Antonio J. wrote:

I suspect the APS does more or less the same that my friend proposed. It probably has a class D amp which makes some kind of PWM with a so so smoothing circuit, hence the tooth saw trace of the voltage line, some PS which probably is a switching one feeding a battery charger, and an oscillator tuned to produce a 60Hz wave with the amount of signal required for the 120V output. Its problems may come from a not so good D-amp that distorts the signal when load increases. Why? I don't know, I'm no technician, I ignore how a switching or battery power supply interacts with a digital amp when the load increases. Maybe a traditional PS were a better approach.

Actually, would be the Class AB or Class D implementation is VERY loaded question. I have some ideas on the subject but I need a properly operating Class D implementation (APS) to make any further comments. Looking what APS does now against a poorly resistive load it obviously something is screwy with my current unit. Richard from APS claims that his tests units under the same conditions behave (at least measured) very different. He told that he will be sending me data but he never did so far.  I do not know if they want to replace my unit or perhaps to find a way to fix it… Let see what happens. I know that if they replace my unit them I will implore them to test it before they send it out.

Antonio J. wrote:

This would be a very affordable DIY option, but regarded from the mains net isolation perspective, maybe the AC generator and electric engine makes more sense.

Yes, it should not be complicated D-amp DIY option but it is not the direction that I would like to go. I usually go for the self-implementation if the alternative off-the-shelf options are not good. All that would be necessary is to find a D-amp that can swing 120V… Still, the result that I get from the PurePower unit I presume is not the result that they intended to demonstrate: the APS guy told me that I am the only one person among their customers who differentiated the quality of sound with loading of the unit…  Well, I presume that I am probably also the only person among their customers whose APS unit can not hold a normal sinusoid shape without a load or into a resistive load :-) …

Anyhow, let see what a new day will bring…

Paul S wrote:

I suppose you'll also be the first person who ever returned one...The D pulses make me nervous.

To my big surprise the D-pulses do not make me nervous. If you look at the D-pulses at 2% load then they even larger then at 70% but at 2% it sounds exceptionally good.  My objection is Sound not the intellectual satisfaction. If I need an intellectual satisfaction I have a power plant: the PP has a perfect wave across all range and the order of magnitude less distortions – well the PP is also sounds not acceptable.

In fact if to look at the subject deeper then it might be some rations to have D-pulses. Let me to explain. In the power regeneration we care only about the 60H fundamental, right? The PurePower uses somewhere around 20KHz pulses that should be filtered after the D-amp (like DA converter). So, the unit has a filter, let pretend at is at 100Hz, wherever order… The power lines have some noses at hundreds kHz and those noises might be good filtered by the D-amp output filter. At the perfect world it would be nice to have this unit properly operating and then try to tune the out filter, presuming the fixed 70% load of class “A”, writing a perfect Bessel curve and perhaps experimenting with the steepness of the filter…

Frankly the more I think about this APS unit and its idea the more and more I coming to the observation that if it this type of regenerator is made to functions properly then it should be extremely interesting solution.

A friend of mine asked my last night if I feel that PurePower’s Sound as good as a playback during those extremely seldom moments when electrify is good. It was a good question and I feel that it is worth to cover.

First off all I can not say about the PurePower generally but rather about the sub 10% loaded PurePower running only 3 items of my front end (Transport, DAC and preamp-buffer). Also, my APS unit looks like improperly operating so, go figure if the my current PurePower’s Sound comes from the PurePower’s functionalities or from the sonically-luckily malfunctioning circuit…. :-) – That would be funny!!!

Ahyhow, I would accept the sonic results of the sub-10% loaded PurePower “as is” and go from there.  Surely my comment would NOT be apply to the over 10% loaded APS unit.

The sub-loaded APS regenerator turned out the closest sounding devise among all that I have seen compare to “good electricity”. Here is my abridgment describing where I feel there is a difference between the times when electricity “sounds perfect” and the situation what the front of my playback runs from the APS  (sure, putting the whole system on the APS would be more rational…)

1) The “good electricity” directly from mains has very-very-very slightly more credence at lover MF and upper-upper-upper bass. In my care it was not a big deal and I easily balanced it with Macondo adjustment.

