PS Audio Power Plant Premier Ongoing Review Thread!!! - Page 2

Here is some info on Goldberg

http://www.stereophile.com/news/10796/

Seems he and DJ Paul have a secret invention. MMMM did they ever present this as a paper at say a peer review like AES??

Just google Multiwave. Seems PSA stuff comes up so they must be the only ones with the secret formula. Funny if you invented some new scientific breakthrough seems 1) people would try to copy it and 2) you would be all over the news 3) You would have all sorts of awards from the science world.

[quote=Curt Palme]
Just to clear it up thats not my quote its Vahallias.

Ok here again, they aren't telling the whole story. Yes, using a square wave or "partial square wave" will reduce ripple voltage in the power supply. It will also increase the DC output which is not good in the case of unregulated equipment - power amplifiers.

But they aren't telling you about the internal regulation found in almost any audio source gear and all video gear these days. A linear series pass regulator will remove any ripple down to the white noise of the pass transistor as long as it's higher then the regulator dropout voltage which is most certianly is. So the net effect of reducing input ripple is nil.

Are they lying? No, the multiwave will lower input ripple on a simple capacitor input power supply. But power supplies today are much more sophisicted than that and the ripple is taken care of in the regulation stage. In a switch mode power supply, the ripple you get is a combination of 120hz and harmonics of the switching frequency which is at least tens of kilohertz. In this case the swithing noise amplitude far exceeds the 120hz AC ripple so reducing that is of no little to no benefit. Also a lot of the switch noise harmonics get into low level analog circuits via RFI, that is through the air as radio signals. You can clean up the incomming AC until the cows come home and you still won;t get rid of the RFI from a poorly shielded switch mode power supply.

A tip to you "multiwave" supporters. If you have a power supply failure in a piece of your gear, don't tell the manufacture you are using multiwave AC to power the unit. You are likely to get a warranty claim denied!

IMO, MultiWave II is the best thing that has happened to audio. In my system using the TubeWave setting for my power amp made tubes obsolete for me, it made it smoother and warmer than Mullard tubes and had higher resolution and detail. My power amp transformed into a tube amp with the press of a button.
But what was really special was MWave4 setting, the improvement in resolution was unbelievable.
For a long time I used MWave1 for my CD player and DAC, but I have found that MWave4 works best for them as well.

The difference between MWave1 and MWave4 is bigger than stock vs Valhalla power cord. The sound completely changes.
http://www.head-fi.org/forums/showpo...4&postcount=16
http://www.head-fi.org/forums/showpo...9&postcount=27

I'm still hoping MWave1 with the Premier will be different, that's why I bought it so I can try it. If I don't like it I will use it for my computer.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, go cut up some more of that expensive paper you wrap you cords with. You completly ignored the technical problems I just posted.

I can make any amplifier sound more dynamic and cleaner with a cheap variac. Just run the voltage up to 130 or 150v and it will sound like a new amp! Now run it that way for a few hours or days and you will be buying a new amp.

We have a industry standard power source, 120v 60hz. It's supposed to be a pure sinewave but hardly ever is. Why not just strive to clean it up and use you equipment as the engineers designed it rather than hack at it with this false science that not only is pointless but in this case can be damaging to your equipment.

I didn't hear a difference when increasing voltage. But when I increased from 60 to 90Hz sinewave the soundstage got bigger. Higher than 90Hz didn't sound better though. MultiWave has a combination of frequencies instead of the same one.


http://www.psaudio.com/products/multiwaveiimoreinfo.asp

Steve, this extension of the sine wave peak time, which increases the potential that your equipment's power supply can draw from the line, is exactly what Richard Gray's does with their "Electronic Flywheel" conditioners. The RGPC inductor creates a large magnetic field which collapses as the sine wave peak begins to drop, and converts the field back into current extending the peak time of the sine wave. Even though PS accomplishes this in a very different manner it sounds like PS and RGPC are trying to accomplish the same thing ie. extending the sine wave peak timing and delivering more potential per cycle to the equipment's power supply. According to Richard Vandersteen it is this greater potential per cycle which makes equipment sound and look better.

I bet what they call multiwave is a higher frequency sine wave... Maybe 120 Hz.. I am certain it cannot be a square wave... And yes Glimmie, One can find a good Dual conversion UPS for the same amount of money and more power, it will only not be as good looking.

Show me where I said Mr. Goldberg knows nothing.

"no parctical engineering design experience" hmmm most would also disagree with that.
home.earthlink.net\\~tubesforht

If it was a 120Hz sinewave it would hum like a sinewave. With each MultiWave setting the transformer sounds different, it's not a constant hum. MWave4 is the loudest setting of them all, it sounds like 4 beats and a pause. With my Krell power amp I could hear it from across the room, the improvement was so big that I didn't mind. With my sources I need to put my head close to the chassis to be able to hear it.

