2025 Accessory of the Year: A.R.T. Electromagnetic Treatment
Prices vary with size, configuration, and materials
Shortly after distributor Aldo Filippelli and Alex Vitus brought JV 2024’s Product of the Year Award-winning Class A solid-state electronics from Vitus Audio, Aldo returned with a little “Filip.” Though JV thought it unlikely that any tweak could improve the already sterling (make that “golden”) performance of the Vitus gear, he was wrong. These flattish nondescript mats (laid atop electronics) and clamps (for encircling cables and interconnects) made an immediate and sizable difference in sonics, lowering background noise to a level of quietude JV had never before experienced with amplification devices. A.R.T. (Audio Realignment Technologies), which purports to be a science-based outfit with 55 years of experience, claims their treatments contain “an array of passive, proprietary formulations containing rare metals and advanced magnetic multi-layer technologies designed to absorb, control, and minimize the negative audible effects of electronically induced noises in sound systems at the electronic component sources.” Be that as it may, something is working precisely and consistently to the ends that A.R.T. claims they’re working—the lowering of EMF, EMI, and RFI. Audibly effective, for ultra-high-end systems these mats and clamps are well worth the not insubstantial prices asked for them; indeed, they are worthy of this year’s TAS Accessory of the Year Award. (Forthcoming)