I play music once a day for about two hours. I turn the equipment on an hour before I play to warm up. The P20 is plugged in to wall outlet (240 volt and a switch on outlet since this is Australia) normally all the time. Over a few days the sound deteriorates mildly. It is not noise but a tangling or confusion that makes more elaborate or complex music sound poor. Background is silent. If I do a power cycle I go back to good, clean sound. I would like to know what the problem is–what to call it, what causes it, how I fix it. I now turn the equipment off all the time until an hour or so before I play it. I think, though I am not sure, that there is a slight deterioration after about two hours of playing. I play mostly classical music, mostly purchased downloads, occasional streaming. Plenty of space around the components, which are not stacked, so not heating up.
Equipment is Starlink internet/router to wireworld ethernet cable to English switch to wireworld ethernet cables connecting Roon Nucleus to Aqua LinQ to Aqua Formula DAC to BHK preamp (Mullard NOS tubes) to McIntosh 830 power amps to Chord cables to Sonus Faber Serafinos. Also a Rel sub.
I don’t have much to offer on this, but welcome to the forum!
Have you tried removing the P20 and using a power bar, even a cheap one for this test purpose, for a listening session to see if the P20 is malfunctioning? I say this because the power cycling brings back your regular and good sound. This would rule out a malfunctioning pre-amp, amp, or source component.
With all your system’s gear powered on…
Run your clean function on the P20…this will “degauss” the power transformers so to speak your P20 press the clean button twice to get a full 60 second cleaning run.
The clean function will not help if gear is turned off just fyi.
Try this and let us know if this helps or not.
Also check to see if you are running sine or multi wave…
multi wave will render a different sq from sine…
I have a P15 which does the same thing at times. When I run
the clean function the sound cleans up and becomes better focused.
I will try these things. Thank you very much for all help. I have run the “clean” function. I really have not been aware that the P20 was an active part of the system that I could change at all. It is difficult (physically) for me to unplug gear from the p20 and then plug it back in. So I will wait on that and see if other interventions help first. I am not sure whether the p20 is on the internet here. I will check. I only have a limited number of slots on the network switch. It might also be a good idea.
There are times that a total P15 disconnect from wall over
night helps whatever “latent current” to drain off so to speak.
When ever my P15 doesn’t seem to improve my system
with the clean function then I just unplug it from the wall…
My ears hear and distinct improvement. Unplugging from wall
overnight lets it “settle down”…
The on powering back up fresh the onboard computer chip
reloads the on chip software and give the entire a clean fresh
start…
My “classic young” ears appreciate the difference.
Just a thought here…when you power your P20 up again…
against all traditional thinking Power up your power amp first. I power up my Parasound JC5 power amp up first as at times the in current rush demand made will set off the P15’s auto protect circuit.
Easy fix just press power on on remote control (avoid bending down to reach power button
on P15) P15 will come back up then again power up my JC5
and voila all good!
Then power up the front ends power up my amp first to save an
unnecessary start up on front ends only to have them shut down
when my P15 auto protects from JC5 power up.
Finding which mode your P20 is running on rather simple:
on your P20’s remote locate the mw button when you press it
there will be plug in icons appear. The third one from the left
will have either multi or sine displayed under the icon.
When you press the the mw button on your remote will toggle
the change from either multi to sine or vice versa.
Before toggling to change modes stop the music and let your gear
idle then toggle between modes. Then resume playing music,
there ought to be a difference in sound stage quality.
To my ears sine wave yields a snappier, air ( attacks decays)
depth of image, and presence. Multi yields a fuller sound at the
expense of of the former.
Some music is poorly mastered and multi helps improve the
recording.
My speaker are the Focal Arias 948 which are very quick, detailed
with great ability to show a 3 d sound stage, but along with all that
will show up the poor engineering in a recording in no uncertain terms.
