I have used a Power Wedge for about 18 years. It conditions 4 "amp" outputs and supplies isolated power to 6 more source outlets. The source outlets have no ground attached. They "float" from ground, but for safety the amp is grounded which grounds all the components through the interconnects. Each pair of source outlets have an isolating transformer. When I bought the Power Wedge it made a pretty dramatic difference in the background noise in my system.
However, I have been very interested in PS Audio power regenerators for a long time. A week ago Saturday I got a flier from Music Direct and in it was a demo P300 unit for sale at $400. I jumped on it. It arrived Saturday night, a week later.
The frustrating and happy story:
When I opened the box, no power cord; I have some. Powered it up and warmed up the system to do a comparison. First the Power Wedge. The system sounds like it always does. Good, nice soundstage and imaging.
Then the P300. When unplugged one of the Paramours . . . it made a long squeaking sound through the speaker, just from being unplugged! That is not normal, although unplugging them is also not normal. When I got the FP and both Paramours plugged into the P300 only one channel played. The tubes in the squeaky Paramour didn't light. I stopped. It was depressing.
Sunday morning I played hooky from Sunday School. The odd thing is that there seemed to be no problem with the bad amp. Still no heaters lighting though. Thought it might be bad heaters, but they measured well in both tubes. So I tightened the pins on the tube sockets and it is playing now. So I did the comparison on CD with just the FP 2 and Paramours plugged into the P300. (It will also power my Seduction and Turntable when I get all the cords pulled to it.)
To cut to the chase it stays!
Still on the Power Wedge istening to my favorites of Alison Krauss & Union Station, I got to New Favorite. At the end of the song I decided to put in the P300 (plugged into the wall, not the Power Wedge or the dedicated outlet, just the room outlet). I thought immediately that the images were more precisely defined, better fleshed out. Listening further I realized the depth of the stage was greater. I went back to the Power Wedge. The images became more diffuse. The tonal character of the Dobro (Jerry Douglas) was less obvious. Song ended, back to the P300. Yup! Images better, depth better, resolution/detail of the Dobro better. The violin (Alison Krauss) came out of the muck in the mix and I could hear AK playing clearly. Funny, the bass is better and I am not powering the sub off of the P300, just the Paramours. Obviously the clean sine wave helps the bass. I'm not using any of the fancy wave forms, just pure sine wave. Back to the Power Wedge and back to the P300. It is conclusive. It is definitely more seductive with the P300. The system also seems more dynamic, that confuses me like more bass.
Maybe the blacks are blacker as PS Audio claims, but with the ringing in my left ear I don't hear black at any time.
The Seduction is plugged into the P300 now and it is beautiful! I had to use a "cube tap" because the lower power port doesn't have power reliably. Because my turntable runs slow I will put it into the P300 and adjust the frequency till I get a perfect speed. I calculate I will have to feed it 60.9 Hz for the 1.5% speed correction.
Music Direct will make it good. Probably a generic power cord and a power port. Still a Hell of a deal! I jumped at the right time.
Update on MD, a discount on my next order and a Power Port to replace the one that has stripped screws on it (the hot and neutral screws will not tighten down). It takes 14 screws to get to the Power Ports and three screws to remove each Power Port. I just found that the reason the bottom Power Port was giving me problems is that the screws were stripped. Power Port received.
