Features

PS Audio P300 Power Plant (review) ($995; reviewed by Robert Deutsch & John Atkinson, Vol.22 No.12 & Vol.23 Nos.5 & 12, December 1999, May 2000, & December 2000)

Runners-Up (in alphabetical order):
Arcici Suspense Rack ($2299; reviewed by Shannon Dickson, Vol.23 No.1, January 2000)
ASC Tube Traps ($248-798; reviewed by Brian Damkroger, Vol.23 No.2, February 2000)
Bright Star Rack of Gibraltar 2 Equipment Rack ($1995; reviewed by Brian Damkroger, Vol.23 No.5, May 2000)
Cardas Golden Cross loudspeaker cable ($1428/5' pair; reviewed by Jonathan Scull, Vol.23 No.2, February 2000)
Cardas Golden Reference interconnect ($917/1m pair; reviewed by Jonathan Scull, Vol.23 No.2, February 2000)
Digital Recordings Audio-CD ($24.95; reviewed by Kalman Rubinson, Vol.23 No.1, January 2000)
VPI HW-17F Record-Cleaning Machine ($1100; reviewed by Michael Fremer, Vol.23 No.6, June 2000)

It was a virtually unanimous vote: The PS Audio P300 Power Plant got more first-place votes from more reviewers than any other component in any other category. It appears that everyone suffers from dirty AC, and everyone's system correspondingly benefits from the P300's cleanly regenerated mains supply. Basically a class-AB solid-state amplifier optimized to amplify one frequency to ±57.5V, and with AC receptacles replacing what would otherwise be speaker binding posts, the P300 runs hot—JA was chastised by one reader for recommending such an environmentally unfriendly component—but produces a universal improvement in sound quality. "The background blacks become blacker," sez JA, lapsing into reviewerspeak when discussing the effect of the P300, set to 90Hz, on his Levinson No.380s preamplifier. You can read Robert Deutsch's thoughts on the Multiwave update P300 in his December 2000 Follow-Up, but a sentence from his original review pretty much said it all: "The benefits of the Power Plant were such that it took a real effort of will for me to take it out of my system to make comparisons." Amen to that, Bob.