My P20 has never displayed perfect 120.0V output. It displays ~119.6 and it varies by about +/- 0.1V. If I increase the output voltage setting to 121, it just goes up by 1, to ~121.6.
Is this normal? Seems odd that a device designed for perfect voltage output doesn’t actually do that! Perhaps the meter is just off?
Selecting Voltage Regulation doesn’t affect this.
My incoming voltage is always 120-123V. THD in is typically 2.5-3.5%.
I believe the meters are all for general reference only. What matters is consistency of the voltage output.
Out of curiosity, have you measured the output voltage with a multi-meter?
More importantly, how does your P20 sound?
Hi Elk, thanks. Now it’s 119.8-119.9, which is better.
In terms of how it sounds - I noticed it was sounding “off” last night. Noise floor (the background noise heard through the speakers when nothing is playing was about 1dB louder than normal).
I restarted the P20 (via the front switch) and it seemed to fix it. I suppose it makes sense that periodically we should restart the P20, as it is driven my a microprocessor after all.
Enjoy your P20! It is a marvelous beast.
Thanks!
The interesting “revelation” is that restarting the P20 periodically has improved the sound, and image quality. I am not sure if this has been discussed before; but I would like to hear from others who have compared the audio/video quality before/after a restart…
The clean function at 60 seconds does well on a P20. But for it to sound its best and to clean up its sound. It needs expensive power cord wit RF Antenna drain like a whisper Elite or a tweaked AQ Dragon with a 3M AB 7050 HF tuning Ring plus AB7050HF absorber sheet installed on its top cover. Plus sorbothane isolators under it and one supporting the power cord Next a audiophile fuse like Audio Magic M-1 or at least a SR purple.
It is a good piece but really steps up with audiophile tweaks. If you have not started tweaking I’d suggest you start. It is relatively noisy and will open up soundstage and get blacker backgrounds and better imaging with the tweaks. They are all additive so do them as you can afford them.
Yes, makes sense but the first step is to make it more consistent from day to day. Normally it is very quiet - what helped was adding Shunyata Defender and a Denali on the same circuit (but not in series). This made a big difference by quieting noisy components that were not connected to the P20 but nevertheless added noise to the P20 components.
Is the Denali and P20 on same ground circuit? Difference in grounds and analog connections might be giving noise otherwise.
Yes, they are plugged into the same outlet. That’s not it because the Denali made a substantial reduction in noise.
The discovery is that the P20 needed to be restarted as it was adding more noise than before the restart.
What does the Denali do in your system? How do you decide what to power with it and with your P20?
The Denali removes noise from the line.
USB powered fans, Eero Wi-Fi satellite add noise to the line. With the Denali connected in parallel (ie in the same outlet), noise is reduced.
The Defender does the same thing, but to a lesser extent.
Any switch mode power supply on the same circuit as the P20 will add noise to the output of the P20! Not a lot, but audible as about 0.5dB of additional background noise (my speakers are over 100dB efficient) so this may not be audible on other systems.
I don’t think this has anything to do with P20 - because pressing power button at front panel will just disable power output zones which are not marked as “always on”, the P20 is still fully powered up, just not providing output on power sockets.
Therefore I think the noise level change is due to reboot of one/more of the devices powered by P20.
For example during the several years I own DS DAC I had couple of situations where the sound was off and power-cycle of either DS DAC , or streamer solved this.
Disclaimer - I’m using P10 , but if not mistaken it’s the same as described for any PS Audio PowerPlant.
I see, thanks, great insights.
You must be right.