Thanks for sharing! I have a P15 it does make a difference with my system. But having trouble with the screen. I have white lines going up and down on the screen.
Chief Engineer at Audioquest independently said Regenerators are not worth it. Not sure I agree, but worth a listen. This might be why PS Audio only uses the screen on their regenerator to show it's working, instead to test equipment. See his RU-vid Video "Why Audioquest does not make AC Regenerators" ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-bXRehON7SlM.html Curious as to why every favorable PS Audio test doesn't use external test equipment to show the wave form.
That is why I used a Fluke Power Quality Analayzer to verify the PS Audio's Regenerators screen. Granted the Fluke instrument is not a reference grade bench meter but it is sent annually for calibration. The Fluke meters scope screen does offer a higher resolution and accuracy the the PS Audio's built in screen. Although I did not show the Fluke meters scope. It was comparable to the PS Audio screens scope.
@@eddiscus The only sine wave I could see on this video was generated by the the PS Audio Regenerator. I'm very glad to be wrong. Could you share the minute mark on the video where we can see the Sine wave not presented by the gear under test? 3rd party test equipment should only be used, and not the internal test results of the unit under test. No one anywhere confirming the results of the Regenerator seems to own a dual trace oscilloscope.
@@LegoRobotChickens if you would like I can use either a heathkit oscilloscope I have or get use of the Fluke Power Quality analyzer and get screen captures of the scope screen.
@@eddiscus PS Audio needs to make this investment. They have unfortunately used you as a stalking horse on the company's website forum as proof the Regenerator works as advertised. All the best Ed, I think you're caught-up in the middle and used by the company.
Recent Video From PS Audio explaining the measurement and benefit of the Power Plants low impedance and voltage regulation. Also they discuss the theoretical benefits of a clean sine wave and their multi wave technology in the Power Plant. Take it for what it is worth. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-C8Gede0IQio.html
It’s utter nonsense. Watch the second review from ASR where it is revealed the P12 doesn’t even regenerate AC, it syncs to it to regulate, but passes ALL THE NOISE directly to outputs. These are nonsense snake oil products that take your money and do nothing but degrade your audio. Wake up.
This is a bit beyond me but two points: One is that I am aware that some manufacturers prefer no regenerators. The other is Amir on ASR who has some serious testing gear and methodology.
I see you posted this a while ago. If you have AC that is that distorted, you should be talking to your utility provider and also your public utility commission. There are minimum standards and I suspect they're not meeting the minimum requirements. Either you have an issue with the substation or your pole transformer. I had really bad power and it did take the better part of ten years for our substation to be upgraded but once the problem is identified, they have to address the problem. We ended up with a temporary transformer trailer providing our HV feed for about two years before the final fixes were done. As for the re-generators... just a waste of money, sadly. If your amplifier uses a conventional transformer, the harmonics will likely be blocked and of course rectification and reasonably sized bulk storage capacitors absorb all the ripple that is normally produced which is much greater than any remnants of rectified harmonics of the 60 Hz. (120 pulses per second after the rectifiers). Paul's re-generators are a solution looking for a problem. Amir from Audio Science Review recently did some pretty extensive testing of the P12 that also supports this.
These devices from PS Audio do nothing to improve the sound of a hifi. Nothing. See the recent review on Audio Science Review here on RU-vid, where far more sophisticated analysis is done with far better explanation. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-II07bFlteig.html&ab_channel=AudioScienceReview
I always like what Amir brings to the table with his reviews. If I had a THD of 2% from the mains like he does, I would not even think of some type of power conditioner. He did get a reduction in the THD from just under 2% down to 0.4%. So i dont know about destroying the P12. I will agree that the product description may have been oversold in their advertising. I was kind of interested with the slight increase in the noise floor on the low frequencies when on the power conditioner. His Audio Precision analyzer offers a higher level of granularity then the Fluke power meter I used for the review. I typically have 5% to 8% THD on my mains supply and I don't see it getting any better with the neighborhood installations of grid tie solar panels and EV car chargers. Right now I see a correlation of Mains THD being at 5% at night and 8% during the day (possibly due to the solar panels waking up and feeding into the utility grid). So the addition of the device to reduce the THD, add voltage stabilization and surge protection to the system works for me.