Has someone cared to look at the "Multiwave" with an oscilloscope?

"Has someone cared to look at the "Multiwave" with an oscilloscope?"

That would best!!

I just stumbled on this thread, it's unbelievable!

Square waves are bad for our gear I can see it working at all, now quasi square wave may work but its not good and that I learned from class and hands on.

We use a combination of Alpha and APC to get a true Sine wave off the feed from our local power company and when we have to run off the Generator for back-up.

Unless Steve gets an Oscilloscope hooked like Frantz has said to look at what this stuff is generating it is nothing but a markeeting tool name.

Seems the trouble keps on coming for PSA and this new unit.

http://www.psaudio.com/account/forum...6&topicID=4176


PSA said all these units would be inspected by them in Boulder, I guess opening the box to look inside is an inspection.

Does Bruzonsky still use Tice clocks?

Happy new year Steve!!

This is an interesting discussion, although I don't understand the need for 'bashing' or excessive enthusiasm.

What we have here as a product is a solid-state line power generator (rectifier/inverter pair), with selectable output waveshapes. It's really that simple. I have a few observations that I'd like to get some feedback on....


The first benefit, which is pretty easy to understand, is rock-solid voltage regulation. The reason this is desirable for ALL electronic devices should be immediately obvious to even a casual observer.

The second benefit, which is a bit more esoteric, is an absolutely stable voltage waveshape. Normal line power does not have an absolutely stable waveshape; although the power companies' generators put out something pretty close, non-linear load currents can cause notching, distortion, transients, etc. to appear on the voltage signal. These effects can be both steady state and transient. A device like the one described will eliminate these issues. Although these PQ (power quality) problems have a much more pronounced impact on devices using linear power supplies, the transient effects can also cause excessive noise in devices with switchers. (Why? Because the outputs of commercial switchers are generally value engineered to selectively filter the switching frequency. Parasitic noise that is outside the range of the notch or LP filter can still creep through.)

Now, the 'Multiwave' concept is a bit more interesting. What it sounds like from reading between the lines in their marketing literature (I'm going out on a limb a bit here....) is that they have actually measured the impedance characteristics of some common high-end CE power supplies and have developed some combination waveshapes that increase the efficiency of these supplies. The fact that there are several different combinations is what leads me down this path; no single 'ultimate' voltage waveshape could accomplish this with every product out there. For some devices, the straight 60Hz sine wave may still be the best option. Under any circumstances, the 'extended' sine wave probably works very well with switchers, while not causing the excessive heating seen with with true square wave power fed to a linear PS (If they haven't added lots of very high-frequency harmonics, then it won't overheat the input transformer).

Now, how this would actually affect the black levels in a projector is a bit beyond me - maybe reduction in parasitic noise generating a lower output noise level (and a corresponding higher S/N)? The benefits for any audio components using linear power supplies should be apparent - no reason to speculate here.


Thoughts/comments?

That's a members only link above..

For CSA approval here in Canada (there's a supplier that brings Inter-M amps right from Korea), that's more or less all they do, is look under the cover. Most of what CSA cares about is that the ground wire is properly attached. Funny, I've seen them pass an IEC power connector rated at 10 amps, 120 volts in an amplifier rated at 2000 watts RMS. Let's see, that's a minimum 200 watt overload on the 1800 watt IEC connector, considering that no amplifier is 100% efficient...

Can you cut and paste that link?

MauneyM, interesting points. Not sure if I agree with all of them..

Any switch mode power supply generates it's own waveforms that then drive a switching transformer. Any AC input is converted to DC with massive filtering before ever hitting the oscillator that then is regulated by a feedback loop from the switching transformer. to me, a square wave at 100Khz (or so) creates massive noise as more or less agreed on by everyone here. How a modified wave at the AC input stage can REDUCE noise in an SMPS is beyond me. It's all converted to DC regardless.

I can see how a modified sinewave then turned to DC can give a higher DC voltage due to a larger RMS value of said modified wave. What could happen though is that the input capacitors in the AC->DC section might blow if they are rated a bit on the tight side. You might get a larger DC voltage feeding the SMPS section, you might also have that SMPS run hotter and thus have a shorter lifespan.

The only section of any component that might benefit from cleaner AC power is a straight linear power supply section driving a speaker output stage. I'd say though that due to internal filtering of the capacitors of the linear power supply, very slight sags and surges of the AC input voltage are stabilized by the caps anyways.

Once again, the virtues of something that I would consider a tweak have been waxed poetic about without any scientific evidence. Steve, build a switch with a high current relay that will instantaneouly switch between the PS AC and regular house AC. Use 10 gauge cable and hospital grade plugs and outlets. Only THEN if you can hear a difference will I be (partially) convinced that this new black box does anything for the music.

