Hello and welcome to whatishifi blog.
After testing the PS Audio Quintet power strip and Premier regenerator, I had the opportunity to test the P300 - a smaller, older and rather different model from PS Audio.
This fellow is indeed a true regenerator; it
will completely regenerate the AC power from scratch. Imagine it like a power
amplifier that instead of speaker terminals has a power socket: it uses the AC power from your wall socket in order to create the
ideal AC signal that will feed your equipment. That is why these kind of
devices have a low efficiency rating; however, their output is theoretical perfect and as long as you keep them running within their voltage range, output is not influenced at all from input. We verified that by using an oscilloscope.
The P300 is an interesting case since it offers fully balanced output; that means that an 230 VAC output is a result of +115 and -115 VAC at the two schuko output holes rather than a hot 230VAC and a neutral one. It is said that this offers great sound improvement, but Paul from PS Audio claims that this was done for other reason; back then when this device was designed, they had to "share" the load. Another benefit is that you don't have to worry about correct power cord polarity (line phase). Using my multimeter I can verify this; not only it doesn't matter, but the VAC between the earth point and the negative (ground) point of an old Pioneer CT-777 tape deck was significant lower (around 5 VAC) compared to the lower reading when plugged directly to the wall socket (around 24VAC).
An interesting fact is that the P300 has it's own power cord polarity, so there is a "correct" way of plugging it in to the mains socket. However, this has no effect to the connected equipment, meaning that no matter how you plug the P300 to the mains, the VAC between the earth point and the negative (ground) point of the connected equipment is the same low figure. For peace of mind and without being sure if it matters, I would plug in the P300 the "correct" way - I am sure that it doesn't make any harm. Maybe one day Paul will make a video about it.
Another interesting thing was that this time, the Noise Harvester did not light up at all, indicating that there is no noise at the AC mains. Let me remind you that in this older post, the Noise Harvester was blinking much more frequently when plugged at the AC Premier and the Quintet.
In contradiction to the AC Premier, here you can control the output voltage that you want with accuracy. As I said, the output is "locked" and doesn't depend from input voltage variations.
Also, you can control the output frequency. According to PS Audio, increasing the frequency makes the connected equipment's power supply more efficient by increasing the effective value of the capacitors. For me it seems like that the capacitors are charged more often, that is, at a higher frequency. Just keep in mind that if a connected device has a cooling fun or it is a turntable, you should not change the output frequency since this will alter the rotation speed. Also, a limitation of the higher frequency charging theoretical benefit can be the bridge rectifier of the connected equipment; it might not be fast enough so it could start loosing it's efficiency at high frequencies.
As you probably already understand form the title, the P300 I had in hand was the MultiWave version. This means that on addition to increasing the output frequency, you can have a sequence of waves of different frequencies and you can experiment regarding what sounds best to you and your system. At this point I have to remind that as we found out at this previous post, the MultiWave function of the Premier did not made any difference at all.
Funny thing with this device is that it doesn't mention it's model number anywhere. I had to Google pictures of "PS Audio Power Plant" in order to find which model is the one I have. Another funny thing is that the P300 is supposed to be 300 Watts, but the device I have in hand has a sticker of 500 Watts at the back. Don't bother to Google P500, I already done it. Anyway, this device is designed to feed pre amps and sources, not power amps. Personally I don't consider this as a disadvantage, my experience up to now (with the exception of the class D HCA-2 and GCA-500-EX power amps) is that more frequently than not, a regenerator will "choke" the sound of a power amp.
Something I didn't like is that this device even when turned off is consuming energy; it stays warm even if it is off and has nothing connected on it.
But enough with the bla bla, let's cut to the chase. Does it improve the sound?