2) The “good electricity” has slightly softer topmost octave, having less conflict between HF and silence. The Power Plant roll off and dehydrate a lot of HF, the PurePower keeps it there but makes it very clean. However, the “good electricity” makes HF… DISAPPEAR. None of the units I have seen do it. However, be advise that I run now my “Water Drop” tweeters intestinally VERY HOT (I have my reasons). So, take my comment in context of my deliberately too “hectic” tweeters.

3) PurePower has an effect of “Hyper Texture”. Not the crappy “hyper resolution” but the Hyper Texture. This Hyper Texture is extremely interesting effect and it VERY different from the effect of a properly loaded OTL’s Hyper Texture. The APS’s Hyper Texture creates certain discrimination upon the micro articulations in musical material. Interesting that this Hyper Texture exists across the whole frequency range and looks like very evenly distributed dynamically. The Hyper Texture does not have as negative feeling as it sounds. If the Hyper Texture would be present only within a specific range or at specific volume level then it would be a coloration but as I can see so far it is evenly speeded and I found it so far that it has a positive contribution to presentation. The PurePower’s Hyper Texture reminds the Mravinsky’s X-Ray like articulation…., in a way…. An attentive reader woyukld say: the Hyper Texture AND slight reduction of harmonic in lower MF – is it sound too recognizable? Not really – it is different with the APS unit. I would not finalize my observation about it because who knows how my APS snit will sound what it will be fixed. However, the Hyper Texture impact is easily detectable, and I am not quite sure at this point if the Hyper Texture might be considered as “coloration”. BTW, I have quite a lot of suspicion that the Hyper Texture come form the residuals 20kHz pulses…. I think is it is so then PS audio should still this idea for their multi wave schemas….

4) PurePower does slightly increase the subjective dynamics compare to the times when electricity is good but is loops to the good electricity in terms of dynamic viscosity and dynamic inelegance (read more about the dynamic viscosity in my posts where I was discovering Melquiades). When electricity is good then Sound has “infinite dynamic”, allowing the dynamics to be “slow” (very positive word in my vocabulary). However, when it is necessary (and do not think juts about the micro-dynamics but about any transients) then it instantaneously throws a huge “infinite” dynamics, still (and it is VERY important) keeping references of the listening awareness in awareness to the boundaries of the dynamics coordinate system. (This is what sold me to use the 6E5P as a unique driver). The PurePower dos not look as it has this effect of “intelligent dynamic”. The PurePower throw more vicious dynamics MOMENTARILY but PurePower does not feel where we were a juts before it or where we go next. It would be similar to a figure skater: with  good electricity the figure skater does all his jumps and tricks right in the dead center of the arena vs. the PurePower make the skaters do some crazy jumps and tricks bounding from the arena’s walls, converting the figure skating into a ….hockey. Hey, APS is a Canadian company it should be kind of hockeyc….! :-)

This is pretty much what I feel so far but it is very important to understand that there is no such a state of Sound as “when electricity is good”. I might recall perhaps 3-4 times per year when my playback was close to this electricity state….

I did read your earlier post regarding the P300's use and unsuitability for analog in your system.

I am starting to listen only in the early morning, and I can hear The Change as the day gets going and I presume people start switching on their air conditioners, pool filters kick on, etc.

I don't think I've mentioned before that I happen to have a big transformer sitting on a nearby pole with my house feed dropping right down from it.  I mention it now to put it in the context of still-bad power, in case anyone might think a proximate transformer is The Answer, as it is not a cure in my case.

Oh, well; I should be packing, anyway.  Hi-Fi/records last to be boxed, first to be un-boxed.

Best,
Paul S

P300 is not on the radars anymore. Some people say that their new Premier is better then older PP but Premier eventually the very same regenerator as the old PP.  It looks like just another round of marketing re-branding – very slick to pay mortgage. Ironically the very same people who praising now the Premier never acknowledge the sonic problems of the older PPs. Stull, I personally never had the Premier and it is just my guesswork as I am not interested but get another re-branded PP.

The APS unit is riding back to manufacture and they promised to fix it. It they do then it will be great but then I have to see how it will sound after the fixing, particularly at high power. If the APS solution for whatever reasons will not work out then I will not try to build any regenerator but will attempt to use some other double-action UPS devise. However, they will be the APS-type solutions, not the PS-like solution...

I just received PS Audio June Newsletter and have written a reply in a format of an open personal letter to Paul McGowan. Below is the text.