Steve, are your PPPs from the first batch or second batch? Are the serial# of the PPPs below or above 100?
Some people's PPPs have break-in time in 100+ hours and sensiing improvements after that, what do you think of that? Are the PPPs as open & ease to the ears as the PP600s? Thanks.

That's why I asked for comments!


OK - here goes. The ~100 kHz (an assumption) switching freq is high enough that it should cause little or no impact on audio signals. However, lower-frequency noise on the line could be inductively coupled through the power supply. Yes, the caps should get rid of it, but there IS a source impedance - nothing is perfect in practice. Get rid of voltage transients on the source, and you get rid of high-current spikes in the PS that can induce noise in anything nearby.


Agreed, but we're generally talking about higher-end equipment, so I wouldn't expect this to occur.


I might actually expect the opposite, because with higher voltage comes lower current, given the same power requirement. This depends on the load characteristics, though, so........it's toss-up. [FWIW, I have seen a small SWPS that was designed and tested in a facility with a VERY soft source actually fail to start correctly when attached to a very stiff line. The design had been 'optimized' under a particular set of circumstances that turned out to be too far off the real-world averages. So, yes, input PQ can make a difference to a SWPS.]


It depends on the frequency and the total PS design. Remember that no cap in the real world is ideal - they all have ESR, and the source impedance from the low-voltage side of the transformer/rectifier comes into play. You can't block everything with a linear PS.


Agreed. I'm playing devil's advocate here, though, because I have seen some really bizarre real-world behavior solved by proper PQ mitigation. The real question is this: What was it that was wrong with the utility power feed that was causing the reduced performance to begin with?

Steve, regenerated AC is great. We have two systems where I work, a teleproduction and mastering facility, that regenerate the AC on a scale of 160,000 and 120,000 watts each . These are large UPS systems that can carry the technical load for 20 minutes on utility power loss. The output a clean sinewave* These are quite commen in data centers and other technical facilities that need clean power.

My beef is with the multiwave. Altering the 60hz sinewave shape is not good.

*Of course the AC waveform on the power distribution busses is somewhat distorted and noisey due to the hundreds of switching power supplies on the system.

My set up is also from a regenerated AC and the differences are obvious to me and some others... My system is fed extremely clean 60 Hz sine wave with less than .5 THD.

I do not see why PS audio would add that 180 Hz.. I surmise it is a clever marketing ploy... Sine many inverters tend to add some amount of Harmonic distortion.. Why not label it as an addition to the pure signal to make it ...purer?
At the end Regenerated AC is the best solution when it comes to power conditioning and no! People you do not have to invest "audiophile" money.. Dual conversion UPS work better and are cheaper to boot...

The problem Steve and the other PSA users is not the use of a power unit. The problem lies in your thinking that your hearing breakin, seeing magic, hearing magic, and the BS that is put into the adverts of these things.

Stop and do some real testing not just the blind faith you put into these things.Does breakin ever go the other way? It must otherwise no one would ever buy new gear.

Again Steve B are you till using the Tice clock?

Have you heard MultiWave? After you hear it you will agree that 60Hz should be illegal. If I would build a city I would output MultiWave through separate Valhalla power cords, each apartment gets it's own power cord from the power plant. There will be millions of cables on the streets but who cares when it sounds so good!

Speco, maybe this is none of my business, but ...

O.K. I can see where you're coming from ... Carl Sagan would have referred to a "baloney detection kit" and yes, I know there's a lot of BS in the audio world as well. A lot of well-meaning folk get suckered today ... whether it's to do with religion, beliefs, pyramid schemes, "alternative medicine", Amway products or whatever. Hi-Fi certainly is not excluded from it ...

BUT, Speco, having said the above (and agreeing with a LOT of what you're saying - sometimes to a lesser, sometimes to a higher degree) - I have to also say (with respect, and IMHO), that your confrontational style of posting also irritates me.

To give just two examples:-
1. Why are you goading (there's no other word) SB with "are you still using the Tice ...? What other possible reason could you have but referring him to a link in a certain Electronics Magazine, trying to humiliate him with AHA told you so!??
2. Clearly, PSA is having some problems at the moment with certain issues (could be related to QC, and/or to bugs that still need to be sorted out etc). BUT why why why do YOU see the need to specifically post (paraphrasing) "oh, their idea of testing is proably just to open the box ...".

I've had some (irritating) problems with PSA myself, too - BUT I can HONESTLY say that they've ALWAYS come thru' for me ... At the moment, I'm also irritated, with delays, issues that has still got to be sorted etc etc. But it is only fair to give ample time.