PS Audio has some pretty meaningful discounts on their Stellar line at the moment:
https://www.psaudio.com/product-category/stellar/
For example, the Stellar PowerPlant 3 is $1650 (down from $2,500)
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These make a much of a difference? Hmmmm interesting. Nice deal!
If you told me I had to choose between my tube amp and my power plant, I’d keep my power plant.
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Damn, Ok haha! Well maybe I’ll look into this.
I have the phono preamp & power plant and would absolutely recommend both. At the discount price they’re a great buy.
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I picked up the powerplant 3 in black. Hope its worth it in my chain.
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Thinking about it too…don’t they have 30-day returns no questions asked?
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I was actually thinking of listing my Stellar Gain Cell DAC. With the price drop, I think I’ll hang onto it for now. One nice thing about PS Audio Gear…it can retain full trade in value by MSRP. If I wanted to buy a Power Plant P15, it would be worth $1899 in trade.
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Different devices for sure. One cleans power, and tubes introduce pleasant sounding distortion.
Which Power Plant do you have? I have 2019 P12 and a 2012 P5. Same basic unit, the P12 being the updated model.
Stellar P3
Nice! BTW - getting a nice power cable for the power plant makes a meaningful difference as well (wall to power plant).
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Nice. I use this with my wa33 and feel it makes a difference. Used it with the DNA too when I had it on loan and thought the same.
iFi SilentPower SupaNova IEC Power Cable - Surge Protection - Length: 1.8m - [US PIN] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B091B6TVT8/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_E4V0JA5TXRP6KA0Z7M7P
Any suggestions? These aren’t ready available now.
I would suggest a good quality cord for wall connection. Something from Cullen Cable or Audioquest. You want the IEC connection to be firm, so it wont work loose. Many of the heavier cables are heavy and tug on the IEC side of the power cord. The PS Audio power cables were famous for working themselves loose.
The AQ NRG cables plug in firmly, and don’t break the bank. The power cables on the outlet side of the power plant will garner better results than on the inlet side. Another suggestion is to grab a good quality audio or hospital plug for the wall. A good grip on the plug keep the connection firm and the juice flowing.
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I’m not going to pretend to be a power cable expert in terms of having done extensive comparisons. I do have about four different brands of cables, and so far, I’ve thought AudioQuest have been quite good. I suggest getting in touch with TMR audio (my favorite salesman is Mario). They’re an Audioquest dealer, and Mario can often knock a solid amount off MSRP. PM me, and I can send you his info.
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I had the P3. Bought because I had a tube amp that was a bit noisy. Helped a little bit.
No longer have the tube amp though.
So I tried my system off the P3 again and off just a Belkin board. Couldn’t pick any difference.
If you have good clean power, may not make any difference. If your power is a bit sketchy, yeah, they work.
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What is your THD in Australia? I’m in SoCalifornia. My incoming power runs pretty clean, around 2% THD unregenerated.
+1 to @rrwwss52’s recommendation of Cullen Cable. Most of my power cables are from them - they’re well built at a fair price.
Ironically, I didn’t use Cullen from my PS Audio to the wall. After reading several posts on the PS Audio forum, a lot of people recommended Iconoclast BAV Power cables (specifically the 10 awg cable). That was a decent price too, so I bought one of those.
I’ll caveat this by saying that I haven’t done any A-B testing of power cables, so I’m not making claims that they make everything sound better than other cables. All I can say is that I’m really happy with what I hear.
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I’ll add that from what I can see, PS Audio seem to rotate the sale from model to model. It basically replaces the trade in. If you have electronics that you can trade in (no matter how old), then I wouldn’t bother waiting for any of these to go on sale. If you don’t have anything to trade in, then it’s a great price.
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