Such a revealing video. It seems absolutely silly to say, but you can’t trust marketing, yet so many do! Like you said, If this wasn’t over $5000 it wouldn’t be SO bad… still not good and still not doing what it’s claiming, yet charging this price for essentially something that can INCREASE noise is ridiculous. Thank you Amir
Even though I'm not in the market for any of the equipment you review I so much enjoy your reviews and the educational wisdom you give from your reviews and the helpfulness of understanding them from your video reviews. So truly thank you.
When I was younger, I used to think that power conditioners were essential to complete my dream HiFi setup. After learning how power supplies work, I realized that everything that needs to be conditioned is already done right there inside the device's power supply, especially for a competently designed product. Absolutely no need for conditioners. It's so gratifying to see these measurements confirming the operating principles of power supplies - and highlighting the pure snake oil in the market comprising these products. For someone with the money to consider spending on this, I'd recommend something that actually serves a purpose: a good UPS, to protect electronics in case of power problems.
@@NeverTalkToCops1 You can get one for a lot cheaper. Just a few hundred bucks can buy you a couple of minutes to safely power down a 1500 watt HiFi system; $5k will get you something really fancy and overkill.
If you're not running at full tilt you can actually get quite a long runtime out of even a low capacity UPS. I had an APC unit which was long overdue for new batteries. During a road trip in an RV we had a large PA monitor with us and I hooked it up out of curiosity. I don't recall the exact result but at a reasonable casual volume it was more than I expected.
As a retired engineer and research scientist with over forty years experience, including 15 years in metrology, I found your video very good. You presented a clear and easy to understand argument with measurements to back it up. There are three points though that I would have clarified. First, I would verified with PSAudio if their THD measured indication did or didn't include noise. If it didn't, given how the P12 increased the noise floor, your measurements, minus the increase in the noise floor, would be closer to theirs. Secondly, around the 15 minute mark, you mentioned that you owned an older P300 and that it didn't have the same problem with raising the noise floor. But you never showed measured data to back up that statement. If true, I think PS Audio would be interested in your results so that they could understand why the newer design does not stack up against their older design. Finally, I would have mentioned that my measurement equipment is calibrated regularly to NIST traceable standards. If your equipment is not calibrated to NIST traceable standards, then you really need to say that, as the lack of traceability implies greater uncertainty in your measurements. All that aside, I did enjoy your video and look forward to similar reviews and tests.
What matters in this review is the precision of the measuring instruments in this case, since for most tests, we are getting the most information from a comparative analysis - is X better or worse than Y? What does NOT matter is exact accurate numbers that NIST can, when the situation calls for, can assure. Does it matter that the Hz the device provides is 59.995 or 59.997? No. Do we need 120.0001 RMS exact volts? No. No-one cares. All good gear should produce in-spec performance over a couple hz deviation of main's signal. Does it matter if measured noise floor is off by 1 db, down in the minus hundreds? Maybe slightly; but again, the relative measurements against the BK Precision show the inferiority of the signal no matter the exact accuracy shown. I have no idea why you'd ride so much on this. It is simply NOT always necessary to pay hundreds or thousands to NIST every year purely to get good quality comparative results.
I'm still a current research engineer and I quickly thought to myself, just measure the end result in any audio discrepancy with/without the power conditioner. That's essentially what people buy it for anyway. I design experiments all the time and the 1st rule of thumb to isolate causes are to only ever change 1 variable at a time.
I was watching the rest of the video and I noticed that along with that all the harmonics above about 1kHz are actually shoot thru from the mains AC, which might explain it. Doesn’t seem like it’s too well isolated, but given its just sitting behind a transformer that’s kind of expected since those have so many parasitics. Kind of defeats the purpose to begin with if it just looks like a capacitor to noise and hum.
Spectacular! Absolutely L-O-V-E it. Have always been skeptical about those claims, particularly as most audio equipment runs on DC internally. But this is a whole pound of nails shutting that coffin. Congrats and THANKS!
Unlike old days there are equipments capable of quantifying every aspect of an audio gear. No more guess work needed. Thanks to you for bringing that up. Providing these measurements at free of cost is absolutely Insane.
Old days? My understanding is that rather complete electronic/electric analysis has been available for at least 60 years. The pieces might have been 20x as big or heavy, and very expensive, but available. You have meters instead of digital readout, but still. See TH-cam channel Mr Carlson's Lab.
@@johnsmith1474 Well, nice guess, but no. The science of measurements and the state of the art in measurement equipment have taken leaps and bounds over that period. The instruments today are one to two orders of magnitude better than 50 years ago. (An order of magnitude is 10X; two orders 100X.) The digital parts of the measurement process are more accurate, more nearly noise-free, calibratable, and stable over long periods. The analog portions are better today, too. Mathematics and statistics are also many magnitudes more capable than what we had in 1962. It's hard to even compare because the old instrumentation was hard to keep calibrated. It was frustrating when a reading was accurate to +/- 1% on Tuesday and off by twice that amount on Wednesday. Today's measurement instruments would have been only dreamt of in 1962 in my EE lab.
Thank you for doing these myth busting reviews, Amir. I've learned so much about the hobby from watching you. Have you considered doing a briefer video summarizing how to read the most important graphs in your reviews? I have a good idea of what SINAD, distortion, and noise is because you sprinkle in these nuggets of knowledge over the course of many reviews, but I do not think you have a singular video describing what the most important graphs are and how to read them. For example, you mentioned in this review that 115 db is the audibility of hearing. Perhaps you could put out a video where you spend a few minutes describing what SINAD, distortion, and noise is, what they sound like, and what their audibility to the human ear is. This would be extremely useful as an introduction to your channel, to anyone who haven't read your reviews before, or for any seasoned readers who need a refresher of the basics.
You are a mind reader Simon as that is the next set of topics slated for videos! I plan to walk through every measurement for each class of device and talk about what is measured, what is good and what is not, and what is being displayed. Appreciate the interest very much!
@@AudioScienceReview That's awesome news! Again, I've picked up a lot of the details because I've watched so many of your reviews, but sometimes I don't know where I might've learned something because I do not recall which review it came from. It sounds like your upcoming tutorial series will solve all of those problems. They could become the de facto reference point going forward for a lot of people! To use the example from earlier of how they could be helpful, I could compare a $100 DAC with 115 db SINAD vs a $200 one with 120 db vs a $5000 one with 125 db and make a value determination myself. A reader could also weight different amounts of distortion vs noise in a product and make a more informed decision as to what is or isn't a weakness or how much of one it is.
@@AudioScienceReview This would really contribute to the common wisdom (which is remarkably uncommon). I know that sound bites from equipment are of little value here, but I wonder if they might be useful in ear training for what some serious defects sound like? A good guy here on YT does this with good effect at *audio university ear training*. His series is intended for studio engineers (and wannabees), but the principles are an example of some methods of demonstrating this. It's just a suggestion, but although I'm no longer doing studio engineering, *audio university* provides some fresh approaches to ear training. His approach has been useful to me, just as a listener. It could tend to tie together data, graphs, and examples of what serious defects sound like. [Or maybe not.] Just a thought...
Nice review. that company has always seemed to border on snake oil, the fact they cannot produce measurements at that price is really the telling point.
What's bizarre is that they have highly competent engineers, or appear to. And yet, so many of their engineering efforts simply don't test well. They really need to explain why they're doing what they're doing and why they think it's a good thing for the sound signature they're going for. Otherwise, they're making overly complicated boxes that don't do anything good in a measurable or meaningful way. Pretty sad.
I have waited a long time for that video, thank you very much! I never expected the power conditioner to improve anything concerning audio quality but at this price I hoped that the AC output would at least be significantly cleaner. I can already hear Paul scream you did not use a shielded power cord and you cannot measure everything😄 I am really thankful for your videos because they separate bullshit from high quality audio devices scientifically! If I consider buying a new audio device I always search for a review from you. You save a lot of time, money and frustration for all of us, thank you very much and continue with your great work!
We can now add power regenerators along with cables as an industry built around ignorance and wishful thinking. I did not expect this. I did expect their effect to be marginal at best and a poor use of audio expenditures but to be worthless like expensive cables, that was a surprise. thank you Amir.
Yes indeed, although in the larger picture, I sometimes think it's much like doing a calibrated chemical analysis of holy water or communion wine: the blind faithful will fight the effort with religious zeal. To wit, 'audiovoodoo.'
@@jimshaw899 When I first got into the hobby I imagined it would be saturated with level-headed science geeks, like high school A/V clubs. It was odd to find that the hobby had been infiltrated by voodoo and religion-like fuzzy thinking.
