Can anyone with experience using a power regenerater share how warm it gets? How much ventilation is needed? Would you buy it again?
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My P3 is warm to the touch, I’m pulling ~220W from it.
I would not cover the vent on top of it.
I’ve considered buying a second one for my secondary system.
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Also curious about this topic. One time I asked Glenn (Amp builder on head-fi) about cables and he recommended the hospital-grade power cables being all you would ever need, like this one from TrippLite: Amazon link
As an experiment, I ended up making my own (<$100) Snake using DH Labs Power Plus cable with SonarQuest rhodium connectors per reading some recommendations on Audiogon. It’s 12awg, so mega-THICC, and not very practical with my current power strip placement - so it’s currently sitting in a box. If I were to do it again I’d definitely go 14awg or smaller.
Between the hospital rated cable and the DIY-Snake cable, I can’t say I noticed any obvious difference in sound, but also didn’t do any serious A/B testing. I would think power re-generators would make more of a difference if you live in a noisy grid.
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Another option for power conditioners is 1101 Audio: https://www.1101audio.com/C2029-Pure-Power-Conditioner.html I’m looking at possibly having one built as a companion for an upcoming custom OTL amp build.
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From experience, power cables make a difference, and enough of one in my system to where I prefer one over the other. I have tried several Audioquest, Pangea, and Shunyata cables, and they all sounded different to me. I think sometimes when we just try a few different things for comparison, they might actually sound similar and then we chalk up all cables as sounding similar. I see this with tubes as well. Perhaps adding a few more samples to the mix when making comparisons, would yield better results.
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That’s number one on my list, followed by the Core Power Equi Core 1000. I plan to pick one of these up soon.
@Sturosen
You and I have fairly similar systems. I’ve got a DAVE + M-Scaler, Woo WA5-LE, and a fanless NUC running Roon ROCK. Importantly, I also have a PS Audio Power Plant (P3), and I found it to be a meaningful improvement. As per @ProfFalkin’s point, I’m not going to tell you it changed my life, but I consider it an important enough upgrade that I’d downgrade or let other components go before that one. Major improvement in blackness of background, and I can hear way “deeper” into the music. It’s not like I had audible hiss or hum or anything, but you know it when you hear it. Everything is just cleaner and better separated.
I echo the points made by @chrisnyc75 here:
Also, several folks also brought up the “last few feet of copper vs miles of copper point”. Frankly, I don’t know why the last few feet matter; it seems crazy to me too! Folks can get explanations from Paul McGowan of PS Audio, and others, but at the end of the day, I don’t really care when the difference is clearly audible.
Now, what really blew my mind is that the power cable going into the power plant matters a lot. Yes, the Power Plant (PP) with the stock cable makes a noticeable improvement, but every time I upgraded the cable that goes from the wall to PP, things got even cleaner. Later reading and listening from people who should know (i.e. audio component engineers) ended up affirming that that’s the most important cable in your system. I have gone from the stock cable, to an ~$80 cable to a ~$650 cable (bought it used for ~$250) to a ~$1,100 cable (bought it used for ~$550). I want to be clear that I hate that power cables matter. I was a major skeptic when I first tried it out and wanted it to not work. However, the prior owner of that Power Plant I bought threw in that modestly upgraded cable along with the stock one, and when I could easily discern the difference between the two, I knew it wasn’t snake oil.
Absolutely. I’d give up my tube amp and probably even my M-Scaler before I gave up my regenerator. It’s certainly not as sophisticated or as expensive as those components, but the baseline it sets for the rest of my system is so important. I’d also like to note that I bought it before I had DAVE or M-Scaler and was running just the NUC, Hugo 2, and Woo WA5-LE, and it was worth it then, as well.
To be clear do not buy a power plant if the rest of you system isn’t fairly resolving already, and if you don’t have at least a couple of important components to plug into it. However, when you’re in possession of flagship (ish) DACs, amps, streamers, etc, I couldn’t recommend it more highly.
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Who me?? 
Yes I posed the question, not as a skeptic but rather to hear what the perceptions are. The question had nothing to do with the PS Audio component, it was about power cables in general and to understand more the why behind it. Other than because it’s expensive, or pricey, or thick as a python.
Wanted to make it clear, despite stating it to be not related to the power plant. The irony is I think investing into that is a worthy upgrade, just a matter of time before it finds its way into my system. The sticky dilemma is how many outlets are required, does one include it with their home theater gear too, stuff like that needs to be fleshed out on my end.
Appreciate the passionate defenses of the power plant, still does not explain if there is a need to go nuts on a power cable other than rfi.
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Oh man, I see how my statement could have been read incorrectly. My apologies. I know exactly why you’d bring up the question, and it’s a great question! And you were not the only one. I meant my comment as “I don’t know why the last few feet matter when there are miles of cable before it”. Definitely not “I don’t know why it’s being asked”. I’ll edit the original post for clarity.
A lot of this seems so incredibly unintuitive to me, but I try to trust my ears. Some things I thought would matter more (e.g. headphone cable - improvement present, but a very small difference, despite it being a very expensive cable), and some I thought would matter less or even be total BS (e.g. power cables) which I found, to my disappointment, to matter a lot.
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Appreciate the follow-up, it’s also unintuitive for me too. Thanks for the additional insight, I worry my ears are telling me something because my brain pre-determined it has to be better.
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Yeah - for sure something to be careful about. I try extra hard to be honest with myself. At the end of the day, it’s kind of fun to be surprised. Some things I thought would have mattered more a year ago are way lower on my list (e.g. that headphone cable), and the reverse is true for things like tubes and power cables (the former being much more intuitive than the latter).
