Just had a rather curious experience. I recently moved my PS Audio M1200 amps/BHK preamp pairing from my main system and installed a Luxman M700u/C700u pair. Surprising to me, the Luxman pair is even more revealing than the PS Audio pair. When I tried using my PS Audio P3 regenerator with the Luxman c700u preamp and Luxman D-08u disc spinner so much leading edge detail was revealed that even slightly sub-par recordings were unlistenable to both my wife and I. (Speakers are 2nd generation Tidal Piano Ceras.) We just kept having our attention focused on slight distortions, too close miking of instruments and voices, etc. Iāve tried changing power cords and different vibration control feet on everything in the front end and nothing altered the impression of over wrought detail, just too much of a good thing. I pulled my PS Audio Dectet out of āretirement storageā and it sounds much better than the P3 regenerator in this particular context. Actually it sounds wonderful, everything is in perfect tonal balance now. The P3 is now doing power duties in system #2 with the rest of the PS Audio stack and sounds just as great as before. Anyone else experienced anything like this with their regenerator?
I have a P12 and M700ās. I have found that the 700ās sound much better plugged into the wall.
I tried every zone with amps and every setting but the amps sounded much more alive out of the wall.
The amps sound fine with the P12 but the life seems to be sucked out of the music. I know this should not be the case so I keep trying with the same results. My DMP and Gaincell sound much better plugged into the P12. What am I doing wrong?
Roger
From Luxmanā¦your M700 U power amp requires 110 watts no signal so music will definitely
draw more wattage then in combinstion with your C700U requiring 28 watts then add your
sourcesā¦you may well be nearing the peak usa
ble P3ās power capacityā¦add your Tidal
Painos with a low of 3.2 ohms nominal 4ā¦your Luxman M700 may well be choking by
the P3ās limited ability to supply power to your gearā¦so no wonder then that your Luxman
M700 U sounds so much more alive hooked straight to wallā¦
Just my own .0002ā¦
I run a Parasound JC5 power amp from my P15 and it is wonderful. Plugging JC5 direct
to wallā¦not so good.
Perhaps time to upgrade to P12 or P15 when the fall sales come around.
Best wishes in your audio journey
Hey kline42
Not that you are doing anything wrongā¦but do try the following if you have not yet
Run your clean wave function for a full 60sec by pressing the clean wave function button
twice.
If you are using the multi wave function go to sine waveā¦music tends to be mpre open even
livelier ( for me anyway ) ymmv.
Another thing to try may be to shut everything down re boot your P12ā¦that helps with a fresh
reloading of the os ā¦helps my P15 from time to time as wellā¦
Failing that shut down again and reverse the fuse orientationā¦even stock fuses respond
to thisā¦
Hopefully this helps you some
Best wishes in your audio journey
I was just using the P3 for front end components, not the amp. Amp is direct into the wall.
I have a Furman reference series line stabilizer (not strictly a regenerator). Iām running both my power amplifier (I currently have my BHK 250 in the system) and line stage (Rogue RP-7 also currently in the system) straight from the wall. Iāve found my BHK Pre (currently taking a breather) is better overall run from my Furman. I dispensed a long time ago with the notion there is some canonical approach to power that benefits all systems and combinations of components. I believe it has a great deal to do with what the designer did in his/her component power supply topology and I leave it at that. Never succumb to dogma about what anyone says is a magic bullet. If it doesnāt work donāt use it. Relax and enjoy.
Oooops my bad Photon46ā¦I misread thinking you were including your Luxman amp
in on the P3ā¦Sorry my friendā¦ My oh my
Best wishes
Some ideas:
- Is the power cord for the regenerator fully burned in (meaning at least 100 hours of use)?
- If itās fully burned in, have you moved it? If so, I suggest 72 hours of constant power without moving the cable.
- If the above doesnāt help, try reversing the fuse, as David suggested. One direction is more detailed than the other, so you likely have it in the detailed direction.
- If none of the above works, you just might not like the sound of the regenerator in your system. I know a few people (not many) who feel this way.
Bottom line, all that matters is that you like the sound of your system.
