Is it more efficient to buck or boost voltage in the P10?
My input averages (only 7 days) 123V, so I set the P10 to 122 presuming its less ‘work’ to buck a voltage vs. boost.
I’ve read it can be more efficient to boost in a photovoltaic system but the same paper referred to buck being most efficient in a ‘conventional’ circuit. Again, I presume they mean household AC service.
From my limited understanding, the power plants are physically configured in one mode or the other at the factory. If your local supply is typically less than the reference you order the boost version, buck if your local supply is higher than reference. In my case I ordered a power plant in buck mode…unfortunately I was sent one configured in boost mode. I don’t recall whether I sent mine back or they gave me the OK to open it up and flip a switch.
Hmmm, the US 120V version allows changing from 105V to 125V via the touch screen.
Whether it is easy for the Power Plants to buck or boost is an interesting question, I have no idea. 
I would not overthink it however. The units are designed to modify voltage. If you would like 120V for your system, set your P10 at 120V. This is what the unit is for.
It was just more of a curious thought. I have time today to measure and see if there is any apparent difference between boost or cut.
I have measured and there is a significant difference when bucking to a much lower voltage -18V than -1V. Since my line voltage is so high, I can’t boost much and didn’t see much increase in consumption.
I also found that for my setup, multiwave is more efficient than sine by a significant margin in current draw from the P10. I expected it to be the opposite but the meter doesn’t lie.
Anyway, hope this helps others that have a similar thought.
Fun and interesting experiments.
While the components draw less from the P10 on multiwave, did you also measure the draw from the wall into the P10 and compare sine to multiwave? This is where I would expect higher consumption.
I only measured from the wall to the P10. I suspect the total overhead of the P10 is less when running MW. It was a significant difference under the same load, ~100W difference. The P10 is only about 50% efficient at <20% load based on my measurements. My 2 channel setup only draws 150W total, yet the draw from the wall is ~300W using MW, nearly 400W using sine. I didn’t measure with my display and HT gear turned on but I know the P10 sees about 450W when all this is on…I suspect it get’s more efficient the greater to load up to a point.
I bet the new DSDP10 will be more efficient but I ‘bought’ a bunch of electricity by buying an essentially brand-new PCM P10.
It’s an impressive device. Completely worth the expense and trouble (weight) for video improvements alone.
Fascinating stuff. Thanks!
It never occurred to me to measure, even though I have enough basic instrumentation to do so.