Sorry to hear that you have had so much trouble! That would definitely kill the fun for me. Hope whatever you get from now on works the way it should and sounds the way you want it to!
Thanks. I do like the performance of the PSA equipment - but I’m fed up with all the problems … Where I live it isn’t easy to get the equipment repaired . I simply can’t be bothered now with all of the hassle… Time to move on.
Same for me. Too many problems.
3 x PPP, 3 x P5, 2 x P10, 1 x PD47, 1 x DUET, 1 x DECTET, 1 x NH, 1 x HB3, 1 x DMP, 1 x DSD, 1 x DSJ, 2 x PP1500Mk2. Everything has broken down, or hasn’t worked properly, or arrived with some sort of fault, except for the DUET, and except for all the power cables which have been OK.
That is just the reality of my situation I’m afraid. Yet others own stuff for years and never have any problems at all. Good luck to them, I’ve moved on. In their favor, PS Audio have always stood rock solid behind their warranty. Even if slightly outside the warranty period they’ve still covered it.
I’ve had a P300 PowerPlant since about 2002, and it’s still going strong. I ran it with the fan disconnected for several years, which is not recommended, and needed to get it re-capped a few years ago. Aside from that, which was my own fault, I’ve never had any issues with any of my PS Audio gear, which included GCP-200 preamp, Perfectwave DAC, BHK Preamp, DirectStream DAC, P10, Dectet, LanRover, and multiple power cables/Ultimate Outlets, etc…
I would wholeheartedly recommend buying a used P10… Should be able to pick one up for around $2,500, which in my opinion, is one of the best deals in Hi-Fi.
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I think electrolytic capacitors would be elements that degrade first, unless there was an extra effort by the manufacturer to put longer lasting or better quality ones. Most of them have a life span of 5000 hours only (correction, at their rated temperature, e.g. 85, 105 degrees). But there are those lasting twice that, but still, that is not that long. This is the reason I don’t follow why, for example, P3 runs continuously by design unless switched off in the rear panel. Power caps are not cheap to replace.
I bought my first P S Audio product in January 2015 - over a 4 year time span I’ve bought 15 PSA equipment and various cables. In the region of $120,000 US: Bought in the UK - no special offers or factory trade-in deals.
Yes - I realise there are owners who haven’t had any problems - who will be incredulous to my circumstance, and good luck to them all. How they are so happy and content with PSA and with their PSA equipment, never had a single problem, etc, etc. great for them and I do mean that – ‘I wish it was me’ … But it doesn’t help my circumstance. I am supposedly in the 1% group with 99% living the dream…!
I do like the performance of the P S Audio equipment or I wouldn’t have committed so heavily to PSA… But I’ve experienced too many problems with them. This latest fault with my BHK preamp is the tipping point…
The caps we choose are long lived and can easily go years and do.
The inrush current of on and off again of a big power supply or power amp is more injurious to capacitors than being on and running within their limits which is why we keep the Power Plants on.
Heat is another killer of capacitors, but we do our best to keep them within their tolerance.
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Given that there are 8760 hours in a year that’s not very long! As you point out the temperature is important with a rating of 85 deg C, but I think most PS Audio equipment will be well below that and, hence, have a much longer life. In that regard, I found the following quote from Illinois Capacitor “The rate of increase in operating life is for the life to double for every 10°C decrease in temperature (Arrhenius’s law).” So if the internal temperature is still a rather high 65 deg C life improves to 20,000 hours (a little more than two years), better but still not real long. Given the much longer life of most electronics, I would suspect the operating temperature is much lower.
I’ll add that I have a P10, but I bought it used just a couple of months ago. I know it worked flawlessly for the previous owner and has worked fine for me. I also have several other PS Audio components and none of them have had a capacitor failure with the exception of the P500 regenerator. That piece ran quite hot and the capacitors failed at about eight years old. The P10 runs cooler, from better design and much larger chassis, so I wouldn’t fret too much about life.
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My P-10 which I too bought used runs very cool too. When playing at high volume levels I am only using about 10% of it’s capacity! I am sure that helps to keep it cool.
It is the best investment I have ever made for something to enhance the performance of my system. I should have done it long ago!
The vast majority of our regenerators are performing well in the field and will continue to do so for decades to come.
From what I saw in P3, PSU caps are 105’C, also of a known brand. It could use more capacitance, but chassis size restrictions do not allow that unfortunately.
Agreed, I have a pretty narrow field of experience so I was hesitant to make broad statements. I mentioned the P500 only because I had an issue, but it wasn’t intended as a negative comment. I whole heartedly support PS Audio, they’re a great company to interact with and make great products!
Thanks! I appreciate those kind words.
What problems did you have with the DECTET ? My two would go into limp home mode … Wake up in the morning and they would have switched off and the blue light was flashing off and on… I had them checked out and eventually one of them was swapped for another new one but still the fault persisted… I was told the fault was to do with my mains supply, but everything else connected to the mains worked perfectly… I beta tested them in four different locations at friends houses and they would switch off in my friends houses for no apparent reason… STRANGE !!! Did you experience anything like that ?
DECTET arrived brand new with screws missing from the IEC inlet which was flopping around loose in the housing. It must have been QC’d by blind Freddy late on a Friday afternoon at the factory, or more likely not at all. Maybe the same person who QC’d my DSJ, that also had chassis screws missing.
Mine also had the flashing blue light of death. Had to be returned for repair. Since repair it has been reliable. I’m still using it today.
“Blind Freddy” 
It is a good product I will give it that, but my two are unreliable… I just wondered if it was a voltage/current issue ? Our countries being 230/40 volts hence why I asked… What can you do !!
They changed the over voltage level via software update to make it more tolerant of higher voltages before triggering an over-voltage shutdown. End users can’t do updates on a DECTET.
I didn’t know that. Thanks for the info. So it is a factory repair… I bet they knew that over here but didn’t want to tell me… What a carry on…
International distributors should have the particular cable required to connect to DECTET and do the update. There might also have been a component change but I’m not sure about that.
Much appreciated… I will look into this… Easy job to send them to the UK distributor if he has the ability to carry out the software update… I will make a point of checking it out next week. Thanks.