@@astroporpoise7802 :) When a hobby becomes a spiritual cause, all manner of topics become battles in a war zone of inquisition. And as with so many wars and battles, the ignorant and dim-witted line up on the front lines to fire shots and dig fox holes. "Ours is not to reason why; our is just to fight for hot glowing glass bottles and plastic platters going aroundy-roundy." [And to long for the next model weapon.] ;)
@@jimshaw899 Hehe, for sure. BTW, nice RCA Nipper avatar :) I have an RCA 6F8G tube that I use with my Bottlehead Crack and love the tone and lifelike bite to vocal peaks--truly nourishing and invigorating versus a 12AU7 in a blind test. ;)
Thank you. Wonderful content and I love the admission that you realize you can be fooled by listening closely after making a change. I'm sure we all have this problem. Double blind is almost impossible when doing AB testing of gear.
DESTROYED DEVASTATED 5K for a device that does worse than your 10$ power socket... A metal box with flashing lights and a screen that spews garbage info.
So if I attach some mobile phones to a powerboard I will get the same or better power, consumes less energy, plus it can go on the internet, play movies, do cool visual simulations, and display all of ASR and costs less?
You are destroyed? Devastated? Do you own one? Did you loose a home in proceedings? I doubt that. This is hobby. If you cannot afford this hobby pick another one. Or get a life mate. Cheers!
@@wellroundedsound2422 it's a hobby to buy expensive things that make minimal difference to your hifi? Interesting. It's literally more affordable to buy things that offer proper benefits in the hobby of HiFi. So not wanting to spend $5k on this power box is mostly not because someone can't afford it, it's because there's a ton of other things you could buy instead, even if you're a millionaire
The concept is similar to a double static conversion UPS.This device consists of an AC to DC rectifier and a DC to AC inverter. The UPS adds a battery charger and batteries. It also adds a static bypass switch and optionally a maintenance bypass switch and a computer grade isolation transformer. It is intended for mission critical industrial applications such as data centers, often in conjunction with a diesel or gas fired generator. I've used them for sensitive equipment such as HPLCs and mass spectrometers in the pharmaceutical industry. Power ratings for single units can range up to 1000 kw or more and they can be parallel. The spec on the PS audio regenerator is 1 orrcent THD on the output. UPSs of this type use high power switching transistors. The regenerator uses a 60 hz sine wave generator and a class AB audio amplifier. The inexpensive UPSs you'd buy for your computer is called a line interactive type and has toomuch distortion for audio equipment. UPSs for data centers used to have 5 percent distortion but I think things have improved. Only on the last few years have companies come out with single phase models suitable for home audio equipment. Due to their high cost they'd be worth considering for expensive systems. IMO if you bought multithousand dollar equipment and it doesn't have A power supply that can give you clean well regulated DC you overpaid. BTW one trick to get rid of those high frequency harmonics os to wire a small value capacitor in parallel with the main power supply filter capacitors. Those big caps often don't do a good job at high frequencies.
It's called "psychoacoustics" Amir and, I am sure, it's not the first time you hear this term. We can also introduce a new term, "optico-psychoacoustics" which involves the visual impact of an attractive piece of electronic equipment on our racks. Additionally, the emotional pressure of "money well spent" / "it must sound better", is a factor in what we _think_ we hear. Thanks for the detailed report.
Yep. If they sold this same exact piece for 10 times less, 550 bucks, a lot of people would be sending it back due to not noticing any sound difference. But since its 5500 it must be doing something
“All lies and jest, still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.” That Simon and Garfunkel lyric describes the “high end audio” worlds shared psychosis. As for Paul from BS Audio...the emperor has no clothes.
After a long absence on YT, what better than to come back with an awesome review of a current PS Audio PowerPlant. Another huge myth busted by Amir. While I looked at it on ASR's website, it's a very good decision to put this review up on YT as this category of products has been so overhyped for over a couple of decades. I was contemplating buying one many years ago but I was hoping to see a good review with actual measurements. Glad I didn't take the jump. Paul from PSA is going to be full of love for you Amir. 😁
Thanks Jesus. I always wonder if the video reviews are superfluous (to text reviews) or have value and I should keep doing them. Feedback like this is valuable as far as topics for future reviews.
@@AudioScienceReview it has allot of added enjoyment/value for me at least. i notice i often like to hear or see a video more then reading. i can listen to this as a podcast. and sometimes take a peak when a measurement is shown :) while still doing something at the same time :)
@@AudioScienceReview Like Dave, I enjoy both. However, I believe that your should spend more of your valuable time on your ASR website. This type of educational video and certain equipment reviews that are of concern to the majority of the community are the kind I think you should concentrate on in my opinion in terms of YT videos. With your great wisdom, I'm sure you'll find the right balance. I think the video reviews make them more accessible to the average hobbyists that are less technically oriented since you explain the topics so well and can guide them in the direction to what is technically more important.
I enjoyed your review very much. I appreciated how you described exactly what your measurements meant as well as the anecdotal information regarding another generator you've had experience with. I recently bought a pair of mono block amplifiers. They use two 805 tubes and are used. After hooking everything up correctly, while playing a mono record with a dedicated mono cartridge, I noticed that one of the speakers measures 4-5dB louder than the other. Even when I play a stereo record, the difference is noticeable from sitting in the "sweet spot." I've changed XLR cables, tubes, adjusted the bias adjustment on the top of the amplifier as well as the potentiometer within the chassis. I also put exchanged the amps from left to right. I noticed that the RCA connector has been removed from one of the amplifiers. The one with the RCA connecter measures louder than the other one. I'm hoping that re-soldering the wires to connect the RCA connector will equal the amps out. My question is do you work on these type of issues and if so where are you located? Thanks!
I do not. When I get stuff to review, I often fix small problems in them but not outside of that context. Hope you find someone to sort it out for you.
Noise is a random change in phase which distorts the signal over a particular bandwidth, but it is higher after the P12 output. The noise is still low enough that it won't be heard. The spikes are the spurious content which can be heard at a specific frequency, but I couldn't tell you what the average human ear can hear as a dBc level at a particular offset frequency from the fundamental frequency.
Regarding blind tests and how we humans can easily fool ourselves... I have no particular hearing issues, I'm almost 55 and can still hear 14.5 kHz. Still in self made blind tests (like quickly toggling the on / off switch of equalizers until I don't know any more if i'm toggling them on or off), I have no trouble to admit that I struggle really hard to tell even if 3-4 dB peaking filters with low Q (say, about 2, so affecting a large frequency band) right in the midrange band where our hearing apparatus is most sensitive, are present or not! And there's still people that swear they can hear differences in sound if they lift the speaker cable a few inches from the floor... 🤣🤣😂🤣😂
Thanks 🙏 very interesting. I currently bought an isotek Aquarius for mastering purpose. And I can’t here any differences. I did nul tests with and without, and I nulls perfectly. What a deception. So I thought it might be that my system is ok and in my particular case it makes no difference. But it seems many units claiming to do usefull stuff currently doesn’t. Thanks for spending the time to make this video. To your knowledge, is there units that “regenerates” ac that has an audible effect ?
Love your reviews, so thorough, informative and educational 👍 thanks for the great work! Since Paul McGowan in his videos stresses the importance of lower output impedance in creating the benefits of his AC regenerators, would it have been possible to address that claim as well?
I actually very happy seeing people get rich! And PS Audio helps to find such people. We shall respect all ;-) I does not mean I would spend 300$ on power cable though ;-)
I don't think my entire system which also includes a multiple speakers, desktop system + PC + TV tops that amount. It's a drop in the water for people who spend as much as a new car on audio however
The only thing I like about these component sized power conditioners is that it makes the wire management much nicer. I use a monster power one that I got for free and ordered a bunch of shorter power cables. No more loops of cables. Everything is nice and neat. OCD satisfied.
Wow, those sharp metal edges on the bottom of that unit are shockingly bad. As careful as PSAudio is about those types of things, I can't believe they let that product get all the way out to market like that with the possibility of cutting someone's hand open if they aren't careful in how they handle it. Huge oversight on their part and one that needs to be corrected. Hopefully they have contacted their case supplier in China and requested an immediate fix on that already. The owner at PSAudio is really good about being responsive to things like this. I'll reach out to him by way of e-mail and make sure he's aware of this and has a fix in the works for it ASAP. Thanks for pointing that out. It's possible that they have other products with the same issue that need to be corrected as well. Good catch there!
