I have had a PS Audio Quintet for many years and I have been rather happy with it. However, since I now need more than five outlets I purchased a Dectet last week. When unpacking the Dectet I was a bit surprised to read on the Dectet “Max load 10 amps total”, since this was not outwritten in the product information or in the manual I downloaded before purchase.
Now to my question. Among other equipment I have two Parasound Halo JC-1 monoblocks that are in class A the first 25 W and they draw 250 W each continously at idle. When plugging in all my equipment in the Dectet for the first time I heard a very pristine sound in the midrange and treble, a bit cleaner and smoother than through the Quintet. However, I also perceived a certain dynamic restriction compared to the Quintet at all frequencies and the bass sounds less defined.
I have now had the Dectet in my system for three days and my initial impressions are intact. I am a bit surprised about this and I therefore would like to ask if it has something to do with the “Max load 10 amps total” restriction written on the Dectet? I am a bit worried since I prior to purchasing the Dectet tested an 8 A transformer based isolation unit (from a well-known brand…) and that transform could not handle the JC-1s, I could clearly hear that it became saturated since there was a very strong increase in hum.
Is the max load restriction of 10 amps contious or peak amps? Should I await further “breaking-in” of the Dectet before critical listening?
Wait for further break-in. The 10 amp rating is required by rules - and the internal parts are rated way beyond that, where 20 amps is not problem at all. In fact, the Dectet is more robust than the Quintet. Because of the IEC inlet, we are required to write the restriction. It is not actually restricted internally at all.
Thanks for the advice. Good to know that the Dectet is not internally restricted. I will let the Dectet break-in for a while longer before drawing any conclusions. My experience with power chords is that it takes a week before they settle so it would not be surpising if this is also the case with the Dectet.
Rather than start a new topic, I thought I’d ask a question here. I’ve had a hum problem for many years. My 2-channel system is fine but as soon as I turn on my other amp which powers my center and surrounds, I get a fight for ground…a ground loop. So recently I bought a ground lift plug and placed it over the 3-channel amp’s connectors and it’s now silent. My question is, is this still dangerous when running everything through the Dectet’s circuitry? Can the protection be relied upon without one amp being grounded? Thanks.
EDIT: By the way, this thing kicks so much butt. I run 2 Krell amps (5x500 watts!) along with a TT, Oppo BDP105, phono preamp, HT preamp, TV and a Tascam recorder. It’s dead silent (other than the ground loops which are no fault of the Dectet’s) and the breaker has never kicked!
Paul McGowan said
It should be OK and I do it all the time. Having said that as a practical matter, an electrician or safety inspector would disagree with me.
I have noticed that the power outlets in my family room (listening room) supposedly have a weak or disconnected ground circuit. My circuit tester should illuminate two yellow lights for a properly connected outlet, yet one of them illimuminates dimly. In other rooms with grounded outlets, both lights illuminate as they should.
Looking at the circuit breaker panel, all of the wiring is connected (the white neutral and bare copper wires are all connected to the neutral bus, for all of the incoming wiring, and the panel is grounded/bonded to the water pipe).
The problem I have is that this room is a late 1980s addition onto a 1940 house, with no crawl space underneath that I can access, so the wiring is impossible to inspect for the entire distance. About all I could do at this point is pull the outlets to see if the ground is connected at each of them. Since outlets are typically daisy-chained throughout a house, my guess is that a ground connection is missing in one of them. (The big issue is that I have some heavy furniture to move to inspect four of the six within the room.)
I noticed a few years ago that I was having a buzzing issue with one of my components, depending on which other components or lighting in the room was turned on. That was before I determined the ground was likely not connected.
As I will be running a Dectet in this room, will that missing ground prevent it from working properly?
Yes and no. The ground helps clean up a few high-frequency components on the line, but the bulk of Dectet work is done in series and requires no ground. So you’ll get 90% of the benefit.