PS Audio - Modern Products (post-1997)

Modern Products (post-1997)

With the return of co-founder McGowan to PS Audio, the company returned to its roots of high-end audio by producing an entirely new category of product, the AC regenerator. McGowan reasoned that in order to return the company to viability in a very crowded and competitive market it was necessary to take a Blue Ocean Strategy and provide a product that solved a major problem in all high-end systems, the AC power feeding them.

Realizing that the (then) infantile power conditioning category consisted only of filters that cleaned power line noise and did not address the larger issues of voltage regulation and sine wave purity, a new type of product called a regenerator was created. The first regenerator prototype was large stereo power amplifier fed by a low distortion Hewlett Packard sine wave oscillator. Each channel of the power amplifier produced 60 volts AC and when a load was placed across the two out of phase channels of the amplifier, the required 120 volts AC was achieved to power products. The research and prototype phase of the regenerator included various listening tests at different frequencies and 400 Hz was found to sound best (50 Hz and 60 Hz is standard) when equipment was powered by the amplifier. Further research negated the use of 400 Hz sine waves because many tube amplification systems were not filtered well enough at higher frequencies and the 400 Hz tone could be heard through the system. 60 Hz was the final design choice and the first product was launched. It was called a Power Plant and the model was the P300, producing up to 300 watts of regenerated, regulated AC power.

The P300 was designed to produce up to 300 watts of clean power to connected audio equipment. The P-300 had a digital sine wave stored in memory, which it passed through a digital to analog converter and then amplified to 117V (adjustable) at a frequency of 60 Hz (adjustable). Thus, connected equipment was provided with a precise 117V, 60 Hz power signal (in the USA, other countries had units for their specific voltage and frequency) lacking noise from the utility company. The P-300 provided, in theory, perfect noise fee power of the same specifications that the power company should be providing. Various additional "waves" known as "multiwave" were also provided.

The P-300 is a historically important product in high end audio as it helped redefine and popularize the Power Conditioner product category and spawned imitation. This even though companies such as Accuphase followed with their own concept of power regeneration (though not additional waves, i.e., "multiwave" which PS audio claims provide additional benefits).

More powerful models of the P-300 were introduced including the P600, P1000, P1200 and P1000. The P-500 and P-1000 provided up to 500 and 1000 watts of "clean" power to connected equipment but with the penalty of generating a tremendous amount of heat in the process. Because Power Plants utilized a traditional analog class A/B stereo power amplifier they were only 50% efficient. This meant that for every watt delivered to the load, an identical watt of heat was generated, thus requiring massive heat sinks to dissipate the heat. On August 21, 2007, US patent 7259705was issued to PS Audio for the design rights to a new efficient tracking power regenerator that improved efficiency from 50% to 85% based on the same principals of regeneration. That same year, PS Audio introduced the Power Plant Premier, the first of its new AC Regenerator products to utilize this tracking AC technology it patented. In 2010, the current generation of AC regenerators was launched and carry the model PerfectWave. There are 3 models of PerfectWave Power Plants, the P3, P5 and P10 Power Plants.

For high end cables, PS audio offered the "Lab" cable line which was replaced by the "Lab II" line, which was replaced by the "XStream" cable line. Currently the power cable line is the PerfectWave Power Cable line.

PS audio offered the PCA II preamplifier. This was discontinued and replaced with the GCP-200 preamplifier. Each had an optional phono stage and external power supply option.

For amplifiers, PS audio offered the HCA-2 "digital" amplifier. This was a switching amplifier (many would call this a Class D Amplifier) that provide about 150 watts per channel. A more conventional amplifier, the Classic 250, provided 250 Watts per channel. These amplifiers were discontinued and the follow-on amplifiers were all "digital" type amplifiers from the GCA line, which had flexibility in the number of channels or number of watts per channel desired.