I don't know about your studio, but the back of my MIDI rack looks like the rat's nest from hell, and a lot of that is down to the mains wiring. There are multiple distribution boards, external power supplies and over‑long mains cables all stuffed into the bottom of a dark, dusty cabinet alongside the decomposing remains of various drummers' sandwiches, crisp wrappers and biros that don't write any more. It all works well enough so long as it's left absolutely alone, but disturb it at your peril! It's a case of power corrupting, and the more power sockets you have, the more corrupt your system gets!
EMO have a more elegant solution in the form of their power distribution units, available in several different configurations; the one I tested was the E655, a no‑frills, 2U rackmount box with 12 EC connectors on the back and a standard 13A socket on the front for when you need that extra socket in a hurry. Moulded male‑to‑female EC leads are cheap, and they're the only extra you need to buy to tidy up your mains wiring. Separate EC connectors can be fitted to external power supplies of the 'lump in the line' type, but for the hated 'in‑plug' wallwart versions, you'll still have to keep one of the old‑fashioned four or six‑way 13A distribution boards handy.
Powered from a heady captive mains lead, the EMO box is quite shallow and it's fitted with a physical earth terminal so you can earth other things to it. A green lamp shows when the power is connected, an amber lamp lights if the fuse blows, and the mains fuse is accessible via a front‑panel screw‑top fuseholder. The standard of finish is high, the box is rugged and, because there are no landing lights, mains filters or other metering systems, the price is quite attractive. Switch on and it works. What else is there to say — the phrase 'plug and play' was made for this particular unit. Paul White