Happy new year everyone.
When PS Audio announced the black friday discount sales, I checked to see if power regenerators were included -on the black friday deals. Alas the re-generators were not listed in the black friday deals. So I decided to send in a question to the ask Paul section. I was interested in the P5.
Well low and behold a very gracious reply came back from Kevin Jackson. That while not part of the black friday special…he would extend the same discount level on a new P5 for me. Thanking Kevin took him up on the offerthat was on 11-17-2017. My new P5 arrived on 11-25-17.
While waiting for my P5’s arrival …I was trying to get a preconceived notion of how much better the P5 would be over my magnificent heroic dynamic duo friends Soloist Quintessence combo could be bested. These 2 guys had been performing an amazing job of providing improvements to my 2 ch system.
Upon installing my new P5, I knew from before hand that burn in time is mandatory. My Oppo 105 took 1000 hrsyes you read right 1000 hrs. An interesting review done on cap burn in time was performed using various highendcaps. It appears that the ones used in the audio portion of the 105 (I think elna ) took 1000 hrs to burn in and the various observations experienced in the process matched why I had experience with my Oppo 105.
Now after about a month of use all I can say is WOW !!
Starting off with Mannheim Steamroller’s album Classical Gas. In the opening track Classical Gas…there is a crash cymbal that always sounded brash nasty. Now with P5 in sine wave mode much more tolerable, but in multiwave strength level 1 the nasty brashness gone ! change up to multiwave level 2 more body is gained offending cymbal now a delight to listen to. Multiwave appears to add missing body to this album. My dynamic duo could never fixthis ac power induced abberation.
Next up Telarc’s Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy, Boston Symphony, Rudolph Serkin on the piano Seji Ozawa conducting. My dynamic duo served very well …but my new P5 Wow. The delicate very quick piano strokes are rendered on a whole new plane. Individual strokes initial attacks decays revealing so much more intricacy and masterful play. The concluding choral finale while always good…now clearer rendition in the diction in the closing cresendo.
The big improvements I am finding are in the lightning fast transient attacks with the accompanying cracks and spatial details…In jazz now each bass note is distinct from the bass string itself…pretty amazing in of itself…depth of stage front to back, verticality plus lateral width
A good read would be hometheater shack’s $3000 Speaker Evaluation Home Audition Event. A very well documented step by step evaluation utilizing the same sound tracks on each speaker reviewed.
With my new P5 all the desireable traits were brought out in a much grander way than with my venerable dynamic duo, Soloist Quintessence.
My system :
Soloist>P5 > Oppo 105> Emotiva XSP 1 Gen2 preamp>Wyred4Sound STP SE Stage 2 preamp>Parasound A21 power amp> Infinity Beta 50s (2003).
I did run my A21 power amp to wall but much prefer to run through P5…in my ears much better than direct to wall.
At listening levels of 65 db with peaks to 79 db or so P5 may show 45 to 60% load and depending on the music material as much as 600 watts for a few seconds. Well within P5s ability.My P5 is set to low distortion.
Inbound volts vary 120-123 outbound set to 122
idle watts about 245…inbound thd 3% out 0.3%
amps 3.06 idle load 37% idle.
So Kevin and Paul thank you so much for making possible for me to acquire my new P5 regenerator.
Quintessence doing duty on my hdtv.
I forgot to mention my sound room is L shaped 15’ by 25’ speakers out from wall 8’ toed in about 5deg tilted back about 3deg. out from sidewalls 4.5’ My listening spot is 15’ from speakers with about 2’ behind my listening spot.
edited to add omission
David