@@eddiscus - You write as though you had Amir's review on while you were working on something else. He tells the listener that the very idea of power regeneration for a DC device is illogical from the start. His conclusion are that the device is a fraud ie useless. Your wobbly caveats are nonsense in light of both his measurements, and his listening test. Stop lying to people.
A.S.R. destroyed it twice. The first review, then the supplemental produced to respect all the critics who came to the table via his forum over the 1st review.
@@johnsmith1474 "Lying to people" kind of a rude comment to throw out there. I just shared the measurements I was able to take with the meter available to me and share my opinion and observation. Does this or any power conditioner make a difference in the final output of the devices SMPS apparently not as tested by Amir. Does reducing the harmonics help the SMPS in overall operation I cannot say. I can say it will help reduce the stress on transformers on the line side. Is a reduction of 8% to 1% or less going to make a long term difference? I cannot say as only time will tell. When I purchased the unit I 30 days to evaluate the Regenerators performance or return it. I have decided to keep it and trade in my existing power conditioning gear accumulated over the years. So I apologize for offering my opinion. But it did what I wanted it to do and my measurements as rudimentary as they may be confirmed that it cleaned up the sine wave and reduced the harmonics on the AC supply to my gear.
Curious. Why on earth do you think the harmonic distortion level of incoming AC power has any relation whatsoever to the fidelity performance of audio components? The whole presumption that this matters…even a tiny bit…is nonsense. Edit: Here is the conclusion of audiosciencereview.com about the P12 product after fully testing it… “Bottom line is that at worst, PS Audio P12 objectively degrades the performance of some audio products if you use the Zone D outlet. If you use the other zones, it simply doesn't do anything useful than waste some power, take up space, and cost you a lot of money. Distortion, noise, dynamic and average power of all tested products remains the same as not using P12. This is what the data shows and after two weeks of waiting, nothing has been presented from PS Audio or anyone else for that matter, to indicate otherwise.”
In most cases with quality components and good SMPS it really should not. But if I can clean it up a bit why should I not. Over the years I have had other brands of units that advertised different things. Some worked as advertised others caused a flattening of the audio dynamic range. So having a component that did nor reduce the quality while having the addition of voltage regulation, over and under voltage protection as well as surge protection are some added benefits that were also appreciated. Subjectively I feel that during heavy hitting content the unit offers better support of the system than just going direct to the mains supply.
@@eddiscus - You avoided Peter's question completely. But you maintain that if you have a $350 hifi, you can buy this $6000 device to make it sound better? I call bs on you.
Great video. I took away a lot of info from this. I actually just ordered a P-20 thanks to you. You said it could be set up to 120v or to for thd distortion. What is the benefit of this and which way should I set mine up when it arrives? I have a McIntosh integrated amp and Sonus Faber Extrema Speakers. Which setting should I use? Thanks in advance. --Enrico from Tuscany Italy--
It depends on your the stability of your mains supply. The unit does have limitations. If you set its primary function to be voltage regulation for example and your voltage target is 120 volt and your mains voltage drops down to 110 or less the internal circuitry will concentrate on voltage regulation and let the distortion reduction loosen up. My unit has maintained the voltage output but the THD reduction started to loosen up to about 1%. But the mains distortion was 5% or above. So the PowerPlant is still doing its job. The inverse would happen as well. If you had it set to concentrate on THD distortion reduction then the reduction would remain stable but your voltage output would waiver when you reach the regulating limits of the device.
Almost forgot to add this. Those harmonics are coming off the grid, btw. They're a byproduct of excitation of power transformers across the utility system. I tested thousands of units over a 40 year career. They all had flat tops and 3rd and 5th order harmonics. Cool Fluke analyzer, you must have worked in a cal lab!