I wonder how long before people finally pick up on the fact they can get fairly inexpensive UPS, laymen's term Battery Backups, that do basically the exact same thing as these ridiculously priced power supplies? Pure Sine-Wave battery backup power supplies are available from a few hundred to 10's of thousands of course but you can easily find them in the $100 to $300 range. Those lower cost units should be more than capable of supporting most audio setups with the added bonus of being able to use your equipment for a few hours to days, (depending on total stored energy), during power outages. I use them for all of my electronics that it makes sense to do so and have never experienced any issues with hum/noise since I began doing so... Oh and I forgot to add the reason I personally use UPS/Battery Backups. I use them because they're one of if not the best surge protectors money can buy in most cases if you purchase good quality units with the lab/real world testing and reports to back up their claims. The better made brands actually have very good warranties that will cover your equipment via replacement or cash equivalent if damaged during a surge the unit should have protected it from. Some of these warranties go up to as much as $150k in total value. I also enjoy that during power outages I can still use my equipment for a time to do what it's meant to do, listen to music or get information from radio stations while everything else is down in my area...
The 1.5kHz spike on that switcher might be the feedback loop. If you didn't load the power supply it probably went into discontinuous conduction mode, hence the noise.
I believe 32:33 sums it up perfectly; just knowing that something has been changed is often enough to completely alter your perception. Seamless, blind A/B switching is really the only halfway-reliable way to compare audio gear by ear, and even then must be taken with a grain of salt. I really like Paul as a person, and I do believe that his company makes some great stuff, but the fact that they sell a product like this at this price point says a lot; both of them and their target demographic. If this thing was say ~$1000 and the marketing more honest then hey, still pretty frivolous but maybe not the worst investment for someone with truly horrific mains quality. But in a way they HAVE to charge much more, because the target demographic is in a position where they are hunting for anything that might make ANY difference whatsoever, in a system so expensive and particular that adding in something that was "only" $1000 would just feel silly. Not a terrible problem to have, I should imagine, but it does open the door to things like this, as well as comically expensive power cables and the like.
Yeh, they have gotten the high-end audiophile to keep spending money on these tweaks. There are endless number of them and unfortunately, none do anything useful based on my testing.
The right question is : do yo enjoy the music ? The target is pleasure, morale boost, and happiness. Now if you change the purpose, and you want to go into a competition over quality of hears-brain perception. Or a competition over who has the most impressive equipment. I think the world would experience more pease if the things were qualified and graded by happiness produced. Accessing a higher level of truth and knowledge is creating happiness. You are doing good to the world by sharing measurements. I do not blame the buyer of a useless device, because he might draw pleasure from it even if useless. But the reputable brand that make the device should correct course on this. Either inform that power quality has almost no impact on output, or at the minimum build a device that does what it should.
Thank you; you’ve handed everyone a BS litmus test for any reviewer that swears that the addition of a Power Plant increased soundstage and 3-D imaging, as well as providing a blacker background. This did not go over well with those who spent thousands of dollars on these and are forced to say “everything can’t be measured”, “I can hear a difference”, “Amir has a bias against PS Audio”, “Paul wouldn’t lie to us” and so forth. Real life advice: never ask the person who’s trying to sell you something if it really works of if it’s a good deal.
Greetings !!!EXCELLENT!!! your work the one you are doing, I have an Onkyo Digital A88-00 with an M504 amplifier, with an EQ540 equalizer and another EQ201 and a TA2550 deck and a CP1500F platter and Ortofon 40 turntable needle and DX708 CD, and the T4500 radio, Everything the INTEGRA models, which are the best of Onkyo's, are NOT mass-produced if they are not selected from Onkyo. And the cables connected to the equipment are from the KabelDirekt Pro Series RCA brand and 4 DAS R-212 speakers. IN THE END A CLASSIC OF THE 80S AND 90S of sound equipment of that time, over the years I have never broken any module, that is already seen from how they worked before and the manufacturing materials, I hope to have it duarte, many years for the quality of a good musical team, greetings and very good videos that you have a great like for your great videos, great sound models like these devices are no longer manufactured, it is a pity, that today everything is talk, greetings from Barcelona - You could do one of Onkyo Interga also of Review
Yeh, I really miss the golden years of hi-fi. You could look at how big and heavy something was, and it would be strong evidence of engineering excellence. Now high-end audio often looks big and heavy but insides are poorly engineered in following audiophile myths.
After watching this video I have ordered a P12. I have no doubt this guy has great electronic knowledge. The thing is, many many people and reviewers who I respect and have trust in, hear differences. Whenever I have upgraded components and cables, I have heard a difference. Yes, sometimes marginal but other times significant. You,can throw all the measurements you like at me but if I hear something I hear something. Yes, we are all subject to confirmation bias I get that, but knowing it’s likely to be present allows you to control for it no to be extra vigilant. And in any case Paul McGowan doesn’t need to be a snake oil salesman. He’s been at the top of the high end game for 50years. Why make junk? He doesn’t need to. How many snake oil salesmen allow a long home trial period with a no questions asked return policy? That should tell you all you need to know. Rather than just hate, try the changes, see if you hear. If your system is not of sufficient quality or you are unable to discern subtle differences, that’s ok, by all means go back to hating.
What you are describing in the initial part of your statement is referred to as "psychoacoustics". I would refer you to the YT videos put out by Ethan Winer should you desire to be further informed on this topic.
Wow! Thanks for the eye opening test. I also noticed that BK makes a model 9805 that does the same as 9801 with 1500 watts max. I didn’t see info on continuous use.
If you were to hear their new speaker in person, you'd be completely blown away. It is priced high, but they are developing more affordable speakers. If you were to hear their amps, they have small tubes in the input stage with a solid state output stage, combining the splendor of tubes with the power of solid state.
Great review I follow your website a lot when I am in search of any equipment I want to buy.. Great science staff , makes me learn a lot of things I was never aware of… Thanks
Best thing I ever did was get a DEQX for active setup, I learned a tonne about what actually changes how speakers sound. I would say more than 80% of sq comes from the transducer quality and the phase relationship and timing of the drivers and how well they overlap. And especially the physical qualities of how the speaker directivity interacts wtih your room! Almost everything else is BS after a certain point of diminishing returns.
Maybe you should be sure about what products PS Audio actually makes? They have a P15 and a P20 with better performance and features (Including NO FANS!). All I can say is I wasn't expecting a huge improvement over the Furman devices I used. I was wrong.. The improvements is detail and clarity were amazing. Well worth the investment in a P15.
I wonder how the Torus Toroid isolation power transformers would measure in comparison and how it stacks up to the PS Regenerators performance.. 🤔. Been meaning to buy one of these.
I have tested one of their competitors, the Equitech: www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/equitech-1-5rq-balanced-power-review.24948/ It didn't do any good and actually cost some power loss.
Wonder is there's anything that they make that's actually worth the money. The few reviews of yours I've seen have either been average performance for high end price (sprout amp) or equal or worse performance like this.
That's basically the summary of what I have tested so far from them. They are good sized company with nice engineering and manufacturing resources that could be put to much better use. Instead they keep chasing myths in audio. They really need to do some controlled testing of what they produce so they get a shot of reality. With site like ours measuring their gear and their effectiveness, they need to step up now to produce useful products.
I only pick up their stuff used or when they run a special, which doesn’t happen that often. The amount they’re asking for their CD transport makes my head spin.
Would love to see an examination of things that do make a measurable difference. Linear power? Amplifier power level? Room treatment (im assuming this could be easy to prove)? Noise on a digital source?
@@AudioScienceReview I recall when Bose was pushing his bass amp. The distortion figures were crazy but he used the ears' inability to correlate that distortion with 'bad' sound. Happily, he failed to convince 'purists' that it was OK to make terrible measuring instruments when it was simple enough to do better.
Aside from your BK Precision 9801 ; Is there a power conditioner / filter, that you’ve analyzed, that reduces noise to a [ worthwhile / satisfactory ] degree ? I’m so over this rabbit hole - I, really, am. Thank you.
Is you spend thousands on a power regenerator, diamond encrusted cables, audio tuned fuses, cable lifters etc. etc. then you will hear a huge improvement and your investment will be worth every penny. Problem is that nobody else will hear any improvement.
Worse yet, since it is not based on reality, the owner too will stop perceiving such an improvement so has to go and buy yet another ineffective tweak to get that false sensation.
Thank you Amir ! I have been waiting for this review for a long time... Glad I sold my PS Audio P10 a few months back. It was creating so many issues with ground loops.. 😖
What a great video. The human brain is so fascinating to say the least. We often create our own reality in many of our experiences. In the end who’s to say that is incorrect. After all, our perception of reality is reality for us. Lol. Great job.