First listening test was done in my system. For a start, we connected the external custom made PSU of the tweaked EMU card that is used for computer audio. We started by listening to Deep Purple - Never Before (Machine Head, HDtracks 24-96) and compared the sound with and without the P300. We were amazed by the impact that the P300 had; the music energy was flowing much more effortlessly and the rhythm of this song was felt much better. At one point we thought that the P300 reduced the low end a bit but we were wrong: the base was tighten, not reduced. Removing the P300 felt like a bad, bad thing to do.
We changed to jazz and we listened to our favorite Girl from Ipanema (an .iso file coming from the SACD of the album Getz / Gilberto remastered by Mr. George Marino) and the results were the same: the P300 improved the sound. Everything was better; music was sounding more alive, soundstage was bigger and more 3D like and the emotions that you feel when you listen to a favorite song became stronger.
Playing with the different forms of output wavelengths as well as voltage and frequency seemed that made no difference for the EMU's PSU.
Next thing we did was to also connect my pre amp (Luxman C-03B) at the P300. Here the benefit was much much smaller; we struggled to listen to any changes and even though there was an improvement, it was not something worth considering.
Excited with the device, we decided to test it at another system, so we took it at Pano's home. We connected on it the custom made tube pre amp and the Parasound D/AC1500 DAC. Again, we struggled to listen to any changes and even though there was an improvement, it was not anything worth considering. Also, playing with the various parameters again seemed to have no affect.
What I found curious was the fact that the most significant improvement was at the PSU of the computer audio DAC. Let me explain why: when me and Panos got our EMUs we had the chance to compare a tweaked EMU with a factory one. This goes also to the PSU. Panos settled with a battery PSU, I didn't want to have a battery so I thought that I was not missing much with a non-battery version. After some back and forth, I ended up with a PSU that back then seemed to offer equal sound quality like the battery PSU that Panos had. But as I now discover I was wrong; when I adjusted the battery power supply to output exactly 5 VAC (Pano's system sounds better at 4.88 VAC) it sounded better than my PSU.
Here comes the magic of P300; plugging my PSU at P300 made it sounding equally good to a battery PSU, which is considered to be the cleanest and best power source.
So, the P300 is a great exception of an active device that during our testing had only good things to offer. It never did any harm to the sound quality. It didn't caused the Noise Harvester to illuminate. It offered from little to significant benefits, depending on what you connect on it. I can only recommend it and I suspect that it is superior than most today's designs. With many similar devices we had the impression that the sound was different and this difference was not always better. With P300 things seemed to improve; sound is not different but better.
The only negative points I can make have to do with the design of the product and not it's performance. I find the shape of this component awkward and inconvenient. I don't like the fact that when you turn it off, it is not actually turned off and consumes energy. Last but not least, in my quiet living room, I can slightly hear the cooling fans during a low passage of a song.
As always, happy listening!
Christos
After testing the PS Audio Quintet power strip and Premier regenerator, I had the opportunity to test the P300 - a smaller, older and rather different model from PS Audio.
 |
| The PS Audio P300 MultiWave Power Plant AC regenerator. |
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| A perfect output! |
An interesting fact is that the P300 has it's own power cord polarity, so there is a "correct" way of plugging it in to the mains socket. However, this has no effect to the connected equipment, meaning that no matter how you plug the P300 to the mains, the VAC between the earth point and the negative (ground) point of the connected equipment is the same low figure. For peace of mind and without being sure if it matters, I would plug in the P300 the "correct" way - I am sure that it doesn't make any harm. Maybe one day Paul will make a video about it.
Another interesting thing was that this time, the Noise Harvester did not light up at all, indicating that there is no noise at the AC mains. Let me remind you that in this older post, the Noise Harvester was blinking much more frequently when plugged at the AC Premier and the Quintet.
 |
| The Noise Harvest did not blink when plugged on the P300. |
 |
| The output of the P300 is perfect. Remember, it has balanced output and that is why the reading is 115,39 VAC; you get -115,39 VAC from the one schucko output hole and +115,39 VAC from the other, for a total of 230,78 VAC. |
As you probably already understand form the title, the P300 I had in hand was the MultiWave version. This means that on addition to increasing the output frequency, you can have a sequence of waves of different frequencies and you can experiment regarding what sounds best to you and your system. At this point I have to remind that as we found out at this previous post, the MultiWave function of the Premier did not made any difference at all.
