Hi John,
That is a great system!
Why don’t try a Stromtank for the DCS Vivaldi system? You can remove you grid doing so, Attention to the system electric supply and grounding, transforms a great system to a spectacular one. The same happens with system setup and room acoustics, but those were cover beautifully already.
I looked into that and WOW pretty cool. I ran this by my dealer as well as the PS Audio regenerator. They said that they have heard them both and they are unimpressed and they will significantly degrade the system. (I wonder if they were running the amps through these devices as well as components?) I don’t understand. Isn’t pure, clean sine wave power what we all want? How could that degrade the sound. Wouldn’t it be better to filter out all the possible noise form the other devices plugged into the same circuit (wifi satellite, iPad charger, smart plug and 12v trigger device to turn the amps on remotely.) I think PS Audio has a 30 day trial so I could try that. Not sure about Stromtak but probably not.
On low-power front-end devices, I found my previous PS Audio P5 to be beneficial, especially on my Meridian processor.
On high-power devices that involved amps (such as their speakers), it was quite the opposite. Sadly, it’s not easy to try a PS Audio P15 in this country, but that could/should of course be significantly better.
I’m a great fan of Shunyata, but would love to hear the AQ as well as the Stromtank one day too.
PS Shunyata say the reason many power conditioners don’t sound as good as one might expect is because the instantaneous current available is reduced by the impedance of the conditioner.
In other words, while some conditioners can clean up the power, they also limit the maximum current available (which becomes noticeable during transients in the music when an amp can take huge gulps of power in a very short period of time).
I’m only paraphrasing what Shunyata say, but it sounds entirely plausible.
The benefit of the PS Audio Regeneration is low output impedance. That said I’ve used their regeneration for 6 years and I wouldn’t be without it. I run my 300 watt monoblocs out of twenty amp dedicated outlets and my source devices including my Bartók are on the regenerator.
I have no comment on the efficacy of the regenerator but draw your attention to the safety notice in the Bartok manual.
dCS do not recommend the use of regenerators. However if you do use one and it allows variable voltage and frequency ( which I understand PS Audio ones do) it must be set to match your local voltage and frequency of 50 or 60 Hz only. Any resultant damage caused by misuse or malfunctioning will not be covered by the warranty.
Very good point.
I believe the more recent PS Audio models top up the mains supply via a power amp as opposed to regenerating it from scratch, so I doubt it’s possible on these models to change the frequency.
I don’t think I could on the P5.
I think that the caveat may have related to the MultiWave feature on PS Audio regenerators. Are you saying this has been discontinued ?
I have first hand experience with the PS Audio P-10. BEFORE installing dedicated 20amp lines the P-10 was a worthwhile upgrade, AFTER, almost no improvement in sound quality. This with all PS Audio electronics too. Paying an electrician to install the dedicated lines was a great improvement and I should have done it years ago. As with everything in audio, it depends on your system…
Ah, I assumed you were talking about being able to change the output frequency. I believe the MultiWave feature to modulate the sine wave still exists.
Just FYI Dan D’Agostino runs a Strom on his own personal equipment and in his factory setup.
I had a PS Audio P-10 and it made no difference in my setup so I sold it. I believe that if you have clean power coming in a line conditioner/regenerator is not needed. If you have dirty power then they may make an improvement. In my case, I have a dedicated 12 awg circuits for the DCS stuff, and a dedicated 240 volt line for the Boulder amp. We took care in running the AS mains wires to not run them next to other AC wires. But this is a new house so it was easy to do. In most cases you don’t have the ability to run new AC lines, but if you do, I’d recommend that before trying a conditioner/regenerator. For me, a bigger improvement came when I removed the rack between speakers and set my equipment on floor stands between the speakers, imaging greatly improved and the speakers completely disappear.
I have just installed a Plixir BAC 3000 (https://www.plixirpower.com/products/elite-bac-3000-pre-conditioner) at the top of my system (dedicated line on a Doepke circuit breaker) (https://www.hifi-advice.com/blog/audiophile-insights/doepke/) and I am very happy with it. Pitch-black background and much improved dynamics!
I use Puritan Audio Laboratories PSM156 and like it.
I run a balanced transformer on my 2 hifi radials, 115 volts down both the live and natural, to cancel out each other on the noise front.
I works well, you just need to get a big enough transformer to cope, then have about 50% in reserve. Obviously the dCS kit doesn’t pull much currant, but power amps do.
@Frankie67 you’re correct…
I seldom use the green bias, although it’s good to know that it’s there.
I’m just basking in ‘Class A’ gorgeousness!
I did discuss the Pandora with my dealer but, at roughly twice the price, it didn’t make sense to spend the extra money (which I had already committed to put towards the Alexia V’s), so we agreed to stick with the Essence Pre…
I’m certainly very happy with the combo, which is burning in nicely!
Excellent. Just give it a listen when you get a chance.
Will do…
but I’ll need to refill my exhausted bank account first!