P15 on order now, now what for power improvements with limited funds?

Power Components
1

Been digging deep into Paul’s videos and the forum with regard to power, etc. My room is my biggest limiting factor and some of it is unfixable (like a metal woodstove owning the room), so I accept I’ll never get the most possible out of any system but don’t want to miss soundstage etc if I can avoid it with selective wise improvements

Currently have BHK DS DAC, Pre, and 300 monos, a lightweight UPS feeding a Furman Rackrider. All factory cords. The Furman will come out and will try the UPS in and out after burnin.

Quoting Paul, I believe he said this, “get the highest level regenerator you can afford and run a coat hanger for cords if you need to” So I’ve done that and just placement my order for a P15.

If the regenerator is “fixing” the power how important is the house line feeding the P15. One video goes into detail about running a dedicated 10 ga 20 amp dedicated line with hospital or audio grade outlet. Is this still a big value add once the regenerator is in place or just if your running native power?

Replacing the curtesy cords, Options include entry level cables like the AC3 or 5, 12’s all around isn’t in the cards. Are different level cables more appropriate for different components. Wondering if amps benefit from the heavier gage AC5 more than the DAC or Pre? Would it be better to invest in a single AC12 feeding the regenerator or DAC and leave the rest as is?

My current thinking is do the lighter gage AC3 to the DAC and Pre, feed the mono’s with the heavier gage AC5 and leave the factory input for the P15, or do AC3 all around.

I don’t see being able to do all of these, looking for insight of where to invest and still have enough to update my sub or maybe subs, and some room diffusors’ if I can save enough on power

Maybe rate value from 1 (most important) when using a P15, here’s what I was thinking.

Power Cords if I’m not doing all
Dac AC3 1
Dac AC5 6
Pre AC3 2
Pre AC5 7

Amp with AC3 3
Amp with AC5 4

P15 with AC3 5
P15 with AC5 8

Dedicated circuit 9

Thanks in advance for your thoughts

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You said you have limited funds, but you’re talking about AC-12 and AC-5? Just use AC-3 everywhere and be happy with what you end up with. If there is some coin left over, use an AC-5 to plug the P15 into the wall. Keep watching out for 50% off PS specials that come up from time to time on AA and MD.

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That’s what I did with my P5, SGCD, and M700s and I’m happy with the AC3s. Of course, if you don’t try something else, you don’t know what you are missing. Upscale Audio still has 40% off PS Audio power cords.

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yeah, i do agree having a clean dedicated line will help a lot. it’s a nice foundational piece… msb has a really good article about setting it up accordingly:

it cost me about $300 to run two dedicated lines ~70 ft run, upgrade the bus bar to copper and do the silver paste.

of all the power cables, the one feeding your p15 will be the most important because that cable’s character will percolate across the entire system. worth considering older used shunyata products, or audience’s forte series (I think the cableco was clearing some b-run units (due to some misprinted decal or something) for a fairly good bargain).

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Interesting article, they have a point about the dedicated line being more about resistance than noise from other devices. I had considered 10 gage as the standard, this article feels that I should be 6 gage for the distance. Their reasoning is that the amp can put micro demands that the lighter gages would choke off. Makes sense

What it doesn’t go into is the concept of regeneration. I’m struggling with a few of the basic concepts of the regeneration vs direct connecting to the house service / filter / conditioner.

As I understand it, the premise of the regenerator is to take assumed substandard sine wave current, convert it to DC, then recreate a “perfect” sine wave out. As a side note, I’m understanding that the regenerator also has a bit of a “savings bank” which it can draw against to fill in when the 120V drops a bit or current is a bit below what be momentary needed.

If this is the case, I get running a dedicated line to deal with the distance resistance and voltage drop of distance. Wondering if the “saving bank” concept negates the need to go all the way to 6 gage. If the concept is to disassemble the incoming sine wave into DC, what value is there to treating the power into the regenerator with a high end PC. Any benefits shouldn’t propagate to the downstream devices as that treated sine wave signal is destroyed. It makes lots of sense if using a filter, or just a distribution panel.

I’m curious siao-jer, do you have a regenerator, and if so, did you observe a benefit with a high end PC in?

It seems reasonable that components fall into 2 categories, low current with high sensitivity (Like a DAC with clocks and signal modification circuits), and amp that are much higher current and perhaps less sensitive. I’m of the mind that each would benefit from different attributes of a PC. This is why I’m asking if there is an upside to being selective on higher end cables to any particular device.

Would a quad shielded PC be a better choice for a DAC, and a higher gage double shielded for the amps be a better trade off?

Yes the easy cheap solution is to at least toss correctly shielded PC everywhere. This would limit crosstalk if nothing else. Thinking that some wise choices beyond that could yield big benefit without breaking the bank.

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yeah - i had a P10 where i subsequently tested the stock cable, the ac12, the shunyata ztron alpha hc, and ultimately the synergistic research atmosphere level 3 hc. my buddy brought over his HFC CT-1 Ultimate, and in every case the cables character percolated through the system. I ended up settling up the SR Atmosphere Level 3 cable.

no doubt the p10 had its impact as a power conditioner (regenerator) on it’s own. you can hear tightening of the bass, detail come out, and quieter background, etc… but the color the cable imparts adds/tweaks to it.

i hope that can offer some insight…

unrelated and not to derail you too far, but i also found upgrading the fuse on the p10 also gave some really darn good return too (something to consider down the road)

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siao-jer,

Didn’t see that coming, I would expect the P15 to behave roughly as your P10 did. Fortunate you had so many cables to roll between. Perhaps my biggest take away is that P15 shouldn’t be left with the factory PC.

One piece of luck for me is its going to be one of the shortest PC’s I have in the system

Thanks for sharing your experiences

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One thing to note about length, is to not overlook the stiffness of the cable-- like the AC12 is fairly stiff so if you have a bend, you’ll need to account some additional length to accommodate. The Audience cable is on the other spectrum where they are fairly flexible so you can get away with something slightly shorter.

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I use Shunyata ztron Alpha power cords, so I am curious as to how you liked the Shunyata vs. the AC12.

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I liked the Shunyata’s better. Some people love or hate the Shunyata house sound, but I didn’t mind it at all. I felt the AC12 had a little more detail but also came off a little bit bright on my system at the time. My system’s changed a lot since so take that with a grain of salt.