I just received a new P12 in the mail from a dealer. When i turned on the unit there were some puffs of white smoke emitted by the p12 and the smell of chemical or plastic burn. I turned the unit off and on again and the same happened. I turned off the unit over night and I turned it back on in the morning the same thing happened briefly, but then the smoke and smell disappeared, I tested all features of the unit and it seems to work fine now even after several additional power cycles and several hours of monitoring. Gives a whole new meaning to “burn in”… Has anyone else experienced something like this? Might there have been a piece of plastic that fell in or some residual chemical from the build process? Will the P12 burn down my house? 
Unless PS Audio chimes in and says, “no biggie”, I would unplug it immediately and send it back for a new one. Never, in my lifetime of new kit purchases, have I experienced such a thing. My $0.02. Cheers.
PS
I would unplug it until you hear back from PS Audio/customer service.
I agree with @scotte1, I had a P5 do the same thing. It was replaced with another one.
Definitely a problem. Contact customer service and have them ship you a new one and a return postage tag for the old one.
Probably a faulty capacitor. It happens, they’ll make it right.
Do faulty capacitors get faulty because of shipping? Assuming this P12 was tested at the factory and found to be good, makes me wonder what causes it to make smoke the first time a customer turns it on.
Electronics are weird. Either they fail within the first couple of weeks or so, or they essentially last forever and fail on a whim.
PS Audio could easily have tested the unit, shipped it, and it failed on the next power up.
I have had it happen with avionics and other electronics.
Rough handling is always a possibility. Those guys toss stuff around without concern. It’s just a cost of business for fedex & UPS. I had a forty pound $2K Yamaha receiver take a header from careless UPS handling.
If I recall in the MSB owner forums recently, the power supply for a DAC fell off the back of the FedEx truck at time of delivery, and that was obviously damaged in the process. The FedEx guy didn’t even bother delivering it and it was returned for a new one.
However, in this instance of the smoking P12, assuming the external packaging was intact, the insides should be able to survive the ordinary rough and tumble of shipping because they are very well protected in that plastic cocoon (when the inserts are put in the box properly). I had a P3 power plant delivered and the top insert was upside down meaning the P3 wasn’t contained properly and it arrived damaged (cosmetic damage, functionally it was OK). Shipping insurance paid out on that one.
That doesn’t sound good though I have seen something like this before where a piece of shmutz somehow made its way into the unit and got smoked out. But, I agree. If this was a new unit and smoke came out we should get it back. Can you contact us and explain what happened? We’ll arrange a prepaid return and inspection just to make sure.
Sorry about that!
Thanks Paul , I will call in. I unwrapped the unit beneath our Christmas tree, so maybe one of those pesky needles got into it…
I also got a P15 in the same shipment and the Directstream Dac before,both work flawlessly . Using the P15 in my recording studio and loving it
Excellent. A needle may well have fallen in and I’ll bet 99% that there’s nothing wrong with the unit, but you never know. Merry Christmas!
Please report back once you know what happened.
Quick update. PS Audio support was extremely cordial, quick, helpful and easy to deal with (a big shout out to Jeremy in support!). PS Audio is sending me a new P12 replacement unit - no months long repair waits, no haggling or attempts to extract money for repairs or replacement.
Unlike other companies I have dealt with, the approach PS audio appears to take is to delight the customer and to err on the side of creating customer loyalty by providing excellent replacement and upgrade options when needed.
Naturally, support couldn’t identify the root cause of this issue remotely, the errant xmas tree needle or faulty capacitor theories are both still in the running. If I find out what the repair department determined I will post an additional update here
Thanks for the update. I hope you learn what happened so you can let us know. It is uncommon for the magic smoke to be released.
My ongoing impression is PS Audio is almost delighted to have a problem they can solve.
Uncommon, yes. But it has happened to me. And the smoke is nasty. Ultimately a smoking P5 + $1000 got me a new P10.
Speaking of outstanding customer service, PSA replaced a counterfeit P12 power cord for me, at no charge.
That’s remarkable, in my book.
Beyond remarkable. 