My driving a nail through the battery was to show that resistive discharging was the effective way to render the battery inert. Not the saltwater bath method which left a significant amount of residual energy. The nail is not an approved or recommended method of discharge or disposal.
@@eddiscus I understand what u are trying to convey but many people may get the wrong message and may try to "discharge" their batteries the wrong way. the battery actually says on the back not to through them away so by making a video as such, you're are causing damage to people and the environment.
@@youngboys8295 I am sure recycling technology has changed but I doubt is as wide spread as we think. But more of a placebo effect for the general public. In the EV marketplace the repurpose cells for residential powerwalls due to the lower power density and performance demand. Back when I made the video articles learned toward the recycle process being more of an environmental hazard and cost prohibitive process. iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1149/MA2018-01/4/606 I wanted to point out the end users responsibility to render the pack inert before going to the local battery dropoff location and tossing them into a bin.
Great video mate... I have a power problem in my area/house and it effects my computer making it feel slower while playing games...the problem goes away late at night then the next day it goes back to crap again ... could this help at all ?
I would lean toward your ISP provider. I dont know which one you have but a cable based service is known for you loosing connection speed during peak hours. Run a speed test using www.speedtest.net Do it during peak and then when you say it runs good. If you still suspect the mains power. Borrow a computer UPS and run on battery and see if that corrects the issue before investing in a power plant.
If there is a audible difference in your own hearing when you use your meter than there has to be a difference on audio playback and I have power plants on my entire system and it’s so much better than the naked outlets
Just stumbled across this video. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ot6x0I3QKX0.html It shows how some noise filters favor or seem to be tailored to a specific meter. Or the meters cover specific ranges. A quick google search for specs show that the meter on the left which closely resembles a Greenwave meter covers 3khz to 10khz. While the meter on the right covers 20khz to 2Mhz. Since I have both meters my self I will have to try both with the greenwave filter to see. I bout the Entech first but found inconsistent measurements. The greenwave meter produce repeatable and more stable measurements.
Great review. You mention that the P15 reduces the THD and show exactly how much it was reduced by. You also show Greenwave plugs which reduced the EMI by 99% but you could not hear an improvement in your home theatre due to the reduced EMI. I find that odd as my current power conditioner similarly reduces the EMI and I can hear a definite improvement in the overall sound quality. One thing you missed is you did not show the before and after EMI readings for the P15 for the filtered and the high current outlets compared to the wall socket. Could you kindly do a quick test and post those findings ? Thanks and keep up the good work.
Oddly enough the P15 had minimal effect on the values displayed by the Greenwave meter. It only showed about a 15-20mV reduction (220 down to 200mV). Plugging in a Green wave filter into the wall outlet that the P15 was plugged into brought the number down to 80-50mV. The reduction of the EMI/RFI had 0 effect on the harmonic distortion of the sine wave as expected. Also the reduction of the EMI/RFI using the Greenwave filter had no audible benefit to my system. Reading some of the other testing posts out there it seems EMI/RFI reduction in house wiring is more of a physical wellness and health related issue than an audiophile/home theater enthusiast item. I had two Monster power products as well as a Panamax product all which had a slight measured effect on the EMI/RFI value measured on the meter. None as much as the dedicated Greenwave filters though. The concept of the P15 and similar product made the most sense to me. As having the cleaned and restored power as close to the equipment would have the most benefit with the emphasis on restored power. Most of our equipment cleans up most of the noise within their own power supply. But is always nice to help them out by giving them a hand by assuring that they get supplied by a clean source. I have seen over the years some power sensitive sited utilizing Motor/Generator (MG sets). Where the incoming utility power would spin a motor and then turn a generator to supply local power to mission critical equipment. This way the power they received was free of any distortion and harmonics on the utility lines. The P15 does this electronically (AC-DC-back to AC). Plus their trade in program helped reduce the overall purchase cost of the product.
Thanks, fantastic review. Solid measured evidence that a regenerator makes a difference, there is no one else who has done this on RU-vid. I was looking at a regenerator, isolation transformer, balanced power supply and a conditioner (Isotek- Nova, Titan). No one has compared all four it would be good if you can get your hands on them and measure and compare. 13 minutes in you mentioned a broadband EMI meter, did you get a reading from the mains socket directly in comparison to P15 outlet? If so what were they? What kind of % EMI decrease, is it zero?
