

"harmonic details separate more naturally from the background"

"reverbs and ambient aftereffects become easier to follow."

"The low frequencies ... appear fuller, more articulated, and more clearly discernible in their attack and decay."

"The soundstage isn't redrawn, but it gains some fragments of internal order, especially in the perception of small ambient details."

"all this happens without altering the system's character. In a mature, balanced, and benchmark system, this is perhaps the most important result."

"I would recommend auditioning the LessLoss Firewall for Loudspeakers Stellar Edition to a very wide audience, ranging from those with a well-tuned entry-level system to those working with top-tier configurations from the world's leading hi-fi elite. There's always a step up, and these Stellar Firewalls seem designed precisely to point that way."


QuotidianoAudio

"...most refined take yet on passive power conditioning..."

"...sits prominently within the catalog as the most advanced"

"In hand, the device—finished in a satin sheen—unmistakably feels like a costly, premium object."

"bass extends deeper, gains speed, substance, and authority, becoming more anchored, defined, composed, powerful, elastic, and dynamically eager."

"hollowness or boominess that reinforces room chatter is noticeably reduced."

"Vocals shed excess edginess and grain, gaining color, density, smoothness, and articulation"

"The backdrop grows darker, cleaner, more engaging, and richer in nuanced detail"

"The soundstage expands, develops additional layers, and increases in complexity, while all images remain in focus, expressive, and contrasting."

"profoundly effective"

"hardly subtle"

"With it on the job, some aspects I’m about to explain were very well pronounced. Without it, they were either greatly reduced or missing, so the entire musical intake felt different—far less engaging and pleasing to me."

"it made a demonstrable difference without any second thoughts"



"With the Firewall 640x Stellar engaged, each image gained additional heft, moisture, and smoothness."

"every instrument—and even the finest dust particles suspended in space—felt more sensual, organic, and alive."

"While the track accrued atmosphere, anchoring, substance, and fleshiness, it paradoxically became more intelligible"

"The Firewall 640x Stellar infused each note with deliberation and substance without sacrificing clarity, a balance I found deeply compelling."

"revealed just how accomplished it is in the realms of dynamic span, authority, elasticity, and sheer rhythmic flow. With the LessLoss engaged, the presentation grew larger, quicker, more punctual, immediate, immersive—and ruthlessly precise in landing each bass jab without a trace of fuzz or bloat. Remove it, and the same track turned lighter, more mechanical, tonally flatter, anemic, and markedly less elastic, as though its funkiest instincts had been quietly siphoned off."

"The list of improvements was extensive: deeper low-bass reach with markedly superior control, impact, focus, and articulation; more precisely defined images surrounded by more tangible breathing space; higher contrast and an increased sense of effortlessness; and a vocal presentation that was not only clearer and more textured, but also blessedly free of the nasal, prickly edge it can otherwise exhibit. Despite the added gravitas—meat on the bones, if you will—and a more atmospheric, earthy tonal balance, the result remained highly resolving."

"With the LessLoss positioned ahead of my DAC, the entire soundscape seemed to pull me inward, enveloping me in its encompassing majesty, eerie allure, and elegiac sadness—meditative, almost spiritual in nature. The moment the filter was disengaged, that deeply personal connection vanished."



"This device elicited an emotional response that felt both genuine and profound, elevating the experience to an entirely different plane."

"The Firewall 640x doesn’t merely shine—it radiates. I found it remarkably potent, and frankly amused by how much it managed to extract from a system whose power delivery already felt dialed in to a degree most listeners would never pursue."

"That, ultimately, is its true appeal. If you’re running a fully sorted, high-end platform yet remain open to radical measures to push it further, the LessLoss Firewall 640x Stellar may be precisely the reminder—delivered in no uncertain terms—of just how much more your system can still give, even when you believed you had reached the limit."


Hifi Knights

6Moons

"one of the very best designs"

"very useful with all kinds of speakers"

"Rounder and fleshier vocals, wider color palette, increased fullness, longer decay and weight upstairs, higher clarity and lesser shout, edginess and grit are the benefits"

"I can't fault speaker Firewalls for anything in particular"

"these devices are free from any sonic downsides"

"I see LessLoss Firewalls for speakers as necessities rather than accessories."

"Firewalls don't add anything audible to a system's voicing that is not already there in the first place."

"Bass stripped from noise develops extra heft and fullness alright, but also becomes tighter and more powerful"

"The entire musical image grows larger and more robust, while edginess that causes listening fatigue vanishes."

"changed more than I initially thought it would."

"deeper reach and firmness, higher juiciness, greater textural provision, additional nimbleness and more nuanced general MO to the noticeable increase in clarity, more raw horsepower, contrast pop and dynamic span."

"clearly a souped-up engine."