Funny thing with this device is that it doesn't mention it's model number anywhere. I had to Google pictures of "PS Audio Power Plant" in order to find which model is the one I have. Another funny thing is that the P300 is supposed to be 300 Watts, but the device I have in hand has a sticker of 500 Watts at the back. Don't bother to Google P500, I already done it. Anyway, this device is designed to feed pre amps and sources, not power amps. Personally I don't consider this as a disadvantage, my experience up to now (with the exception of the class D HCA-2 and GCA-500-EX power amps) is that more frequently than not, a regenerator will "choke" the sound of a power amp.
Something I didn't like is that this device even when turned off is consuming energy; it stays warm even if it is off and has nothing connected on it.
But enough with the bla bla, let's cut to the chase. Does it improve the sound?
First listening test was done in my system. For a start, we connected the external custom made PSU of the tweaked EMU card that is used for computer audio. We started by listening to Deep Purple - Never Before (Machine Head, HDtracks 24-96) and compared the sound with and without the P300. We were amazed by the impact that the P300 had; the music energy was flowing much more effortlessly and the rhythm of this song was felt much better. At one point we thought that the P300 reduced the low end a bit but we were wrong: the base was tighten, not reduced. Removing the P300 felt like a bad, bad thing to do.
We changed to jazz and we listened to our favorite Girl from Ipanema (an .iso file coming from the SACD of the album Getz / Gilberto remastered by Mr. George Marino) and the results were the same: the P300 improved the sound. Everything was better; music was sounding more alive, soundstage was bigger and more 3D like and the emotions that you feel when you listen to a favorite song became stronger.
Playing with the different forms of output wavelengths as well as voltage and frequency seemed that made no difference for the EMU's PSU.
Next thing we did was to also connect my pre amp (Luxman C-03B) at the P300. Here the benefit was much much smaller; we struggled to listen to any changes and even though there was an improvement, it was not something worth considering.
Excited with the device, we decided to test it at another system, so we took it at Pano's home. We connected on it the custom made tube pre amp and the Parasound D/AC1500 DAC. Again, we struggled to listen to any changes and even though there was an improvement, it was not anything worth considering. Also, playing with the various parameters again seemed to have no affect.
What I found curious was the fact that the most significant improvement was at the PSU of the computer audio DAC. Let me explain why: when me and Panos got our EMUs we had the chance to compare a tweaked EMU with a factory one. This goes also to the PSU. Panos settled with a battery PSU, I didn't want to have a battery so I thought that I was not missing much with a non-battery version. After some back and forth, I ended up with a PSU that back then seemed to offer equal sound quality like the battery PSU that Panos had. But as I now discover I was wrong; when I adjusted the battery power supply to output exactly 5 VAC (Pano's system sounds better at 4.88 VAC) it sounded better than my PSU.
Here comes the magic of P300; plugging my PSU at P300 made it sounding equally good to a battery PSU, which is considered to be the cleanest and best power source.
So, the P300 is a great exception of an active device that during our testing had only good things to offer. It never did any harm to the sound quality. It didn't caused the Noise Harvester to illuminate. It offered from little to significant benefits, depending on what you connect on it. I can only recommend it and I suspect that it is superior than most today's designs. With many similar devices we had the impression that the sound was different and this difference was not always better. With P300 things seemed to improve; sound is not different but better.
The only negative points I can make have to do with the design of the product and not it's performance. I find the shape of this component awkward and inconvenient. I don't like the fact that when you turn it off, it is not actually turned off and consumes energy. Last but not least, in my quiet living room, I can slightly hear the cooling fans during a low passage of a song.
As always, happy listening!
Christos
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