I think of you as being the Audio Mythbuster. In my career I dealt with large Power Systems and the issues of power distortion as referenced to IEEE-519 specifications. I have seen as high as 45% IThd in a power system that has a large number of non-linier switching power supplies on the grid. When this distortion would effect a sound system a simple Isolation transformer on the power input to the sound system would cure the issue, and also eliminate any ground loops between the sound system and the mains. As for "listing tests" When I worked in audio industry in the 70's I became aware of the Bose effect. you hear what the salesman tells you to hear.
Pretty much confirms my suspicions. Had one years ago (not a psa) ended up sending it back. Seems risky to add all that equipment between, wall and gear. What worked better than expected was running a dedicated line including breaker from box using 10/2 cable
Hi thank you for the very valuable review I think that all people serious about their system should own a spectrum analyser to check the system I am quite happy when i crank the volume up with no signal and I Don get much noise from the speakers Unfortunately it's not the case now I must have some issues
I have a blown channel on PS audio preamplifier that was plugged in to one of their regenerators. See direct stream their flagship DAC had to be sent back twice one time just two days after I got it and then a couple of months later. So I guess it's not going to be my end game system as I hope it would be.
Any chance on testing and review of the Puritan Audiolab PSM156 or the PSM 1512? They are showing a scope of the AC noise before and after they plug it on to the PSM156. Thanks for your consideration!
Well, if you have a modified since wave inverter in your off grid cabin, it might work then? Or your noisy sportsman generator from harbor freight. Good luck hearing the improvements over the noise of the 2 cycle engine. It might be worth the money at that point if you have one of these devices for power. One can hope. I see this device better suited for someone who lives in a place where they have Extremely dirty AC. To the point that you get brown outs. Where you may have a bunch of inductive loads like motors starting all the time that dip the line voltage bellow 100v. Maybe even a very saggy AC where you might only see 90 volts of power. Something more common in east coast high density areas or maybe an apartment complex or a industrial Business Park? I wonder if anybody has actually done any testing for AC generators on the market. Seems more like a Project Farm kind of thing. Pretty sure Cummins would be happy to submit one of their AC generators for testing or have specs on it since much of their gear goes into driving Medial equipment and Military Electronics which are kind of sensitive for AC noise. I wonder how clean those Tesla power units are when actually generating AC for your home? Likewise with those Grid Tie Inverters. I have a few commercial server UPS backups. I wonder how clean those are as well? Boy, wouldn't that be weird! A thosand dollar APC UPS backup working better then the PS audio unit? And you have Back up power to boot! LOL!.
Hello Amir, would you recommend using the BK precision product as a AC regenerator for hifi systems? I have seen however it only comes with one outlet so would connecting a power strip be a viable option to connect more devices?
Amir - I would refer you to the You Tube PS Audio titled "Can CD's sound different?" Aug 9, 2018 where Paul refers to adding "dither"(aka noise ) in the mastering process as a deliberate effort to enhance the sound of the CD. I was wondering what you would think of his analysis.
It is a muddled talk because he doesn't quite know the underlying math and detail. That aside, if your recording has higher resolution/dynamic range than 16 bit CD, you must dither. It is not an optional thing. If you just truncate, it can create distortion which under some conditions could be audible. Seeing how most production for the last couple of decades is at higher resolution, I would hope that dither is used for conversion. It is hard to know if the XRCD and such had real content in low order bits. If it did not and it was all noise, then dither has no or marginal benefit.
Paul PS Audio putting out bunk products? who would of thought it....always funny when people talk about what a "nice guy" he is. They've clearly never worked in an aggressive selling or marketing position to know what that persona really is 🙃
Most money I ever lost was at the hands of a charming sounding sales person working for me. Rubbed me blind until I got past this accent and let him go.
Imagine what kind of gold/silver/rhodium plated crystal surge power board you could buy and still costs less than that if you want a bling power plug ;p
Maybe we should just call it the happiness machine. The people who buy the P12 will be happy that they made this great investment and they are sure their sound quality improved. And Paul will be happy that he made some money and he has happy customers. Win/win. Everybody is happy!
There is something to that for sure. The problem is that it won't last. Soon you think your system is boring sounding again and in need of another expensive fix. It will never end....
I am curious how the PS12 measures at higher loads on the output of 25% 50% 75% 100% etc. I believe we will see some raised noise floors due to sagging outputs and high IMD.
Thank you Amir for all your great videos. On this topic do you have any thoughts on Stromtank high power? They are made in Germany and they have massive batteries. What I have in mind is s5000. Thank you again
I think it is a waste of money. They are way too expensive for a battery powered source. And have too little output. They will absolutely not make a difference in your audio gear. It is not even clear how clean their output is.
I believe there are a PowerPlant 12, PowerPlant 15, PowerPlant 20 and a less expensive Stellar PowerPlant 3. Currently, and through March 31, 2022 the PowerPlant 15 is discounted to $4,999 USD from its regular price of $7,499 USD.
Yes, I got educated on their model line up after the review. :) I suspect the architecture is the same in all of them though (partial regeneration) so what we found with P12 is representative of the line. That said, if someone wants me to test the other ones, I can. I do dread their weight though. The P12 killed my back already!
![[#2024MAMA] ROSÉ (로제), Bruno Mars - APT. | Mnet 241122 방송](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/dgGqD28J6aQ/mqdefault.jpg)
Part 2 Video posted as well: th-cam.com/video/II07bFlteig/w-d-xo.html
Such a revealing video. It seems absolutely silly to say, but you can’t trust marketing, yet so many do! Like you said, If this wasn’t over $5000 it wouldn’t be SO bad… still not good and still not doing what it’s claiming, yet charging this price for essentially something that can INCREASE noise is ridiculous. Thank you Amir
Even though I'm not in the market for any of the equipment you review I so much enjoy your reviews and the educational wisdom you give from your reviews and the helpfulness of understanding them from your video reviews. So truly thank you.
My pleasure. Kind comments like yours fuel me to do more of them. :)
Truer words were never written.
When I was younger, I used to think that power conditioners were essential to complete my dream HiFi setup. After learning how power supplies work, I realized that everything that needs to be conditioned is already done right there inside the device's power supply, especially for a competently designed product. Absolutely no need for conditioners.
It's so gratifying to see these measurements confirming the operating principles of power supplies - and highlighting the pure snake oil in the market comprising these products.
For someone with the money to consider spending on this, I'd recommend something that actually serves a purpose: a good UPS, to protect electronics in case of power problems.
Careful! UPS can give out badly regulated, malformed sine waves.
@@peterlarkin762 Not if you spend $5000.
@@peterlarkin762 That's why I said "good" UPS. Most competent UPSs on the market put out a clean voltage sinusoid
@@NeverTalkToCops1 You can get one for a lot cheaper. Just a few hundred bucks can buy you a couple of minutes to safely power down a 1500 watt HiFi system; $5k will get you something really fancy and overkill.
If you're not running at full tilt you can actually get quite a long runtime out of even a low capacity UPS.
I had an APC unit which was long overdue for new batteries. During a road trip in an RV we had a large PA monitor with us and I hooked it up out of curiosity.
I don't recall the exact result but at a reasonable casual volume it was more than I expected.
As a retired engineer and research scientist with over forty years experience, including 15 years in metrology, I found your video very good. You presented a clear and easy to understand argument with measurements to back it up. There are three points though that I would have clarified.
First, I would verified with PSAudio if their THD measured indication did or didn't include noise. If it didn't, given how the P12 increased the noise floor, your measurements, minus the increase in the noise floor, would be closer to theirs.
Secondly, around the 15 minute mark, you mentioned that you owned an older P300 and that it didn't have the same problem with raising the noise floor. But you never showed measured data to back up that statement. If true, I think PS Audio would be interested in your results so that they could understand why the newer design does not stack up against their older design.
Finally, I would have mentioned that my measurement equipment is calibrated regularly to NIST traceable standards. If your equipment is not calibrated to NIST traceable standards, then you really need to say that, as the lack of traceability implies greater uncertainty in your measurements.
All that aside, I did enjoy your video and look forward to similar reviews and tests.
What matters in this review is the precision of the measuring instruments in this case, since for most tests, we are getting the most information from a comparative analysis - is X better or worse than Y? What does NOT matter is exact accurate numbers that NIST can, when the situation calls for, can assure.
Does it matter that the Hz the device provides is 59.995 or 59.997? No. Do we need 120.0001 RMS exact volts? No. No-one cares. All good gear should produce in-spec performance over a couple hz deviation of main's signal. Does it matter if measured noise floor is off by 1 db, down in the minus hundreds? Maybe slightly; but again, the relative measurements against the BK Precision show the inferiority of the signal no matter the exact accuracy shown.