"had me fair bit surprised in the dynamic department."

"newfound muscularity, authority and snap reserve"

"I wholeheartedly recommend to everyone."

"works equally well with all kinds of speakers."

"It goes about its business so well that financing it shortly after speakers is an elegantly small cost-efficient route to instantly upgrade them."

"sensibly larger performance hike and parks a nice dynamic twist on top"

"speaker fans not yet familiar with this LessLoss tech but intrigued by today’s Stellar may find its input very surprising and quite possibly also freakishly large."



Hifi Knights
6moons

"To my mind, such originality deserves a moment of silent appreciation. It's Fine Art of the audiophile sort"

"for the true connoisseur."

"If Gideon Schwartz did plan on another coffee-table book for Phaidon, on The Most Interesting Hifi Inventions... today's Firewall for Headphones would surely have to feature."



"heightens the visibility of connective tissue."

"Instantly notable on the piano's shorter more quickly damped high strings, being enveloped in this connective tissue enriches tone with micro reverb. It also gives transients rising inside the overhang of prior tones a less wiry texture."

"Yet turning it off by removing the Firewall for Headphones dries out this atmospheric element. That also hardens the sounds occurring within in. It's easily demonstrable"



"It goes beyond just more suchness of space. It allows us a deeper look into the ephemeral play of harmonics which give instruments their individual timbre. With the Firewall for Headphones out of the signal path, that overtone spectrum dried out just like the atmospherics."

"I found this difference dead easy to hear."

"The Firewall for Headphone's addition is surprisingly oomphy. It's a bit like what direct-coupled or ZOTL'd triodes do; without any concessions to noise or bandwidth. Recorded space occupies a broader percentage of the listening experience."

"the apparent nothing of empty space becomes its own far-from-nothing entity."

"maximizing this purity could become a heady mandate for super-serious listeners"



"it does exactly what Louis Motek's award-winning Firewall for Loudspeakers already does for speakers."

"The more these modules are in use, the more their effectiveness compounds, specifically backdrop cleanliness, spatial focus and moisture."

"Higher instrumental and vocal hydration, more grounded sound, rounder less chiseled edges, tighter bass, improved clarity, less grain and all virtual shapes rendered more precisely on a background that felt sensibly more pristine."

"Not only do I deem Firewalls very useful with all kinds of speakers, I haven't yet encountered one that wouldn't audibly benefit from such assistance."

"free from any sonic downsides"



"In my system I see LessLoss Firewalls for speakers as necessities rather than accessories."

"Their work may seem mild at first, but disengaging them after a week or two of constant use is plainly painful. Then it hits us how much these small barrels actually contribute, or rather how much is lost upon taking them away."

"Firewalls don't add anything audible to a system's voicing that is not already there in the first place. These aren't tools meant to alter its core flavor. Instead they show how it fares without the well-known byproducts of noise; harshness, sharpness, leanness and grit."

"Bass stripped from noise develops extra heft and fullness alright, but also becomes tighter and more powerful"

"The entire musical image grows larger and more robust, while edginess that causes listening fatigue vanishes. Unsurprisingly, the latest Firewall tailored for headphones follows this exact protocol to a tee. As such it introduces only audible gains."

"More body, less pointy outline edges, less sharpness and less textural gloss, then followed by beefier tighter bass, more pronounced meatier midrange and far superior highs, particularly on decay and smoothness."

"Today's Firewall also greatly boosts the sensation of aural space, so that it feels more breathing, moving and alive."

"The very last instrumental reverbs significantly easier to 'see' and appreciate."

"Clarity is yet again the key word. With cans as resolving as the Susvara, well, this single aspect massively gains on importance. The most interesting thing is that the major quality hike introduced in the process happens alongside the additional provision of substance, textures and body instead of it being in the least decreased in trade as is often the case."

"elevated immediacy, energy, bite and snap"

"I heard primarily smoother and more distinct vocals."



"Sounded more clear and with extra bite to it, as if all its snappy jabs got shorter and more impactful in the process."

"With the LessLoss, the first part struck me as calmer, prettier and all in all fancier, while the energetic outro was noticeably more immediate, muscular and feistier. In other words, the two very distinct parts on that track had their specific quite opposite vibes pronounced better. I found that excellent."

"The Firewall [...] made the entire tune more flowing, still calmer and dreamier."

"Increased smoothness, ease, flow, juiciness and less compressed more distinct instruments. Individual bits on this tune registered as more pronounced sounds, which were again easier to follow and focus on. In effect the entire track registered as a more romantic and sensual version of itself with the LessLoss."

"Noticeable gains on rhythm and swing, as if the main instruments' individual notes were more on point."

"With the Firewall engaged revealed a significantly better grip on bass and less coarse yet fleshier more articulated female vocal."

