Say you own your own home. Let's also imagine that you've built a pretty decent listening room. How's the bass? Does it seem to "leak" out of the room when you crank the system? Adding subwoofers won't help a room that leaks bass through flabby walls. On the other hand, a concrete bunker isn't ideal either. That kind of room…
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Time magazine has chosen Albert Einstein as the Person of the Century. As the great man said, everything's relative, so in this installment of "Fine Tunes" I'll cover a few relatively inexpensive tips for homeowners, or those building their own audiophile domiciles.
Although advertising copywriters would have us believe otherwise, there is not a lot of true innovation in audio. Most audio products are based on well-established principles, perhaps refined in detail and execution. Of course, some products do take novel approaches, but they tend to be too off-the-wall to be taken seriously, or simply don't do the job as well as more conventional products. What's really exciting is to encounter a product that is audaciously original in concept, yet makes so much sense that you wonder why no one even thought of it before (footnote 1).
I am, of course,…
To ensure that no electronic nasties reach the equipment connected to it, and that the Power Plant itself is protected from damage, PS Audio has taken a comprehensive approach. It starts on the input side with a megahertz-range filter to deal with any radio-frequency energy riding on the AC. Catastrophic protection is provided in the output stage by opto-isolators placed across the emitter resistors. When a predetermined voltage drop develops across the emitter resistor, the opto-isolator sends a signal to the Power Plant's microprocessor, which shuts down the power activation relay.
In…
Another major benefit of the Power Plant was in the area of rhythm and pace. I generally find differences of this sort harder to pin down than, say, tonal balance, resolution, or imaging, but with the Power Plant in the system, I was more aware of music's rhythmic components, whether the lilt of The Beauty of the North (Dorian DOR-90190) or the exuberance of Boogeyin! (Wildchild! 02452).
Power factor
The Power Plant has a feature that, as far as I know, is unique among equipment offered for audiophile use: variable AC frequency. This so-called Power Factor allows AC frequency to be…
Like the Muse processor, the CAT SL-1 preamplifier has a highly sophisticated power supply, the latest, Ultimate version having higher-value capacitors, more RC filters for better power-line-filter performance, and decoupled cascaded regulation across the entire audioband. CAT designer Ken Stevens is one of those who strongly discourage the use of outboard PLCs, and, indeed, I have previously found the CAT preamp to perform best without such devices. But, as good as the CAT's power supply is, the preamp sounds better when plugged into the Power Plant. The differences are similar to those I…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: AC synthesizer. Input: 120V/60Hz. Output: 115V/50-120Hz. Distortion: 0.1% (0.05% typical).
Dimensions: 8.85" W by 5.5" H by 19" D. Weight: 30 lbs.
Serial number of sample reviewed: 0302 (second sample).
Price: $995. Approximate number of dealers: 10. Factory-direct: 30-day return privilege, buyer pays shipping both ways. Warranty: 3 years parts & labor, transferable.
Manufacturer: PS Audio International, P.O. Box 2037, Avon, CO 81620. Tel: (877) 772-8340. Fax: (970) 845-0914. Web: www.psaudio.com.
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Digital source: PS Audio Lambda Two transport, PS Audio Ultralink Two and Muse Two Ninety Six digital processors, Rotel RCD-971 CD player.
Analog source: Linn LP12 turntable (fully updated), Ittok tonearm, AudioQuest AQ-7000nsx cartridge.
Preamplifier: Convergent Audio Technology SL-1 Ultimate.
Power amplifiers: Rotel RB-1090, Parasound HCA-3500.
Loudspeakers: Dunlavy SC-IV/A.
Cables: TARA Labs The Two interconnects and speaker cables, Illuminati Orchid digital link, TARA Labs Decade power cables.
Accessories: Argent RoomLenses, Bright…
FollowUp from Stereophile May 2000, Vol.23 No.5
PS Audio P300 Power Plant: A major highlight of my life as an audiophile was to have the Mark Levinson No.32 Reference preamplifier spend a few weeks in my system last fall. Reviewed in the January 2000 Stereophile by Jonathan Scull, the magnificent No.32 enabled my music to communicate more directly than I had ever experienced from my system.
Paradoxically, it was better in this regard than not having a preamp at all. A while back I bought an all-digital Z-Systems rdp-1 to control volume and digital source switching, so I could feed…
Stereophile December 2000 Follow-Up: PS Audio P-300 Power Plant with MultiWave
By Robert Deutsch
As far as I've been able to determine, the first Stereophile review of a power-line conditioner (PLC) appeared in the April 1988 issue: Lewis Lipnick's review of the Adcom ACE-115 power-line filter/spike suppressor. Since then, devices designed to improve AC power have become a major audiophile product category, and by 1994 they'd grown popular enough to be allotted a separate section in Stereophile's "Recommended Components."
In 1999, the PLC world was stood on its ear by the…
P-300 with MultiWave part 2 Goldberg then suggested another variant: adding a single odd harmonic to each sinewave fundamental to produce "partial" squarewaves, with flat tops that would allow capacitors in the power supply to be charged for a longer time (footnote 1). In the production version of the MultiWave board, the user can select either a pure sinewave (variable from 50Hz to 120Hz, as before), or one of nine MultiWaves that are sequences of sinewaves or partial squarewaves. For example, the SS1 setting has a 50Hz partial squarewave followed by two 120Hz partial squarewaves; SS4 is a…