I have no idea why you'd ride so much on this. It is simply NOT always necessary to pay hundreds or thousands to NIST every year purely to get good quality comparative results.
@@ivolol Yes... but how can you trust the precision if you haven't verified the accuracy?
I'm still a current research engineer and I quickly thought to myself, just measure the end result in any audio discrepancy with/without the power conditioner. That's essentially what people buy it for anyway.
I design experiments all the time and the 1st rule of thumb to isolate causes are to only ever change 1 variable at a time.
The ground loop was unexpected. The last thing I need more of.
I was watching the rest of the video and I noticed that along with that all the harmonics above about 1kHz are actually shoot thru from the mains AC, which might explain it. Doesn’t seem like it’s too well isolated, but given its just sitting behind a transformer that’s kind of expected since those have so many parasitics. Kind of defeats the purpose to begin with if it just looks like a capacitor to noise and hum.
Spectacular! Absolutely L-O-V-E it. Have always been skeptical about those claims, particularly as most audio equipment runs on DC internally. But this is a whole pound of nails shutting that coffin. Congrats and THANKS!
Unlike old days there are equipments capable of quantifying every aspect of an audio gear. No more guess work needed. Thanks to you for bringing that up. Providing these measurements at free of cost is absolutely Insane.
Old days? My understanding is that rather complete electronic/electric analysis has been available for at least 60 years. The pieces might have been 20x as big or heavy, and very expensive, but available. You have meters instead of digital readout, but still. See TH-cam channel Mr Carlson's Lab.
@@johnsmith1474 Well, nice guess, but no. The science of measurements and the state of the art in measurement equipment have taken leaps and bounds over that period. The instruments today are one to two orders of magnitude better than 50 years ago. (An order of magnitude is 10X; two orders 100X.)
The digital parts of the measurement process are more accurate, more nearly noise-free, calibratable, and stable over long periods. The analog portions are better today, too.
Mathematics and statistics are also many magnitudes more capable than what we had in 1962. It's hard to even compare because the old instrumentation was hard to keep calibrated. It was frustrating when a reading was accurate to +/- 1% on Tuesday and off by twice that amount on Wednesday. Today's measurement instruments would have been only dreamt of in 1962 in my EE lab.
Thank you for doing these myth busting reviews, Amir. I've learned so much about the hobby from watching you. Have you considered doing a briefer video summarizing how to read the most important graphs in your reviews? I have a good idea of what SINAD, distortion, and noise is because you sprinkle in these nuggets of knowledge over the course of many reviews, but I do not think you have a singular video describing what the most important graphs are and how to read them. For example, you mentioned in this review that 115 db is the audibility of hearing. Perhaps you could put out a video where you spend a few minutes describing what SINAD, distortion, and noise is, what they sound like, and what their audibility to the human ear is. This would be extremely useful as an introduction to your channel, to anyone who haven't read your reviews before, or for any seasoned readers who need a refresher of the basics.
You are a mind reader Simon as that is the next set of topics slated for videos! I plan to walk through every measurement for each class of device and talk about what is measured, what is good and what is not, and what is being displayed. Appreciate the interest very much!
@@AudioScienceReview That's awesome news! Again, I've picked up a lot of the details because I've watched so many of your reviews, but sometimes I don't know where I might've learned something because I do not recall which review it came from. It sounds like your upcoming tutorial series will solve all of those problems. They could become the de facto reference point going forward for a lot of people! To use the example from earlier of how they could be helpful, I could compare a $100 DAC with 115 db SINAD vs a $200 one with 120 db vs a $5000 one with 125 db and make a value determination myself. A reader could also weight different amounts of distortion vs noise in a product and make a more informed decision as to what is or isn't a weakness or how much of one it is.
@@AudioScienceReview This would really contribute to the common wisdom (which is remarkably uncommon). I know that sound bites from equipment are of little value here, but I wonder if they might be useful in ear training for what some serious defects sound like? A good guy here on YT does this with good effect at *audio university ear training*. His series is intended for studio engineers (and wannabees), but the principles are an example of some methods of demonstrating this.
It's just a suggestion, but although I'm no longer doing studio engineering, *audio university* provides some fresh approaches to ear training. His approach has been useful to me, just as a listener. It could tend to tie together data, graphs, and examples of what serious defects sound like. [Or maybe not.]
Just a thought...
Nice review. that company has always seemed to border on snake oil, the fact they cannot produce measurements at that price is really the telling point.
What's bizarre is that they have highly competent engineers, or appear to. And yet, so many of their engineering efforts simply don't test well.
They really need to explain why they're doing what they're doing and why they think it's a good thing for the sound signature they're going for. Otherwise, they're making overly complicated boxes that don't do anything good in a measurable or meaningful way.
Pretty sad.
YEAH! he is back with an Excellent review!!! Bring us more great reviews!
I am torn between doing more review videos and tutorials. What is the preference for one or the other?
@@AudioScienceReview both, don't limit yourself and us Amir ;-)
@@AudioScienceReview I would say tutorials would probably be more useful as more of the audience could directly take advantage of the information.
@@AudioScienceReview Yeah, tutorials would be really helpful!
I have waited a long time for that video, thank you very much! I never expected the power conditioner to improve anything concerning audio quality but at this price I hoped that the AC output would at least be significantly cleaner. I can already hear Paul scream you did not use a shielded power cord and you cannot measure everything😄
I am really thankful for your videos because they separate bullshit from high quality audio devices scientifically! If I consider buying a new audio device I always search for a review from you. You save a lot of time, money and frustration for all of us, thank you very much and continue with your great work!
We can now add power regenerators along with cables as an industry built around ignorance and wishful thinking. I did not expect this. I did expect their effect to be marginal at best and a poor use of audio expenditures but to be worthless like expensive cables, that was a surprise. thank you Amir.
Even for me it is good to see in hard measurements that prove the intuition that we have as engineers about these products.
No surprise to me ..... High end audio is all about scamming ignorant people
as soon as i saw just how in depth your review was i knew that we were going to be seeing another video from you; welcome back!
Thank you. I have been remiss in creating videos for quite a while. "Life interfered" with their cadence as they say.
Your channel is such a breath of fresh air in the audiophile world! Thanks so much for what you do. Science FTW :)
This kind of content is what the audiophile community needs.
Yes indeed, although in the larger picture, I sometimes think it's much like doing a calibrated chemical analysis of holy water or communion wine: the blind faithful will fight the effort with religious zeal. To wit, 'audiovoodoo.'
@@jimshaw899 When I first got into the hobby I imagined it would be saturated with level-headed science geeks, like high school A/V clubs. It was odd to find that the hobby had been infiltrated by voodoo and religion-like fuzzy thinking.
@@astroporpoise7802 :) When a hobby becomes a spiritual cause, all manner of topics become battles in a war zone of inquisition. And as with so many wars and battles, the ignorant and dim-witted line up on the front lines to fire shots and dig fox holes.
"Ours is not to reason why; our is just to fight for hot glowing glass bottles and plastic platters going aroundy-roundy."
[And to long for the next model weapon.]
;)
@@jimshaw899 Hehe, for sure. BTW, nice RCA Nipper avatar :) I have an RCA 6F8G tube that I use with my Bottlehead Crack and love the tone and lifelike bite to vocal peaks--truly nourishing and invigorating versus a 12AU7 in a blind test. ;)
@@jimshaw899 very nice analogy
One of the best channels I've ever found.
Thank you. Wonderful content and I love the admission that you realize you can be fooled by listening closely after making a change.
I'm sure we all have this problem. Double blind is almost impossible when doing AB testing of gear.
DESTROYED
DEVASTATED
5K for a device that does worse than your 10$ power socket...
A metal box with flashing lights and a screen that spews garbage info.
So if I attach some mobile phones to a powerboard I will get the same or better power, consumes less energy, plus it can go on the internet, play movies, do cool visual simulations, and display all of ASR and costs less?
@@RennieAsh Pretty much yes..
You are destroyed? Devastated? Do you own one? Did you loose a home in proceedings? I doubt that. This is hobby. If you cannot afford this hobby pick another one. Or get a life mate. Cheers!
@@wellroundedsound2422 Oh the irony of your username... Made me laugh. Thanx!
@@wellroundedsound2422 it's a hobby to buy expensive things that make minimal difference to your hifi? Interesting.
It's literally more affordable to buy things that offer proper benefits in the hobby of HiFi.