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It’s a completely reasonable viewpoint, I really can’t come up with an explanation that I buy never mind one I could sell to someone else. but the fact remains I can hear the difference and it wasn’t subtle.
But I bought 4 power cables, a hospital grade on, one of the Bottlehead Kits and a couple of others from $150-$300 expecting the differences to be “maybe I can tell a difference” and was stunned to find they were all sonically obviously different and I had a preference.
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when you use one on just a power amp, do you get an audible change, or just when into power plant. ASking, as I don’t have a power plant yet, and I’m alittle curious to buy a “cheap” pangea power cord.
I did all my testing on the WA33,one cable at a time, I was using an Aqua LaVoce S3 DAC at the time, which had a reasonable power cord supplied with it.
I haven’t specifically tried the Pangea cord, I ended up using the WireWorld cables.
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I did the Equi Core 1000 as per a recommendation from Justin. I could hear where it took some of the noise out of other components running on the same circuit (fans mostly during the summer). Never had a ground loop issue. I’ve yet since having them, plugged everything back into the wall to see if I could hear a difference since I’ve been running them since June of this year. They’re quite and run quite cool. It has three copper duplexes versus the ps audio powerplant 3 has two duplexes and the 12 has four duplexes. The equi core 1000 runs $1000, the powerplant 3 runs 2500 and the powerplant 12 runs $5500.
I ran the giant power cables from the wall to the duo core, then from the duo core to the equi core 1000 then to the amp but they were so big and heavy, I ended up just doing hospital grade. The wall is 15 amp, so I looked up what guage I needed, how many watts and amps, just went from there. Nothing over the top, just what was needed. I ended up selling the monster power cables to @PaisleyUnderground
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For anyone looking for a used Power Plant, there’s one for sale right now on US Audio Mart at a reasonable price:
Full disclosure, I’m aware that the seller is a former (now banned) forum member here. I certainly don’t defend what he posted to get himself banned, but from a purely transactional standpoint, I did buy a tube amp from him a while ago and had no issues with the purchase (which was actually in person).
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PS Audio has a really good trade in policy, so their published prices are overstated, compared to what you would actually pay if you had some old gear to trade in. They will take anything that’s in working order, no matter how old, and will give you the original MSRP (not current value), up to a limit. For instance, you can trade in up to $750 of old equipment for the Powerplant 3, which makes the price effectively $1750. I think people should bear that in mind when they look at used models, because the prices may not be that far apart.
I’ve never actually A-B’d power cables before, and I bought these from @Roikyou because I was curious, Core Power Technologies has a good reputation, and he was selling at a fantastic price, so the risk was low. I was already using a Cullen Crossover cable on my Nautilus, plugged into a Power Plant 3. I plugged the new cable in, and I didn’t like the sound. I plugged the Cullen cable back in, and the Nautilus was back to “normal” again.
Does that mean the Core Power Technologies cables are bad? Absolutely not. They were different from what I was used to, and I happened to prefer my old cables. And I also didn’t give them enough time. Perhaps over the holidays, I will plug them back in again, and use them over an extended period of time, to get used to them, and then do an A-B with my Cullen cables and others that I have lying around (including a hospital grade cable). If I was as nice as @andris, I’d also try comparing the sound of the Powerplant to plugging everything into the wall, and also switching the cable from the wall into the Powerplant (I have a very thick Iconoclast 10 AWG cable that uses Belden wire) but I don’t think I am.
Ironically, I created this thread to give people a safe space to discuss this kind of stuff without having to apologize for it all the time, but it’s hard not to feel the need to justify and explain. I feel very weird talking about power cables changing the sound. It makes no sense to me, but I can’t unhear what I heard.
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I’ve valued everyone’s opinion and your opinion, so no need in my opinion to feel weird stating your thoughts on the matter. (I should have put opinion in there a few more times)
I didn’t think the Core Power Tech cables were bad but they were heavy. My personal opinion (there’s that word again), I was expecting a more snug fit. It doesn’t fall out but they’re so heavy, they sag. Plus, they are so big and so thick. I’m using five of the six outlets on the equi core and it already looks messy behind the desk. Plus a 2ft cable and a 3ft cable to the outlet. Plus they’re big and shiny. Every time the wife looks at my desk and see’s big and shiny, she thinks “isn’t that expensive?”.
I like thinner, cleaner but efficient cables. I might be able to squeeze a little more out of the music with better cables but I’ve yet to venture again on the cable thing. The equi core is the only piece of equipment that has survived my buying and selling spree. (almost sold it once) I’ve run thick cables in a cabinet for 45 plus rack mount servers at work and the thick cables can be very overwhelming and hard to manage. Prefer not to do that at home.
Back on my “how many outlets I use”, since I’m using five out of six on the equi core, I’d have to go for the powerplant 12 which is 5500 (for the eight outlets) compared to my 1000 for the equi core and how much better or different would that be? (trade in is up to 1650 on this one). I’ve definitely thought about ps audio but the price has stopped me. I probably could stick to the most important stuff, the amp, dac and streamer to the powerplant 3, xbox series x and tv to the wall. So it’s doable at a more affordable price.
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Dammit man, why you gotta do this to me? If my PP3>Stellaris>Utopia role model says I need a new power cable you know I have to do that, right? lol
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That kind of freaks me out. The regenerators are marketed (I think) as making your source power irrelevant.
Can’t have it both ways, either the power plant creates clean power or it doesn’t. Maybe I just don’t understand the intent of it.
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