Going to buy a PS Audio AC regenerator.

Well, I'm done with the ups and downs of my system sounding mediocre, lousy, and fantastic.
I've concluded that the fluctuations are due to poor electrical current stability. Not noise.

So, I've decided to purchase a PS Audio Stellar Power Plant 3. Which is an AC regenerator. Not a filter.

I noticed there's no meter on this thing to determine THD or anything else.

Any one else have one?

 

The earlier models all lacked that sort of display as well. I've been tempted to buy one of these units for years, but my power issues haven't been bad enough yet to justify the expense.

It will be interesting to see if you think that it fixes this problem for you. I personally have hypothesized that barometric pressure could play a role in the phenomenon which you have observed as well.

 

I don't have one but make sure it's produced power is sufficient for your needs. If you're just using it for source components (i.e. everything other than your amp) you should be ok. It's only rated at:

• 300 watts continuous regenerated output
• 500 watts short term regenerated output (I think this is for 30 seconds)
• 900 watts peak regenerated output

If you're considering using it for your amp make sure you know your amp's current draw. My tube amp, even in 60W triode mode draws between 270-300W - I've measured it directly

 

The above poster makes an excellent point. I would not plug any of my power amps into this unit. I'd stick with other electronics.

 

I'll stick my NAD 270 into the wall. I believe this is a high current amp. And for almost 20 years, hasn't disappointed.

But just for fun, I'll try everything from the Stellar first.

PS Audio are accepting trade in's to apply to a discount. Which is pretty cool. They even accept just about anything else you've got to send them. Applying the original sale price of that - not the used price - to the discount.
I've got an original PS Audio DL 3 dac from the 1990's.
It's so old I can't find the original price for it!

 

How do you measure this?

 

Interesting, how did you get to this conclusion?
With poor current stability, do you mean that Voltage and/or Amperes fluctuate at a very low frequency, i.e. a noise in the far less than 10Hz range?

 

Audio regen units are shocking prices & bit of a con , industrial units are a 1/10th of the price
well designed power supplies should work on any input power & sound the same
tried a few & they make a system sound lifeless & flat sounding
300/400watt unit should only cost $450

GOAL ZERO YETI 400 LITHIUM PORTABLE POWER STATION – REVIEW BY ENJOY THE MUSIC.COM

 

The voltage dips have destroyed a number of components.
First, a Mac, then a Mac G4 - which was taken in for repair several times.
The last time, the tech commented "I've never seen a heat sink damaged!"
They fixed it.

Several amps - an Adcom, an NAD, and a wonderful, vintage Proton receiver.

Then I got an APC UPS for the computer (with pure sine wave - overkill, ok) and it ended all problems with my computer.

Plugged my audio stuff into the APC - bass was enormous. But hard and brittle.

I've used a voltage meter to check the voltage on outlets.
It dips and dives and those brownouts are what's been causing the damage to my equipment.

 

I use a $25 Kill A Watt EZ that I got at Home Depot ( I think you can order one on Amazon too). It's really pretty handy. It's marketed mainly to estimate annual energy consumption and translate to dollars but I use it to get instantaneous draws on watts, amps, and voltage. I made a log of what each piece draws. For me my amp draws about 300W and the rest of my components together draw another 100W. I think the total amps are about 6A in my system. You can use this meter also to watch voltage fluctuations on your main if you suspect you have an issue like the OP does.

 

Cool. I'm reading the review.

 

That's what I have.

 

The battery IS the power supply and the sole source of the DC if you're plugging your gear into it. It would accomplish your goal.

 

Understood. I'm reading the review.
PS Audio let me try the unit before I buy.

Just read the review.
I'm sticking with PS Audio.

 

Very cool, thanks for the tip! I don't think I've noticed any issues, but I always like to learn so this can be a valuable tool for my own reference.

 

The P3 has an outlet that is filtered but not regenerated for high-current components. No need to use the wall outlet.

John K.

 

I have a tube integrated amp plugged to the hc of the p3 and have no problems.

 

I can feel with you! I lived in the Middle East some 30 years ago and I had brought a new amplifier. It only took a few month and the transformer blew.
I went to an electricians shack and the (Indian) guy re-wired the transformer by hand! It took him more than a week, “ Uh, very good amplifier , Sir”, he said. I forgotten how much it cost , but it was peanuts!
I also bought a simple voltage surge controller from him, probably self made....and It cut out power supply to my stereo several times, just briefly!