So not wanting to spend $5k on this power box is mostly not because someone can't afford it, it's because there's a ton of other things you could buy instead, even if you're a millionaire
Well thank you man, this shows me that I’m perfectly fine with my audio equipment as it is, I don’t need to add unnecessary things and waste my money.
The concept is similar to a double static conversion UPS.This device consists of an AC to DC rectifier and a DC to AC inverter. The UPS adds a battery charger and batteries. It also adds a static bypass switch and optionally a maintenance bypass switch and a computer grade isolation transformer. It is intended for mission critical industrial applications such as data centers, often in conjunction with a diesel or gas fired generator. I've used them for sensitive equipment such as HPLCs and mass spectrometers in the pharmaceutical industry.
Power ratings for single units can range up to 1000 kw or more and they can be parallel.
The spec on the PS audio regenerator is 1 orrcent THD on the output. UPSs of this type use high power switching transistors. The regenerator uses a 60 hz sine wave generator and a class AB audio amplifier. The inexpensive UPSs you'd buy for your computer is called a line interactive type and has toomuch distortion for audio equipment. UPSs for data centers used to have 5 percent distortion but I think things have improved. Only on the last few years have companies come out with single phase models suitable for home audio equipment. Due to their high cost they'd be worth considering for expensive systems. IMO if you bought multithousand dollar equipment and it doesn't have A power supply that can give you clean well regulated DC you overpaid. BTW one trick to get rid of those high frequency harmonics os to wire a small value capacitor in parallel with the main power supply filter capacitors. Those big caps often don't do a good job at high frequencies.
It's called "psychoacoustics" Amir and, I am sure, it's not the first time you hear this term.
We can also introduce a new term, "optico-psychoacoustics" which involves the visual impact of an attractive piece of electronic equipment on our racks.
Additionally, the emotional pressure of "money well spent" / "it must sound better", is a factor in what we _think_ we hear.
Thanks for the detailed report.
Yep. If they sold this same exact piece for 10 times less, 550 bucks, a lot of people would be sending it back due to not noticing any sound difference. But since its 5500 it must be doing something
“All lies and jest, still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.”
That Simon and Garfunkel lyric describes the “high end audio” worlds shared psychosis.
As for Paul from BS Audio...the emperor has no clothes.
Fools and money are easily parted. Great review. More debunked snake oil bullshit.
After a long absence on YT, what better than to come back with an awesome review of a current PS Audio PowerPlant. Another huge myth busted by Amir. While I looked at it on ASR's website, it's a very good decision to put this review up on YT as this category of products has been so overhyped for over a couple of decades. I was contemplating buying one many years ago but I was hoping to see a good review with actual measurements. Glad I didn't take the jump. Paul from PSA is going to be full of love for you Amir. 😁
Thanks Jesus. I always wonder if the video reviews are superfluous (to text reviews) or have value and I should keep doing them. Feedback like this is valuable as far as topics for future reviews.
@@AudioScienceReview I enjoy and use both. Thank you.
@@AudioScienceReview it has allot of added enjoyment/value for me at least. i notice i often like to hear or see a video more then reading. i can listen to this as a podcast. and sometimes take a peak when a measurement is shown :) while still doing something at the same time :)
@@AudioScienceReview Like Dave, I enjoy both. However, I believe that your should spend more of your valuable time on your ASR website. This type of educational video and certain equipment reviews that are of concern to the majority of the community are the kind I think you should concentrate on in my opinion in terms of YT videos. With your great wisdom, I'm sure you'll find the right balance. I think the video reviews make them more accessible to the average hobbyists that are less technically oriented since you explain the topics so well and can guide them in the direction to what is technically more important.
Excellent as always, a lot of money for basically a UPS without the battery. The conclusion is exactly what I was expecting.
Can't wait to see Paul respond
Just found your channel, really enjoy listening to you and your intellectual points of view
I really like how you can simplify technical stuff for people. it's necessary imo.
kudos....
Thank you. It is a pleasure to read such feedback.
I enjoyed your review very much. I appreciated how you described exactly what your measurements meant as well as the anecdotal information regarding another generator you've had experience with.
I recently bought a pair of mono block amplifiers. They use two 805 tubes and are used. After hooking everything up correctly, while playing a mono record with a dedicated mono cartridge, I noticed that one of the speakers measures 4-5dB louder than the other. Even when I play a stereo record, the difference is noticeable from sitting in the "sweet spot."
I've changed XLR cables, tubes, adjusted the bias adjustment on the top of the amplifier as well as the potentiometer within the chassis. I also put exchanged the amps from left to right.
I noticed that the RCA connector has been removed from one of the amplifiers. The one with the RCA connecter measures louder than the other one.
I'm hoping that re-soldering the wires to connect the RCA connector will equal the amps out.
My question is do you work on these type of issues and if so where are you located?
Thanks!
I do not. When I get stuff to review, I often fix small problems in them but not outside of that context. Hope you find someone to sort it out for you.
Nice to see you back in the debunking channel. Keep it up!
Thank you so much and will do.
You're the reason I decided to go with a Denon x3700h after my Marantz crapped the bed. Thanks for simply providing data and not selling snake oil!
Perhaps all those blankets on your bed were overheating the Marantz LOL 😂
Ahhh! Finally a new video. And such an entertaining topic. 😁 Thank you so much, Amir! 👏👏👏
Noise is a random change in phase which distorts the signal over a particular bandwidth, but it is higher after the P12 output. The noise is still low enough that it won't be heard. The spikes are the spurious content which can be heard at a specific frequency, but I couldn't tell you what the average human ear can hear as a dBc level at a particular offset frequency from the fundamental frequency.
I've been wondering about power conditioners for years. You answered to many questions. Thank you!!!
Why believe this fella or the ps audio fella. If you've been wondering get one on trial and TRY IT use your ears and judgement.
Regarding blind tests and how we humans can easily fool ourselves... I have no particular hearing issues, I'm almost 55 and can still hear 14.5 kHz. Still in self made blind tests (like quickly toggling the on / off switch of equalizers until I don't know any more if i'm toggling them on or off), I have no trouble to admit that I struggle really hard to tell even if 3-4 dB peaking filters with low Q (say, about 2, so affecting a large frequency band) right in the midrange band where our hearing apparatus is most sensitive, are present or not! And there's still people that swear they can hear differences in sound if they lift the speaker cable a few inches from the floor... 🤣🤣😂🤣😂
Thanks 🙏 very interesting. I currently bought an isotek Aquarius for mastering purpose.
And I can’t here any differences. I did nul tests with and without, and I nulls perfectly. What a deception. So I thought it might be that my system is ok and in my particular case it makes no difference. But it seems many units claiming to do usefull stuff currently doesn’t. Thanks for spending the time to make this video. To your knowledge, is there units that “regenerates” ac that has an audible effect ?
None that I have found. I have tested every class of power device and none show any efficacy.
@@AudioScienceReview thanks 🙏 a lot. Have a nice week. Olivier
Love your reviews, so thorough, informative and educational 👍 thanks for the great work!
Since Paul McGowan in his videos stresses the importance of lower output impedance in creating the benefits of his AC regenerators, would it have been possible to address that claim as well?
Yes, I just did: www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/ps-audio-p12-review-part-2-power-testing.31432/
Great review. You just saved me $7,000. That's the cost in Australia.
For 5.5K$ I expect a live band!
:)
I actually very happy seeing people get rich! And PS Audio helps to find such people. We shall respect all ;-) I does not mean I would spend 300$ on power cable though ;-)
I don't think my entire system which also includes a multiple speakers, desktop system + PC + TV tops that amount. It's a drop in the water for people who spend as much as a new car on audio however
The only thing I like about these component sized power conditioners is that it makes the wire management much nicer. I use a monster power one that I got for free and ordered a bunch of shorter power cables. No more loops of cables. Everything is nice and neat. OCD satisfied.
Wow, those sharp metal edges on the bottom of that unit are shockingly bad. As careful as PSAudio is about those types of things, I can't believe they let that product get all the way out to market like that with the possibility of cutting someone's hand open if they aren't careful in how they handle it. Huge oversight on their part and one that needs to be corrected. Hopefully they have contacted their case supplier in China and requested an immediate fix on that already. The owner at PSAudio is really good about being responsive to things like this. I'll reach out to him by way of e-mail and make sure he's aware of this and has a fix in the works for it ASAP. Thanks for pointing that out. It's possible that they have other products with the same issue that need to be corrected as well. Good catch there!
Thank you for showing with test equipment what we all already knew. Measuring the outputs from the psu's was a good test.