Paul,

A new round of my experiments with curing electricity made me to write up this open letter. I did not post it at your site as my objectives are not to humiliate you company but to make you to pay attention to certain facts. If you feel comfortable to post this letter at you company’s site then do so and I will publicity stay behind to what I have expressed.

During the last few years, since the class D amps become more and more available including the one that can swing high voltage, there was a number of On-Line Double Conversion and Delta Conversion become available. They are not the cheap consumers Standby, Line-interactive, or Fero USP devises but they are pure regenerations, costly but powerful and effective. (There is a large army of them staring from $1000 and up).

I went to my data center and tested some of those devises. They do not test ever close to the PS Audio PowerPlants (and I looked juts at distortions and shape of the wave). However, there is more to it. There are companies (APS for instance and their numbers will be growing) that accommodate the very same principle: “AC-DC-battery-AC-DAmp-Filter” making and marketing their regenerators for audio consumers. The Irony is that I do not feel that those companies really compete with PS Audio’s PowerPlants as the SONIC RESULTS that the transformerless-Damp regenerator deliver is WAY BEYOND what PS Audio ever was able to demonstrate. I mean all know to me sonic problems that PS Audio has with their regenerators are not there anymore.

I have no explanation why the “AC-DC-battery-AC-DAmp-Filter” delivers WAY BETTER SOUND - it is your domain to provide technical justification to the facts. Paul, you are a good engineer and you know what you are doing. However, I can assure you Paul that I know about Sound more they you do and I can assure you that SONICALLY the APS regenerators are order of magnitude more superior then your PowerPlants.

Well, if it get your attention, and it should, then here are some thoughts. It is not all as straight with APS regenerators and “DAmp-Filter” topology, as you know, has own set of issuers. Still, I feel that attacking the issuers within the scope of APS-type regenerators is way more PERSPECTIVE FOR SOUND then to do it within the scope of your Class A/B regenerators. I anticipate that what you read my letter you will not allow own ego and your company invested marketing to cloud your judgment. So, what kind judgment I would anticipate in response to my letter and why I am writing it up.

First off all it is important to understand that I am not associated nether with APS not with any other audio company or interest grope. I equally do not give a damn how many regenerators PS Audio or APS will sell. However, I am interested in me, the consumer, have better performing (SOUNDING!!!) regenerators and here where I would like the Hi-Fi power regenerators companies to compete for attention of people like me and to deliver to us, the consumers, better products. The APS does the best they do, however, the PS Audio is longer in power regenerator business, has more experience, more resources, not to mention the marketing momentum. Unfortunately today, when PS Audio develop and promote their new generation of class A/B regenerators they essentially make users to buy technologically-obsolete and inferior sounding products… Very sad… I wish the PS- audio do not waste itself with supplementing the bogus distortion analyzers with new PowerPlants but make better sounding units. 

I sincerely hope that you invest some of your R&D efforts in the APS-like topologies and PS Audio will come up with a new better sounding “DAmp-Filter” re-generator.  The more companies will work in this direction, pushing the boundaries of “availability” the better we, the users, will be served and at better prices. I hope you understand my motivations and take my critiques contractively.

Playing tonight Bruckner Seventh I realized that something is very wrong in the system. The basses got insultingly “umfy”. Usually the basses in this music should be large but very soft and they should loll over with speed of like a senior hippopotamus scathing his back. However, this time my bases were jumpy and overly articulated and soar across the music like a chimpanzee jumps across trees. The Seventh Adagio suddenly got converted into disco music – with that stupid rhythmic bass asses in the end of each even phrase.

I recheck everything and everything looked fine. Eventually I discovered what was wrong. I turned out that I forgot to disconnect the PowerPlant 300 feeding my preamp… Well, welcome to the club…. It was what the Morons tell to each other: “Oh what you know -with P300 the Patricia Barber’s bass it got better…”

RF at Ona, had touched the same subject very reasonably, you might read my reply to him where I elaborated with my status of my ground.

http://www.GoodSoundClub.com/TreeItem.aspx?PostID=4487

Above, talking about APS-like regenerators, I was skeptically referred to the battery back up functionality in the APS PurePower, calling it bogus and completely unnecessary. It was very funny to read at the APS site as the APS guys promote their units as something that will work with a complete power outages… Who the hell cares?!!!!