"Sufficed to keep my ears happy and mark the clear quality bump."



"The Firewall injected more air into the view and dynamically expanded these roars to make them more sensible and instantaneous."

"Voice also struck me as more alive and here, while all the high-pitched sounds registered as quicker, somewhat uplifted, weightier and more shimmery."

"With the Firewall it was less pointy, denser, wilder, more raw, articulated and blunt. Most importantly, the Lithuanian support made a hugely positive difference on this specific song. To my ears the sensation was comparable to listening to it on a floorstander armed with say two small cones, and i.e. Zu Audio DWX armed with one large paper membrane that needs very little power to pump lots of air very effortlessly. The way how such drivers speak the rock language makes them something entirely different on scale, directness and sheer entertainment. The LessLoss simply knew the dialect."

"The bass dug deeper, claps had more snap and body to them, the vocal was more substantial and lifelike and spatial sizing grew noticeably larger. The song felt more intense, enveloping and grander in spite of its somewhat slow-paced rhythm. At that point I had enough data to understand how much the Firewall actually did, and how beneficial it was."

"The Firewall not only supported such repertoire as per the above, but it also allowed me to enjoy it at really loud volume. This was a personal win that I thoroughly appreciated."

"Considering how greatly the LessLoss Firewall elevated my experience with a specimen as universal as these planars, I can't think of any other headphones which wouldn't enjoy such company."

"The tech inside it has been around for years and proved highly effective for many people including yours truly. More importantly, it introduces gains which are very hard to come by elsewhere, especially at a dosage this high and for less coin. Personally I'm very happy that a Firewall device for cans is now a thing and every bit as effective as its awesome speaker siblings."

Hifi Knights
6moons

"...produced extra bass that dug deeper and scored more points on authority, while the resulting stronger, more controlled, overall feel morphed each bass-intense song into a noticeably more massive, yet at the same time agile version of itself."

"The entire landscape [...] also struck me as a fair bit inkier, more calm and spatially sorted. Tonal saturation went up to make fuller, fruitier sound, which seemed as articulated and brimming with details as ever."

"I saw no downsides to these changes, only improvements."

"The conclusion here is twofold. The efficacy of Firewalls inside these products truly piles up. These modules also make a noticeable difference in spite of all the extra contact points and wires along the road. Because of these mechanical obstacles I thought that the two wooden outlets used as described could've either crippled sound quality, or made no difference at all. Their Firewall squad, however, showed a middle finger to that guesswork. Live and learn, as they say."

"...pushed the performance envelope several notches further in the familiar direction and that made quite the difference."

"It enhanced contrasts, extended the color palette, injected extra blackness into the background and unlocked greater firmness and heft."

Hifi Knights
6moons

"...deep background blackness upon which instrumental moisture, resolution and sensation of the aural space itself blossomed."

"...not only removes excess fuzz, bloom, grain and veil, but it also accelerates sonic MO"

"...makes them more open, vigorous and alive."

"...juicy, texturally generous, propulsive, informational and spatially unrestricted at the same time."

"There's no question that the LessLoss' inherently fetching dark round bloomy anchored sound makes a nice first focal point to stop at and appreciate. Once that early sensation settles in however, the product introduces itself as a resolution fiend capable of casting enormously large landscapes busy with easily served details and pinpoint accurate finely outlined sound sources."

"The Lithuanian's ability to behave this velvety, smooth, atmospheric, aurally gifted, elastic and keen on extracting tiniest dust particles is highly admirable in my book."

"... superbly balanced and free from any obvious trade-offs. As such the LessLoss won't steer a setup's general gestalt in any particular direction. Instead it'll gladly and gracefully elevate what's already there."

"The LessLoss renders music as substantially more flowing and digestible than before, which I see as its primary attractor and most critical task."

"This highly universal and accomplished product will audibly improve every setup I can imagine no matter its core flavor. I also think that it has what it takes to hold its ground even against similar opponents higher up in the pricing hierarchy."

"Considering the LessLoss' price, artisanal execution, usefulness, overall sonic performance and its sheer potency, I've found no evidence that'd work against it."

"It's up there with the very best power distributors I've sampled and the most affordable of them all by far."

"This is a fully mature, elegantly voiced effort built upon very advanced noise-rejecting tech that proved highly efficacious."

"Bravo!"

"You can really hear the effect that it has on loudspeakers immediately."

"I have tried the firewalls with tube amps, and solid state amps. I tried them with full range speakers, high efficiency speakers, horn-based speakers, classical dynamical two and three way speakers and with my Rogers LS 3/5. The effect of the Firewalls is always perceptible."

"There's no question about whether this might be self-delusion or wishful thinking."

"You hear the effects immediately."

"The music gains a peacefulness without becoming damped."

