How reliable is PS audio equipment?


I know PS audio equipment gets wonderful reviews, however, how reliable are they?

I hear on other sites that owners constantly complain about sending their equipment back for repairs.

Also, I recently heard from PS audio that their BHK preamp is only good for 20 years due to the design.

Anyone have any opinion on this?

onehorsepony

I have a P15 Powerplant and used it almost everyday for the past 7 years and it has been rock solid. Love the unit and build quality, it is built like a tank, and backbreaking to move but the stereo sounds amazing with it in. The quality of life improvement of being able to start up and shut down all the equipment in the correct order is a luxury. I called customer service early in my ownership and they answered all my questions quickly and were really pleasant. I also love that one cord is unplugged and the entire system is disconnected from the outside world, I had it hit by lightening prior to my P15 purchase. 

Like every brand, they have occasional issues. I’ve had a BHK pre, BHK 250 amp, Stellar P3 power regenerator, M1200 mono amps, and a P300 regenerator.

The BHK preamp and BHK250 both had issues that required a trip back to the factory. The BHK pre’s first repair was a reasonable $300 flat rate and included new tubes and a new remote as well. After the BHK pre’s second failure PS Audio repaired it for free.

After many years the capacitors in the P300 leaked and I had Cullen Circuits rebuild it (before they went out of business.) Worked fine since although retired from service now.

The P3 regenerator and M1200 amps have been rock solid and reliable after years of service.

From reading PS Audio’s own forum posts, one gathers they’ve had occasional issues with being unable to repair certain older products that used outsourced parts that were no longer manufactured. This problem isn’t unique to them, any manufacturer can have similar issues.

While they might not be 100% reliable (nothing is) they provide reasonably quick repair and stand behind their service. That’s worth a great deal IMO. I've have poor service related interactions with some manufacturers.

 

 

I have not owned PS products, however I do own McIntosh products AMR have had no problems.  The staff at McIntosh always answer my questions.