Yeh, I thought it would be good to show that.
Incredible review, than you Amir. I learned so much.
I wonder how long before people finally pick up on the fact they can get fairly inexpensive UPS, laymen's term Battery Backups, that do basically the exact same thing as these ridiculously priced power supplies? Pure Sine-Wave battery backup power supplies are available from a few hundred to 10's of thousands of course but you can easily find them in the $100 to $300 range. Those lower cost units should be more than capable of supporting most audio setups with the added bonus of being able to use your equipment for a few hours to days, (depending on total stored energy), during power outages. I use them for all of my electronics that it makes sense to do so and have never experienced any issues with hum/noise since I began doing so...
Oh and I forgot to add the reason I personally use UPS/Battery Backups. I use them because they're one of if not the best surge protectors money can buy in most cases if you purchase good quality units with the lab/real world testing and reports to back up their claims. The better made brands actually have very good warranties that will cover your equipment via replacement or cash equivalent if damaged during a surge the unit should have protected it from. Some of these warranties go up to as much as $150k in total value. I also enjoy that during power outages I can still use my equipment for a time to do what it's meant to do, listen to music or get information from radio stations while everything else is down in my area...
The problem with UPS systems is the low amperage output.
The 1.5kHz spike on that switcher might be the feedback loop. If you didn't load the power supply it probably went into discontinuous conduction mode, hence the noise.
I believe 32:33 sums it up perfectly; just knowing that something has been changed is often enough to completely alter your perception. Seamless, blind A/B switching is really the only halfway-reliable way to compare audio gear by ear, and even then must be taken with a grain of salt.
I really like Paul as a person, and I do believe that his company makes some great stuff, but the fact that they sell a product like this at this price point says a lot; both of them and their target demographic. If this thing was say ~$1000 and the marketing more honest then hey, still pretty frivolous but maybe not the worst investment for someone with truly horrific mains quality. But in a way they HAVE to charge much more, because the target demographic is in a position where they are hunting for anything that might make ANY difference whatsoever, in a system so expensive and particular that adding in something that was "only" $1000 would just feel silly. Not a terrible problem to have, I should imagine, but it does open the door to things like this, as well as comically expensive power cables and the like.
Yeh, they have gotten the high-end audiophile to keep spending money on these tweaks. There are endless number of them and unfortunately, none do anything useful based on my testing.
The right question is : do yo enjoy the music ? The target is pleasure, morale boost, and happiness. Now if you change the purpose, and you want to go into a competition over quality of hears-brain perception. Or a competition over who has the most impressive equipment. I think the world would experience more pease if the things were qualified and graded by happiness produced. Accessing a higher level of truth and knowledge is creating happiness. You are doing good to the world by sharing measurements. I do not blame the buyer of a useless device, because he might draw pleasure from it even if useless. But the reputable brand that make the device should correct course on this. Either inform that power quality has almost no impact on output, or at the minimum build a device that does what it should.
Thank you for a clear description on what these things do or do not do. I was thinking of buying one to power my time machine (WIP).
Thank you Amir for all of your excellent work. I enjoy your in depth knowledge of EE, you make a topic far past my ability approachable.
Thank you; you’ve handed everyone a BS litmus test for any reviewer that swears that the addition of a Power Plant increased soundstage and 3-D imaging, as well as providing a blacker background. This did not go over well with those who spent thousands of dollars on these and are forced to say “everything can’t be measured”, “I can hear a difference”, “Amir has a bias against PS Audio”, “Paul wouldn’t lie to us” and so forth. Real life advice: never ask the person who’s trying to sell you something if it really works of if it’s a good deal.
Don't listen to either side. If you're curious trial one in your system. Measurements mean bot all to most people anyway. USE YOUR EARS 👂👂
Greetings !!!EXCELLENT!!! your work the one you are doing, I have an Onkyo Digital A88-00 with an M504 amplifier, with an EQ540 equalizer and another EQ201 and a TA2550 deck and a CP1500F platter and Ortofon 40 turntable needle and DX708 CD, and the T4500 radio, Everything the INTEGRA models, which are the best of Onkyo's, are NOT mass-produced if they are not selected from Onkyo. And the cables connected to the equipment are from the KabelDirekt Pro Series RCA brand and 4 DAS R-212 speakers. IN THE END A CLASSIC OF THE 80S AND 90S of sound equipment of that time, over the years I have never broken any module, that is already seen from how they worked before and the manufacturing materials, I hope to have it duarte, many years for the quality of a good musical team, greetings and very good videos that you have a great like for your great videos, great sound models like these devices are no longer manufactured, it is a pity, that today everything is talk, greetings from Barcelona - You could do one of Onkyo Interga also of Review
Yeh, I really miss the golden years of hi-fi. You could look at how big and heavy something was, and it would be strong evidence of engineering excellence. Now high-end audio often looks big and heavy but insides are poorly engineered in following audiophile myths.
After watching this video I have ordered a P12. I have no doubt this guy has great electronic knowledge. The thing is, many many people and reviewers who I respect and have trust in, hear differences. Whenever I have upgraded components and cables, I have heard a difference. Yes, sometimes marginal but other times significant. You,can throw all the measurements you like at me but if I hear something I hear something.
Yes, we are all subject to confirmation bias I get that, but knowing it’s likely to be present allows you to control for it no to be extra vigilant. And in any case Paul McGowan doesn’t need to be a snake oil salesman. He’s been at the top of the high end game for 50years. Why make junk? He doesn’t need to. How many snake oil salesmen allow a long home trial period with a no questions asked return policy? That should tell you all you need to know.
Rather than just hate, try the changes, see if you hear. If your system is not of sufficient quality or you are unable to discern subtle differences, that’s ok, by all means go back to hating.
What you are describing in the initial part of your statement is referred to as "psychoacoustics". I would refer you to the YT videos put out by Ethan Winer should you desire to be further informed on this topic.
@@rogerlavallee3572 Thank You, I will. I’ve had the P12 in my system for couple weeks. A major difference. Says my THD was 7%. It’s def a keeper.
Wow! Thanks for the eye opening test. I also noticed that BK makes a model 9805 that does the same as 9801 with 1500 watts max. I didn’t see info on continuous use.
Yeh, I looked a 9805 first but it is over 100 pounds and it is massive with multiple fans and such.
Excellent explanation and approach.
Great review. I love it when you find expensive snake oil.
Listening to your channel saves me money.
Ah, that is so good to hear, pun intended. :) Thanks for commenting.
I wonder if any fans would send you some Synergistic Research equipment. :)
Will probably happen at one point. But yes, it would be really nice to get coverage of their stuff. :)
Excellent video. I never believe anything coming from PS Audio.
You should go to their factory and listen to their stuff, it is pretty amazing.
@@sunnohh Why we have measurements of a lot of their stuff and much of it is sub par like their dacs for example
If you were to hear their new speaker in person, you'd be completely blown away. It is priced high, but they are developing more affordable speakers. If you were to hear their amps, they have small tubes in the input stage with a solid state output stage, combining the splendor of tubes with the power of solid state.
Great review
I follow your website a lot when I am in search of any equipment I want to buy..
Great science staff , makes me learn a lot of things I was never aware of…
Thanks
Best thing I ever did was get a DEQX for active setup, I learned a tonne about what actually changes how speakers sound. I would say more than 80% of sq comes from the transducer quality and the phase relationship and timing of the drivers and how well they overlap. And especially the physical qualities of how the speaker directivity interacts wtih your room! Almost everything else is BS after a certain point of diminishing returns.
Well said.
What? No precious metal impregnated oil capacitors? How can you possibly get microdetails and a decent sound?
Maybe you should be sure about what products PS Audio actually makes? They have a P15 and a P20 with better performance and features (Including NO FANS!). All I can say is I wasn't expecting a huge improvement over the Furman devices I used. I was wrong.. The improvements is detail and clarity were amazing. Well worth the investment in a P15.
I've really missed your videos. Thanks for uploading. Hopefully the effects of your flooding is far behind you.
Amir, we all have a big debt to you. Thanks for a well done job.
Ah, it is my pleasure. I too get insight into devices when I test them.
I wonder how the Torus Toroid isolation power transformers would measure in comparison and how it stacks up to the PS Regenerators performance.. 🤔. Been meaning to buy one of these.
I have tested one of their competitors, the Equitech: www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/equitech-1-5rq-balanced-power-review.24948/
It didn't do any good and actually cost some power loss.
Wonder is there's anything that they make that's actually worth the money. The few reviews of yours I've seen have either been average performance for high end price (sprout amp) or equal or worse performance like this.