George
Yeah, items one and two were in play and the fuse direction made little difference so #4 seems the answer. As you and Owlsalum say, all that matters is that one likes the way things sound. I was just rather surprised that the Luxman front end seemed so incompatible with the P3 as the PS Audio BHK sounds MUCH better when powered by the P3 as did my DeHavilland UltraVerve III. Iāve also found the Luxman gear to be less affected by Stillpoints, IsoAcoustics Oreas, Nasotec VEMs, and other footers than any other gear Iāve used. Thanks for all the responses.
I tried the M700ās plugged into a āDectetā as well as plugged straight into the wall. Had a similar experience.
Upgraded to a P15 a little while back (with some encouragement from the forum). M700ās are still plugged straight into the wall.
Obviously everyoneās power situation is different, but I found plugging my BHK300s into my Niagara 7000 had benefits, and in my other system I use an old Furman Ref15 which is also designed by Garth Powell, and provides extra energy storage for transients, and powers a Hegel H190.
I had a Power Plant 20 for less than a week and returned it. It made my system sound weak and bright when using it for power amps. It sucked all the life out of it. Also the meters in the P20 are not accurate and was told they are for amusement only. Bummer. I am now using a pair of SurgeX SX-1120-RT. One for each monoblock amp powered from two separate 20-amp circuits. This made a large improvement in stage size and clarity. Instruments and vocals have better separation and space around them. It improved the sound by a large amount compared to just plugging the amps directly into the wall.
I use a modified Power Plant Premier for source gear.
Keep in mind this was the off the cuff opinion of a single user.
For context, please read:
Interesting. I would suggest your experience is certainly not that of most people. For example, I get exactly the opposite experience plugging amps into the wall vs. the Power Plant.
Itās always curious to me why the differences that a few people report.
Even more surprising is your findings with the Surgex unit. That certainly has a softening effect when I try it but I find it strips the life from the music (over time).
Sorry about the metering system. Itās about 1% accurate (hardly for āamusementā).
I am glad you found something that works for you though, and I hope your system sings with the best of them.
Thanks for chiming in.
The P20 was showing 6.2% distortion when the actual distortion was 7.8.
The comment made about amusement meters was not the only comment about them not being accurate. Was told you stated that it would cost too much to make them accurate.
I wasnāt expecting lab instrument accuracy however over 1.5% error in the reading is more than 1% error as the meter max is 10%.
I had several friends over and they all agreed the Surgex units sounded the best and had the most punch. The direct connection to the wall power was 2nd best. This was tested with 2 different pairs of monoblock amps.
The other issue I had was the P20 made the transformers in the amps buzz.
Maybe I received a defective unit???
During last days I tried plugging my M1200s directly to the wall (2 different dedicated lines) because my brand new P15 has an annoyng mechanical hum, I sent an email to @jamesh too asking for some advice to solve the issue. During low level listening, in a quite ambience I can hear it due to my well treated room. Not so happy.
Meh! Immediately plugged them back to the P15, they sounded lifeless and dull, clearly something was missing. Call it lack of magic. So I prefer (awaiting a fix, though) the P15 subtle noise than dead silence, because it means also dead engagement without the regens.
Well, bear in mind that the distortion metering system in the Power Plant is bandwidth limited to 1kHz where I suspect your HP (or whatever you have) is likely full range. And within the bandwidth specified ā 50Hz to 1kHz, our metering system is easily 1% accurate.
They are not their for āfunā as they are there to show the differences between in and out. I donāt consider them necessary tools in that they donāt offer any means to adjust the results, but I think they are wonderfully handy to show the unitās amazing regulation and repair of waveforms.
I agree. What I liked the most was the Power Play interface where all measurements were plotted over time in a nice interface.
The meter in question was also band limited. Also several meters were used.
I remember hearing a difference (for the positive) initially back when I first plugged the M1200ās into my P12, but about 2 months ago I checked again to see if the P12 was really making a positive difference, so I plugged the M1200ās directly into the wall, and listened. Well, that didnāt last long, and I ended up plugging the amps directly into the P12 again. To put things into perspective, music still sounded good, in fact still very good, but was missing a bit of that magic when connected to the P12. The soundstage was slightly compressed without the P12.
Yes, absolutely. That was really sweet.