English Electric EE1 Plus Review

The new advanced EE1 Plus was launched at this year's Bristol HiFi Show 2025, where the Chord Company demonstrated two new products: the new Phono ARAY for vinyl enthusiasts and the latest advanced EE1 Plus. This discrete noise isolator sits between your network and audio-video equipment to eliminate harmful noise from entering your system.

I have a lot of time for the work that the guys at the English Electric / Chord Company do, as their products have made quite a difference in my many systems over the years. Their demonstrations are always worth visiting at the Bristol show. Patrick Mitchell was on form presenting the new Phono ARAY and EE1 Plus, with a before-and-after listening test performed. Still, it proved challenging as REL had a demo room right next door, and that room was extremely loud, with low frequencies being heard and felt in the Chord demo room. So, the real test for me was to get one here at The Speaker Shack for review so that I could test the EE1 Plus out in my system.

Build Quality and Features

The new advanced EE1 Plus is quite a bit bigger than the original EE1, but once again, this is a passive device that works discreetly in your AV system without the need for power, which makes it highly flexible for installation. The EE1 Plus is machined out of solid aluminum, which gives it some reassuring weight and a solid feel. On the bottom of the unit, it has isolation feet, which decouple the EE1+ from the surface that you place it on. The EE1+ has galvanic isolation and uses common mode filtering and the Chord Company ARAY technology, which removes any unwanted noise and interference from passing through it. It turns that noise into heat, which the EE1+ absorbs, allowing your data to pass cleanly and intact. Multiples of the EE1+ can be used, depending on how complex your network is, and to mitigate any potential noise that can infiltrate your systems.

My current EE1 has been an essential part of my system since its release, but this new advanced version takes the design further with a lot more of Chord Company's know how with their ARAY tech, galvanic isolation, as well as common mode filtering, which will elevate the performance even further for the EE1+ making sure that noise is kept out of your system with this device in place.

For this review, I am keeping the original EE1, but this time, it is being placed between my ASUS router and Netgear network switch, and then with the EE1+ placed from my network switch to my Bluesound Nano streamer via the supplied Chord Company C-Stream Ethernet cable. The Bluesound Nano streamer is then connected to the Chord Electronics Hugo TT2 DAC and M Scaler, and then connected across with an AVID RCA interconnect cable to the Accent Integrated amplifier. I am using the brilliant AVID EVO Fours for the speakers, which are connected using the beautiful Montaudio Chatham SH-1 speaker cables.

Sound Quality and Performance

I have lots of music stored on my NAS HDD, which is attached to my network. Most of it is in high resolution, up to DSD128 quality. I will also be streaming music via Qobuz and Spotify for listening evaluation.

The first album I have been listening to recently is the brilliant 2012 album, Wheels Turn Beneath My Feet by Fink, which is a culmination of live recordings from the various concerts on the Perfect Darkness tour that he performed in 2011. I have been listening to this via Qobuz initially, but I liked it so much that I purchased a digital copy via Bandcamp, so I now own one. The recording quality is so good, even though it is only at CD quality, 16-bit 44.1 kHz sample rate.  I have been very impressed by the quality of this recording, although I have to say it is being upsampled by the brilliant Chord Electronics Hugo TT2 DAC and M Scaler to 705kHz, but will listen with the EE1+ in line and then remove it to see the differences that the EE1+ makes to the system and the sound that I am hearing.

Track 6 Trouble's What You're In was recorded live from the Union Chapel in London and is an acoustic rendition with Fink’s gravelly vocals taking centre stage accompanied by his acoustic guitar before the bass guitar comes in to back him up, with the EE1+ in place everything about the recording sounds incredible with great imaging and ambience like the crowd cheering around him giving a good sense of the scale of the venue he is playing in, I love the beat as he strums the guitar and creates the bass beat to this beautiful music, each thwack can be felt from the speakers and it allows you to feel the emotion that is created from this rendition. The vocals and the clarity that emerge from the inky black soundstage are just superb. When I close my eyes, it's like he is in my room; such is the clarity presented in front of me, each chord that is plucked on his guitar has a real, tangible feel to the sound.

Removing the EE1+ from my system and plugging directly into the Bluesound Nano streamer from the network switch and playing the same track I immediately noticed that the sound was not as clean in its presentation and its immediacy had been lost slightly, removing the focus on the music that I had felt with the EE1+ in place, when the crowd applause and cheers the sense of scale is not as large and seems to be more shut in than before. Plugging the EE1+ back into the system immediately brings back that focus and the enjoyment of the music.

Track 12 Sort of Revolution is another favourite from this album recorded live from La Cigale in Paris, presented with incredible resolution and I love the bass and the brilliant kick drum in this track which resonates with real definition and power that can be felt dead centre from the soundstage, instrument separation is handled perfectly allowing you to see the band on stage in front of you all perfectly placed within the soundstage with the many layers of sound emanating from this track, even the incredible reverb effects sounds stunning giving a great sense of scale to La Cigale venue. Removing the EE1+ and once again you lose that clarity from the music, it is like placing a veil on the music that doesn't allow you to hear it in full, instead you get to hear it, but with the veil masking the sound and your system's full potential.

My next album is the brilliant 1982 Toto IV album, which I own in high-resolution 24-bit 192kHz and stored on my NAS HDD, this is being upscaled to 768kHz by the Chord Electronics Hugo TT2 and M Scaler and sounds simply sublime through this system and the EE1+ is like adding the finishing touches to an already stunning system, HiFi can be like a puzzle sometimes and getting all the pieces right can bring huge amounts of pleasure. Track 1, Rosanna, is such a beautiful piece of music and was a huge hit for this band, but sounds as good today as it did back in 1982, and my system manages to present this track in all its glory with such a dynamic and huge soundstage in front of me. The bass is super tight and snappy with the EE1+ in place. You lose a slight amount of this accuracy when it is removed; it is weird, as I thought it would be more noticeable with the higher resolution, but it is the lower resolution music that benefits more from the EE1+. Playing track 10, Africa has an incredibly wide image presented in my room and once again, great dynamics with a punchy and snappy bass that is infectious to listen to. By removing the EE1+, the soundstage closes in, and the bass does not seem to be as precise as it was with the EE1+ in place. The imaging that the EVO Four speakers manage to throw out into the room is superb, with such a clean presentation, and thanks to the EE1 and EE1+ in my system, they manage to remove that veil that can mask the sound, allowing your system to perform perfectly when streaming your digitally stored music.

Conclusions and Final Thoughts

The new EE1 Plus Advanced noise isolator has made quite a difference in how my music is listened to and the enjoyment I get from streaming my digital music. It is only when you remove it that you realise how big a difference it made when placed in your system. Noise is the enemy when it comes to HiFi, and keeping it out of your system brings with it great benefits to the sound, allowing you to hear more of your music as it should be heard. I strongly recommend getting a demo from your local dealership, but be warned, you won't want to give it back. Mine will be staying firmly in place to complement the existing EE1.

The Speaker Shack awards the new EE1 Plus with a Highly Recommended award and stamp of approval!

Price at time of review: £600

Web - https://englishelectric.uk/