That's basically the summary of what I have tested so far from them. They are good sized company with nice engineering and manufacturing resources that could be put to much better use. Instead they keep chasing myths in audio. They really need to do some controlled testing of what they produce so they get a shot of reality. With site like ours measuring their gear and their effectiveness, they need to step up now to produce useful products.
I only pick up their stuff used or when they run a special, which doesn’t happen that often. The amount they’re asking for their CD transport makes my head spin.
Would love to see an examination of things that do make a measurable difference. Linear power? Amplifier power level? Room treatment (im assuming this could be easy to prove)? Noise on a digital source?
These AC conditioners make a HUGE DIFFERENCE to ps audios bank balance
But Paul sounds like such a nice guy! Is that a good sales pitch? Positive distortion of BS to sell a product is not uncommon.
Here is extremely good on camera, that is for sure.
@@AudioScienceReview I recall when Bose was pushing his bass amp. The distortion figures were crazy but he used the ears' inability to correlate that distortion with 'bad' sound. Happily, he failed to convince 'purists' that it was OK to make terrible measuring instruments when it was simple enough to do better.
Aside from your BK Precision 9801 ;
Is there a power conditioner / filter, that you’ve analyzed, that reduces noise to a [ worthwhile / satisfactory ] degree ?
I’m so over this rabbit hole - I, really, am.
Thank you.
Paul is the snake oil salesman of all snake oil salesman... Gibberish on his YT channel all the time...
Is you spend thousands on a power regenerator, diamond encrusted cables, audio tuned fuses, cable lifters etc. etc. then you will hear a huge improvement and your investment will be worth every penny. Problem is that nobody else will hear any improvement.
Worse yet, since it is not based on reality, the owner too will stop perceiving such an improvement so has to go and buy yet another ineffective tweak to get that false sensation.
Thank you Amir ! I have been waiting for this review for a long time...
Glad I sold my PS Audio P10 a few months back. It was creating so many issues with ground loops.. 😖
What a great video. The human brain is so fascinating to say the least. We often create our own reality in many of our experiences. In the end who’s to say that is incorrect. After all, our perception of reality is reality for us. Lol. Great job.
I think of you as being the Audio Mythbuster.
In my career I dealt with large Power Systems and the issues of power distortion as referenced to IEEE-519 specifications. I have seen as high as 45% IThd in a power system that has a large number of non-linier switching power supplies on the grid. When this distortion would effect a sound system a simple Isolation transformer on the power input to the sound system would cure the issue, and also eliminate any ground loops between the sound system and the mains.
As for "listing tests" When I worked in audio industry in the 70's I became aware of the Bose effect. you hear what the salesman tells you to hear.
You should do a review of the Entracte Audio EF130 powerline filter. It was designed by Gilbert who owned
Blue Cricle Audio
Your reviews are simply the best Amir.
Hi Amir, missed your videos, welcome back mate.
Thank you Nico. Hope to produce more of them now....
Wonderful science of measurements! I thank you for what you do. Please keep it up.
Great video thanks. Do you take phone calls to answer questions?
Pretty much confirms my suspicions. Had one years ago (not a psa) ended up sending it back. Seems risky to add all that equipment between, wall and gear. What worked better than expected was running a dedicated line including breaker from box using 10/2 cable
Hi thank you for the very valuable review
I think that all people serious about their system should own a spectrum analyser to check the system
I am quite happy when i crank the volume up with no signal and I Don get much noise from the speakers
Unfortunately it's not the case now I must have some issues
Thanks again Amir!
PS Audio = PoS Audio !!!!!!!!!!!!
Excellent video as usual... love your humor 🙂 and very happy to see you back. All the best.
I have a blown channel on PS audio preamplifier that was plugged in to one of their regenerators. See direct stream their flagship DAC had to be sent back twice one time just two days after I got it and then a couple of months later. So I guess it's not going to be my end game system as I hope it would be.
A very very important statement starting at 32:55. So true! Thanks Amir, great work!
Been waiting for this one! Thanks!
Any chance on testing and review of the Puritan Audiolab PSM156 or the PSM 1512? They are showing a scope of the AC noise before and after they plug it on to the PSM156. Thanks for your consideration!
Well, if you have a modified since wave inverter in your off grid cabin, it might work then?
Or your noisy sportsman generator from harbor freight. Good luck hearing the improvements over the noise of the 2 cycle engine. It might be worth the money at that point if you have one of these devices for power. One can hope.
I see this device better suited for someone who lives in a place where they have Extremely dirty AC. To the point that you get brown outs. Where you may have a bunch of inductive loads like motors starting all the time that dip the line voltage bellow 100v. Maybe even a very saggy AC where you might only see 90 volts of power. Something more common in east coast high density areas or maybe an apartment complex or a industrial Business Park?
I wonder if anybody has actually done any testing for AC generators on the market. Seems more like a Project Farm kind of thing. Pretty sure Cummins would be happy to submit one of their AC generators for testing or have specs on it since much of their gear goes into driving Medial equipment and Military Electronics which are kind of sensitive for AC noise.
I wonder how clean those Tesla power units are when actually generating AC for your home? Likewise with those Grid Tie Inverters.
I have a few commercial server UPS backups. I wonder how clean those are as well?
Boy, wouldn't that be weird! A thosand dollar APC UPS backup working better then the PS audio unit? And you have Back up power to boot! LOL!.
I plan to test UPS products in the future.
Hello Amir, would you recommend using the BK precision product as a AC regenerator for hifi systems? I have seen however it only comes with one outlet so would connecting a power strip be a viable option to connect more devices?
Fantastic video content unless you are P.S. Audio!🤔🤯🤫🤭
Amir - I would refer you to the You Tube PS Audio titled "Can CD's sound different?" Aug 9, 2018 where Paul refers to adding "dither"(aka noise ) in the mastering process as a deliberate effort to enhance the sound of the CD. I was wondering what you would think of his analysis.
It is a muddled talk because he doesn't quite know the underlying math and detail. That aside, if your recording has higher resolution/dynamic range than 16 bit CD, you must dither. It is not an optional thing. If you just truncate, it can create distortion which under some conditions could be audible. Seeing how most production for the last couple of decades is at higher resolution, I would hope that dither is used for conversion.
It is hard to know if the XRCD and such had real content in low order bits. If it did not and it was all noise, then dither has no or marginal benefit.
Paul PS Audio putting out bunk products? who would of thought it....always funny when people talk about what a "nice guy" he is. They've clearly never worked in an aggressive selling or marketing position to know what that persona really is 🙃
Most money I ever lost was at the hands of a charming sounding sales person working for me. Rubbed me blind until I got past this accent and let him go.
Whew. I almost spent 5 grand on a power strip...
You also spent that much on a power strip that sucks power on its own as well!
Imagine what kind of gold/silver/rhodium plated crystal surge power board you could buy and still costs less than that if you want a bling power plug ;p
Maybe we should just call it the happiness machine. The people who buy the P12 will be happy that they made this great investment and they are sure their sound quality improved. And Paul will be happy that he made some money and he has happy customers. Win/win. Everybody is happy!
There is something to that for sure. The problem is that it won't last. Soon you think your system is boring sounding again and in need of another expensive fix. It will never end....
I am curious how the PS12 measures at higher loads on the output of 25% 50% 75% 100% etc. I believe we will see some raised noise floors due to sagging outputs and high IMD.
Thank you Amir for all your great videos. On this topic do you have any thoughts on Stromtank high power? They are made in Germany and they have massive batteries. What I have in mind is s5000. Thank you again
I think it is a waste of money. They are way too expensive for a battery powered source. And have too little output. They will absolutely not make a difference in your audio gear. It is not even clear how clean their output is.
@@AudioScienceReview thank you so much for your advice. Straight through the wall it is.
Given that PS Audio owns at least one Audio Precision, I have to imagine they've retrieved these measurements themselves. They just don't share them.
I suspect they have not bothered to test anything like I have. But sure, if they have and don't release them, then that is doubly bad.
Good discussion about perceptions about blind testing!!
I believe there are a PowerPlant 12, PowerPlant 15, PowerPlant 20 and a less expensive Stellar PowerPlant 3.
Currently, and through March 31, 2022 the PowerPlant 15 is discounted to $4,999 USD from its regular price of $7,499 USD.
Yes, I got educated on their model line up after the review. :) I suspect the architecture is the same in all of them though (partial regeneration) so what we found with P12 is representative of the line. That said, if someone wants me to test the other ones, I can. I do dread their weight though. The P12 killed my back already!
Amir’s Audio Myth-busters strikes again!