Thanks to all of you! I have degaussed the system 60 seconds and found the various icons and buttons. Seeing the displays on the P20 is actually difficult since it is close to the floor and to see them I have to take pictures with my phone and press the buttons. I did work out a way to see what happens when I press the remote button by using weak binoculars. So, yes, degaussing for 60 seconds does clean things up. And the sine wave seems to sound a little nicer on this equipment than the multi. I can’t hear much difference in the different numbers of the waves, but the 6 doesn’t sound as good as lower numbers. I will try again with more complicated music. The problem (of gradual deterioration) was happening with the Telefunken tubes we had in the BHK last so I think it isn’t the tubes, and we like these better. I am curious about what it is that accumulates. Two questions–is unplugging the P20 from the wall different from switching the wall outlet off? And, what is it that accumulates inside it? Is it just stuck in the P20 from the process of cleaning our electricity?
Amazing how your P20 and my P15 portray very near identical characteristics of behavior.
I tend to prefer sine over multi…and do much prefer multi in the lower 1-3 ranges mostly 1.
As for unplugging from wall or toggling wall outlet off…
for me unplugging from wall allows my P15 to be freed up from
all wall current and allow the internal to “drain” lose any built up
charges to fully dissipate …
In my thinking my .02 is doing so this give the regenerator’s on board cpu opportunity to reboot from a cleaner slate than just if you powered down..just my observation and preference…
Glad things are working out with you and your P20 !!
Is it okay to degauss daily? Maybe that would be enough? It seems there is something to be said for keeping the equipment on… Difficult. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDBa3asBm2I
In some listening sessions I clean wave each time I select a
different album simply because the difference is audible, and
I like to hear that freshness…even if just ever a bit better…
Paul has a great point here…leaving equipment on 24-7.
My JC5 amp is left on 24-7 as well as my PS DS Dac Mk 1.
The improvement in sound stage rendering is so much better.
My Wyred4Sound stp se stage 2 preamp needs shorter warm up
as well as my Oppo 205 uhd player which functions as a server
for me. These two only come on an hour or so before sessions.
Thank you again. So, mostly you leave the equipment on fully, with lights on, apart from the pre-amp. Then you degauss when the sound needs it and once in a while when the sound is odd you unplug the P20. When you power up you turn on the power amp first. Okay, I can certainly try that. We have had the P20 turn off the gear a few times, twice lately, though I can’t figure out why. Is there anything to gain by changing the one option on the P20 from High-regulation to THD? THD in was 2.6 last I checked and 0.1 out. We are on a rural line with our own transformer and have solar panels with Fronius inverter and also Tesla (regretfully) battery and its inverter. Grid power is over 240 and can go to 250. Does changing to Low distortion cause any problem?
As far as gear turning off the P20, in my case my one power amp
will shut down my P15 because my JC5 will draw that much current on power up that P15 goes into auto protect…which is okay. No biggy at all. Just go through the power up sequence again. It’ll be a okay.
As far as running in high regulation vs thd, in my case my thd
given the growth in my area thd has risen from roughly 2% to 5%.
In this case I ran the auto tune feature to let the on board chip auto correct the thd. When I ran auto tune I was impressed with the improvement in sq …really good for me. As a result I haven’t gone to high regulation.
A couple of years ago I did run the high regulation…couldn’t hear
that much difference as compared with the auto tune function results.
Currently thd in is 3.2% and 0.4% thd out.
Have fun with your P20 it is really nice upgrade for your system
as my P15 is for mine even fresh out or the box.
I think that “High Regulation” and “Low Distortion” will be very component and system related. My power amp is the biggest power draw in my system and it is a tube amp with a big power supply. “High Regulation” is clearly the better sounding.
I run my main gear off a P10 (with recently replaced regen boards). I always try to run clean for two minutes every hour. If I don’t and a few hours go by I run clean for four minutes. Without a recent long clean the transients just aren’t what they can be and it’s only really obvious when you play a track and things like snare rim shots lack attack.