Anyway, I also wanted to suggest to try out the stellar P3 first and perhaps some other equipment. A power conditioner also has usually power surge control built in, can handle all kinds of amplifier and is cheaper, e.g PS audio Dectet (order with the Stellar P3 for try out?).
If you do not like the any of these following testing, there is also now very powerful battery unit (Stromtank) that generates an extremely clean and stable AC supply. Downside, it is 10k € here.

 

Don't you have any redress with your power supplier? There must be limits to how bad it can get surely?

 

Yes, I've been in touch with them.
They improved the power line cable from the street to the house, and that did improve things.

A couple of days ago, we had a sudden power on/off on/off
Before the outside power backup could kick in.
It blew out my ceiling fan and microwave oven.

So now I'm not just looking at an AC regenerator to keep the power up to spec, but some kind of UPS to protect me from sudden power surges.
To use a UPS in front of the PS Audio regenerator may be the way to go, but then, the hard sounding UPS wont be filtered by the regenerator.
Any advice is appreciated.

 

My experience in the UK is nothing like yours. I have a pretty stable power supply with small voltage fluctuations.

Nevertheless I got a P10 Regenerator - very expensive and very heavy. I was looking for an improvement in sound and I got it, albeit a small but noticeable improvement described as 'less smeared transients'. Almost certainly not worth the money! However, the P10 has proved a well designed and very reliable and usable, and superior to a cheaper power regenerator I tried which had fan cooling:

AG1500-PSU, , Uninterruptible Power Supply. Power Inspired Ltd.

I've never used battery generators but the suggestion to do so may well be a good one in view of your poor supply.

 

I'd be interested to see just how much these PS regenerators reduce emi distortion with one of these units
OLED Digital Display Main Noise Tester EMI Measuring Instrument Broadband AC Power Supply Ripple Analyzer Line EMI meter Measurement & Analysis Instruments from Tools, Industrial & Scientific on banggood.com
I have a similar tester and it's provided me with several surprises. So far it's confirmed that dedicated lines are the best bang for the buck when it comes to lowering emi noise, followed closely by a good pc. The dedicated line-pc combination gives me an average of 30 going into my front end where the normal household line noise is about 500+. It's also surprised me with just how clean my power is compared to what I'm able to generate here at home with my inverter-generator which runs at about 2000.

 

Battery power generator, apparently the only way to completely get rid off power pollution, but at a cost.
Products — Stromtank

 

There are several mains power artifacts that cause either damage or sonic degradation.

1. Spikes. Mainly caused by: lightning strike and nearby industry switching high current inductive loads (like motors). The solution, depending on where you live and the prevalence of lightning strike is (a) a Type 1 spark arrestor mounted externally at the incoming power cabinet (b) a Type 2 MOV arrestor at the power board (UK Consumer Unit) rated at 40kA, with MOV failure indicator (c) Type 3 MOV and or fast bidirectional zener at the socket strips feeding your gear.
2. Harmonics on the mains. The problem is that even order harmonics add an effective DC offset to the power. If your gear uses toroidal mains transformers (which are more prone than EI transformers), this causes a significant current to flow in the transformer primary. Where I live this is pretty low, <0.2V most of the time. But near heavy industry this can be up to 10V and be strongly time dependent - a few seconds on and minutes off. I've just measured two 240V primary toroidal transformers: an 800VA which was 1 ohm, and a 300VA which was 4.7 ohms. So even a 1V DC offset will canse a DC current of 1A to flow in the first transformer and 0.2A to flow in the second transformer primaries. There are circuits that will remove this effective offset. This shows the problem and the general solution Mains DC and Transformers and there are commercial implementations mains cables r us excelium dc blocking mains lead and others via google. The net effect can be detected as transformer hum that is sometimes worse and sometimes better.
3. Brownouts and outage. Halfway decent audio gear ought to deal with this via protection circuits. Computers are a different thing entirely, and most definitely need a UPS (I use an APC unit).
4. RF garbage. This comes down the mains power from a variety of sources, including power line broadband, mobile phones, wifi, internet of things etc etc. Equipment immunity to this pervasive garbage is down to design, although there are specialist mains cables that can improve rejection of this. The problem is that it covers the whole range from a few kHz right the way to 1GHz or more. Certainly the most difficult thing to deal with.

Will a regenerator deal with all of this? Possibly, is the best I can come up with.

 

Neither have I and I would have loved to see it.

The only exception is when I split one with a hacksaw.