The EMI/RFI meter concentrates on noise that is at a higher frequency than the Fluke harmonic meter. The P15 had minimal effect on the RFI/EMI # I was measuring with the EMI meter. I typically throughout the house read between 180-230mV at the plug outlets. Using a greenwave filter it would reduce it to 50-80mV and the audible noise in the meters built in speaker is reduced as well. Note that the noise that the meter hears has never been heard on any of my home theater equipment or through the speakers. Also plugging a greenwave filter into the same outlet that the P15 was plugged into made no difference to the input or output harmonic distortion values on the P15 or on the fluke meter. I would love to get my hands on some of the other power supply conditioners and test them out but unless the manufacture is willing to loan me one for testing the cost is a little steep just for testing. I have had several devices in the past that were mostly passive devices (Monster AVS 2000 Voltage stabilizer and filter and had tried a Monster HTS5100) both ok products but they did not truly address the harmonic portion of the distorted sine wave created by non linear loads in the house and out on the utility line. Especially with solar power and electric car chargers becoming more and more popular. So a device like the P15 that in effect rebuilds the Power to a clean undistorted sine wave sounded like the best option. So far I am satisfied with its performance in my system.
@@eddiscus Thanks for the reply. The sin wave output is that a screen shot taken from the PS 15 or was that from the Fluke or an oscilloscope? The sine wave looks like a "ideal" waveform, just wondering the resolution on the display, sometimes if the resolution is low it will show a perfect result. Where if the time base is increased it will show an "actual" representation of noise coming from the P15 at a magnified level. The harmonic distortion that the Fluke measures would all the harmonics need to be summed to get the total distortion? Is that representative of THD. The other info of interest is if the voltage in your area fluctuates say from 120V (ideal) to say an increase / decrease of an extreme value say 50V. How would the PS15 cope to maintain that ideal value. Another words does the PS15 have a tolerance range that it only works in, if out with this then distortion and voltage will fluctuate on a much higher level. Something probably you can't test unless you were in that scenario. Reference 5.56, why has PS audio developed it this way. Can't it do both accurate voltage and zero distortion. Where is the distortion getting introduced from on the output? I will expect it will have zero distortion as the PS15 has totally regenerated a new Sin wave of 120V. When you have no HiFi components plugged into the PS15 does the noise decrease further as there is nothing injecting noise back into the PS15. It looks like PS Audio with these regenerators has the monopoly, there isn't any other apart from one brand I can think- Accuphase- www.accuphase.com/model/ps-1230.html Did you look at any others regenerators before you pulled the trigger? If so which makes?
@@yoogeebearproductions4581 The P15 sine wave was representative of the sine wave on the fluke meter. I was thinking of breaking out my oscilloscope but did not at the time as the fluke meter details the harmonics present as well as the visual sine wave. I am sure if you magnify the trace on an oscilloscope you could see minor noise or distortion. Probably the only way to get a truly clean wave would be to regenerate it through a local Motor generator generator (analog) cost would be significantly higher. Yes on the fluke screen the THD is the sum of the various orders added together. Based on their specs below if I have the P15 set for a nominal of 120 volts it should be able to correct an input of 108volts back to 120 and an input of 102 volts back to 120volts for 15 seconds at which point I assume it will shut down on low voltage cutoff. Under Voltage Limit Continuous -10% of setting 15 sec duration -15% of setting Over Voltage Limit Continuous 5% of setting 15 sec duration 10% of setting When the P15 was powered just by itself it was reducing the incoming line distortion from 8% down to 0.4%. The reading of 1.0-1.4% was with all devices plugged in and powered on. So it is safe to assume that it is the actual devices power supplies creating the 1% distortion compared to standalone level of 0.4%. I would love to have endless resources and be able to purchase each unit and test each one and pick which worked best. But at the end of the day I had to make an educated choice. All the units provide filtering and line conditioning, such as Furman, Panamax, Torus, Richard Grey Power Stations, Shunyata Research, Audio Quest Niagra series etc. PS Audio was one listed as a