"It's not as though you're sitting in a room and try to damp it out with curtains, damping material, that sort of thing."

"On the contrary, you gain clarity through peacefulness."

"Bass is for sure more precise and I'd say springy."

"It's extremely audible that acoustic bass becomes more differentiated, and extremely more colorful and impactful."

"This is not something that is added to the signal, but it really comes from the absence of distorting impulses. This is how I perceive it audibly, because it was immediately noticeable."

"This is also noticeable in the midrange. It sounds more analogue."

"It sounds more sonorous, without at the same time losing any differentiation between lows and highs."

"So really it's a focussing effect which allows you to hear more than you could hear before."

"So for instance listening to a soprano voice, I get the feeling that that's really a human voice I'm listening to."

"This is by no means wishful thinking. For certain it is not."

"Especially with acoustic instruments, the differentiation increases drastically."

"So let's say, in baroque music, with smaller ensembles, with, say, harpsichord accompaniment, one can really hear the differentiation very well."

"This is all to say that, according to however much noise casts its shadows on the sound, this noise is suddenly removed and it improves the overall resulting performance."

"When you can clearly make out bass and lower mids, this can also have a side-effect that it seems the high frequencies have been lessened, for real musical tones are never made up of just one frequency band. So if we make lower and low-mid frequencies finer, softer, but also more differentiated, this will also seem to influence the high frequencies, as it seems new frequency bands appear."

"Don't worry about the Firewall influencing existing speaker cable influence."

"The Firewall for Loudspeakers don't influence the sound's characteristics."

"And the speaker cables, like I said, their sound characteristic is not influenced, it is merely helped by the lack of negative influence in that the signal is cleaned."

"With speakers the effect is the same. With amps as well. I tried tube amps and transistor amps. The effect is exactly the same. You can still hear all the characteristics of each piece of gear."

"I switched back and forth several times between transistor and tube amps. The Firewall did not influence their individual characteristics."

"Instantly recognizable, obviously better, more colorful bass."

"The changes are definitely there and you can hear them."

"Certainly you should really test these."

"You hear it instantly."

"Is it always a positive change? Yes, I would say so."

"For many, this can be a real eye-opener, especially when you consider your system to already be well balanced and mature, these will take it to the next level. Fantastic."

View full german language review here.

An in-depth video review has been published in russian language featuring a whole set of LessLoss equipment.



Professional reviewer Evgeny Shvedov goes into fine detail presenting all manner of LessLoss solutions, and explaining his unusual experience with using our high performance products.



Among the items reviewed are:

Firewall for Loudspeakers.



C-MARC Entropic Process power cables.



Bindbreaker equipment feet.



C-MARC Entropic Process RCA interconnect cables.



Blackbody v.2 ambient field conditioners.



Our new state-of-the-art power distributor with onboard C-MARC Entropic Process cabling and integrated Firewall technology.

This is a new product whose product page is found here.



The plug-and-play C-MARC Entropic Process Firewall 640x.



The Echo's End Original DAC.



The Echo's End Reference Supreme Edition dual chassis DAC with outboard power supply and special C-MARC DC cabling.



If you engage auto-translate on YouTube and choose your native language you can follow along if you don't speak russian.

Product details:

• C-MARC RCA Interconnects
• C-MARC Power Cable
• Firewall Module
• Echo's End
• Bindbreaker equipment feet
• Blackbody


• Power distributor

"It really works, it does make a difference."

"It was immediately apparent and easy to pick out the sonic impact of the Firewall. The very top-end, as well as transients, were exceptionally clearer and with a slight bit more volume to them. This resulted in the sound stage being more apparent and everything at the cymbal frequency range, or other high frequencies, being exceptionally clearer and much easier to understand. The mid-range, as well as the bass, also sounded cleaner."

"It is as if yet another small layer of the obfuscating film had been removed from the recording."

"I also noted the tail-end of the drum strikes or last vocals on a track, whenever a sound was given time to completely decay, was clearer. The slope of the decaying sound was more sustained and natural sounding, and the lower level tail-end of the sound was easier to hear. Plus, when the decaying sound finally faded so low as to no longer hear it, it did so with just a bit more presence in that final transition from life to death."

"During the music, the high level of detail in the decay was also more noticeable, giving what seems like more "space" between the notes of the music or the vocalizations of the singer. For example, Lenard Cohen's lips smacks were a bit more discernible and his voice, on the whole, sounded less compressed and more fully dimensional."

"Easier picking out and understanding all that is going on."

"obvious sonic benefits"

"bass also sounded faster and more detailed"

"doesn't seem to compromise or obscure the effectiveness of good power cables"

"I have enjoyed the benefits of the Firewall, and like Ken, I think I am going to purchase the C-MARC version, as now that I've heard it, I don't want to take a step backward in performance."