PS Audio Power Plants


My music on great days sounds three dimensional with  great sound stage depth, good solid bass , and no harshness on the high end.Those few days, I may listen for hours, However most days it sounds flat with no depth and I can't listen for more that 30 minutes or so. This is not a new thing. Its been happening through all different equipment and several houses for years
Has anyone had this experience and would a PS Audio Power Plant like the P10 or P20 help?
Thanks
keithjacksontucson
As someone who has an entire system of PS Audio,  i am admittedly a bit prejudiced.  I have gone from a PPP, to a P5, to a P10 and each time was a noticeable improvement in sound.  If i would use one sentence,  it was that everything was more effortless and easy sounding.  I plan to buy a P20 later this year and sell the P10.   just got to save up my duckies first.
@joeschmoe I had a much different conversation with PS tech. support. Perhaps the circumstances at the time affected our conversation. At that time, PS was offering over $1000 in trade-in value on a P5 or P10. Their advice to me was definite that the P5 would be a significant upgrade over the PPP and that I WOULD be able to run my power amp off of it, which I could not do with the PPP. The time I tried to do so, the regenerator went offline requiring me to return it to PS.

I did the deal and my entire system runs off of it using only 34% of its capacity! A great piece of gear.
I'm a big fan of PS Audio gear and have been extremely happy with my DirectStream Junior DAC. I purchased the P5 last year. I liked the sound improvement, but that was completely outweighed by sound of the fan, which ran fairly often. I sit in the near field, about 9 feet from each speaker, so that's probably about 8 feet from my media cabinet where the P5 was. I could hear the fan noise plain as day. I contacted customer support and they had me record the sound of the fan with my iPhone. Upon listening to the recording, they felt there was a problem with the unit and had me send it back for repair. I wasn't really convinced that the fan would stop making noise completely so I just had them process the return. They were really good about it. I just learned the lesson that for me, cooling fans are a no-go in my system. I got a Shunyata Hydra AV instead and I've been quite happy. I would have liked to get a P10 (which is fanless), but I don't have room for it. 
i would like to respond also to the comment above about what the PS tech guy said.  here is my response after doing a little homework.

The newer designs use all new devices including outputs and drivers. These are much more robust and cut the output impedance in half which contributes greatly to sound quality. Energy storage has doubled. The sine wave generation is lower distortion and uses a much higher resolution Dac to generate the sine wave. The difference in sound quality between the two is significant.

I do know that the PPP was bettered by the P5 which in turn was bettered by the P10.  it has a lot to do with the energy storage and the sine wave being generated.  I am no techie so this is the best i can do. I am pretty confident that the P20 will be much better.


to add a little more information on mechanical hum. also to note mechanical hum and hum in your system may not be related. but usually mechanical hum is associated with a faulty transformer, poor sine wave input, over saturation, bad windings, wrong transformer for the job and more. power conditioning may not always take away mechanical hum. system hum is a different beast and like others have said could be a host of issues.

Why do transformers hum?

Transformer noise is caused by a phenomenon which causes a piece of magnetic sheet steel to extend itself when magnetized. When the magnetization is taken away, it goes back to its original condition. This phenomenon is scientifically referred to as magnetostriction. A transformer is magnetically excited by an alternating voltage and current so that it becomes extended and contracted twice during a full cycle of magnetization.

The magnetization of any given point on the sheet varies, so the extension and contraction is not uniform. A transformer core is made from many sheets of special steel to reduce losses and moderate the ensuing heating effect. The extensions and contractions are taking place erratically all over a sheet and each sheet is behaving erratically with respect to its neighbor, so you can see what a moving, writhing construction it is when excited. These extensions are miniscule proportionally and therefore not normally visible to the naked eye. However, they are sufficient to cause a vibration, and consequently noise. Applying voltage to a transformer produces a magnetic flux, or magnetic lines of force in the core. The degree of flux determines the amount of magnetostriction and hence, the noise level.

Why not reduce the noise in the core by reducing the amount of flux? Transformer voltages are fixed by system requirements. The ratio of these voltages to the number of turns in the winding determines the amount of magnetization. This ratio of voltage to turns is determined mainly for economical soundness. Therefore the amount of flux at the normal voltage is fixed. This also fixes the level of noise and vibration. Also, increasing (or decreasing) magnetization does not affect the magnetostriction equivalently. In technical terms the relationship is not linear.

from MGM transformer company web sight.