regenerator. The concept of taking the AC voltage converting it to DC then recreating a clean (or cleaner than original) AC sine wave had my interest. That and their 30 day trial period kind of made me feel they have faith in their product. They also have a trade in program. You can enter your equipment before purchase, get a trade in value and have that credit applied to your purchase price at time of check out. You then have 30 days to send them your trade in's or you will be charged the full price. As you see in my review it did what I primarily wanted it to do which was to restore the power that was being corrupted by my in homes non linear devices as well as other neighbors devices. Give me a source of clean local power that could support the amplifier hits from home theater action movies. So far I am satisfied. Does it filter out all noise from 1hz to 1Mhz? No. But sometimes over filtering can be a bad thing. I had a multi outlet well known brand name filter unit and took it for what it did. But during a component up grade I played the system without the filter unit and then when I but it in I noticed the sound sounded clamped in certain tonal ranges. So I highly recommend doing an A/B comparison with several pieces of material that you are familiar with. Also nice that the units are built in Boulder Colorado. :) The only complaint that is with a unit of this cost you would think they would have paired it with one of their quality power cords, at least their low end cord rather than a standard power cord.
@@eddiscus I am very surprised converting dirty AC to DC and back to pure Sine Wave AC only reduces the THD and not the EMI noise. I would have thought this process would have completely eliminated all forms of noise in the mains. You say by using the Greenwave filters to reduce EMI you are not hearing any audible improvement and I think that could possibly be because those filters are not lowering the EMI noise floor sufficiently for you to hear an improvement. I am currently using a mains conditioner by a popular brand which reduces my EMI noise from anywhere over 800mV to below 20mV and I can definitely hear a significant improvement in my system. Can you possibly tell me what improvements you are hearing with the P15 compared to your previous best mains conditioner ?
@@theone262 I just played a little with the 2 EMI meters and when I plugged in the green wave filter to an outlet the EMI went from 240mv on the green wave down to 80mv. The Entech meter showed no change in both the measured value and speaker noise. Obviously both meters look at different frequency ranges. I think I will play with the oscilloscope to determine what emi noise is present and what portion the filter is knocking down. As far as the difference the P15 made in the system. My subjective audible observations were more definition between sounds within the movie. Ambient sounds had more presence and did not seem to get muddied by base level sounds. Also sound bursts such as gun shots, explosions and crashes seemed more defined and complete. I also played with the pulse adjustment on the P15 and dropped it down to a -2. This changed the reduced THD from 1.4% down 0.7%. With a mains THD of 7.4-8.0%. May I ask what meter are you using for the emi and which conditioner? I had Monster gear in the past and their filters seemed to be more concentrated on inter component filtering rather than mains reduction. I would only see a slight reduction in EMI and that was typically on the high current plugs. It seems the more recent power conditioner units are doing a much better job or tailored to the range of the available meters so they show better isolation. Cant say for sure without digging deeper but if you hear a difference then it had a positive effect.
I have like 100-250 Kilos of batteries (~1000 cells) to over-discharge every year. (they are completely workable, but too ugly for market, so if someone want to come and grab a hand: You´re welcome) When I saw the video at the beginning, I was like: Ouh well... I just make a big bucket full with salt water and throw them all in. At the End of the video I was like: Oooo, means I still have to discharge them
Everybody should be taking these batteries to a proper battery recycling center, just like most of the comments are also saying. An old lithium battery is the last thing any landfill needs.
So i take it pp45's are plenty safe at 50a with 10awg wire? I like this test but it would have also been good to see the pp45's at lower current say from 50-100 amps for longer periods of time to find out the heat and voltage drop of a continuous load
Almost every hobby shop that sells batteries will take your old lipos and properly discharge/dispose of your old cells. Lithium is toxic and should never be disposed of into a landfill regardless of charge or reactivity.