However, thinking again I have realized that the presents of the plumbum rechargeable battery is one of the greatest functionally of the APS-type regenerators. When the voltages is rectified and converted to DC then the presents of that ultra low impedance lead accumulator act as a perfect buffer and a perfect regulator. I do not know if APS unit has any regulator at output line. Any regulator I have seen etas dynamic and I hope the APS unit do not have explicit high-voltage regulator (at least it sounds as it has not). However, the unit does outputs a stabilized voltage… So, what I think that APS devise does, is regulating or stabilizing the 12V before it charges the battery and then take the stable battery voltage to the regenerators,  since it uses a plumbum battery is has no problem to sit all time under excessive voltage… (As Dima educated to me)

Also, that battery acts as a very cool natural filter to swallow the after-rectifier ripples. Still, it would be very interesting to see how the quietly of that DC that sits before the regenerator might affect the output result (sound). If I had a APS-type regenerator available to play with I would put on the 12V side, parallel to the battery, a huge 12V automobile-capacitor of 5-7 Farads. This sucker should “burn” anything in the line- ripples, residual harmonics, noises and will give insultingly flat DC - I just hope the rectifiers might change this moister…

Anyhow, as I can see now the presents of that lead battery is very essential and hugely important part of the double conversion type regenerator. I hope the APS people explain it at their web site instead of bogusly stressing that this unit will to work during power outages.  If I have a power outage then I have no air-conditioners - with all my 6C33C running to have no air-conditioners would be MUCH more deadly harm for my listening room then juts bad electricity…

So, I did not get it from beginning: the battery buffer in double converters is good, very-very good and useful thing…

As they told, the APS UPS unit was sent back to the manufacturer where it was exposed to further thorough retesting. Preliminary the results of re- testing turned out to be very contradictive with that results that I got in mine listening room, and the were posted above.  The measurements of the APS people indicates that the unit goes maintains right sinusoid profile with increase power, furthermore it does maintain the wave profile and low-level distortions (under 2.4) even when it drives and heavy reactive load. The APS people have sent me the current, voltage and distortions measurements under different load and into the different type of load. It looks pretty good, well, MUCH better then what I had.  I do not post them as they are not my property but next time I talk to APS I might ask their permission and might post the measurements images here (though they use digital meters and I hardly can look at them). Anyhow, the APS people and I have some MUTUALLY AGREEABLE BOGUS EXPLANATIONS what might be cause of the discrepancies between my measurements as their measurements (some changes in the unit state) but we still have no clear picture.

I kind of like that APS stay behind of their regenerator and that they are trying investigate what went wrong. Who knows, perhaps when the APS unit arrive back to me (after some changes in the unit state) it will be effective (means good sounding) at 70-80% of load as much as it was at 10%... If it happens then I might have a phenomenal solution for my powerlines frustrations.  I will be posting later but so far my tail is still trembling….

Lately, I have received a number of inquiries from visitors of my site, asking me various questions about power regenerators. The sad irony is that those people do not ask the questions which might be asked about the subject a bought rather they are looking for consultation about purchasing decisions. I said it before many many times and I am repeating it now: please do not bother me asking advice what to buy if you are clueless WHY you buy it. To make the case very simple I would like to assure you that I do not care about you or your purchasing actions, and what is the more important the motivations which made you to create those questions to begin with if you have no own rational what you do.

http://www.goodsoundclub.com/Forums/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=4565

Regarding the subject of power lines. If you are experiencing problems with electricity (by the way most of audio people do not big acknowledge this problem or not exactly identify it) then there are at large number of solutions available for your exploration. There are at least a dozen of audio companies that manufacture different type of devices to attack the problem. There are also and number of commercial manufactures which manufacture different type of the power handling solution which might be greatly adopted for your applications.  In order to decide which one will working in your case you need a CLEAR IDENTIFICATION of the problems that you would like to attack.

http://www.goodsoundclub.com/Forums/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=432

I do not give a shit to the stupid e-mails asking me what to buy and that are listing the equipment that you have collected. Audio solutions address audio problems not audio of frustrations.  If you have audio problems then identify them and address them, if you have audio frustrations than see a psychologist - buy audio publication. At least if you need at psychiatrist then you have no needs to send me audio specific questions.

Romy the Cat wrote:

I kind of like that APS stay behind of their regenerator and that they are trying investigate what went wrong. Who knows, perhaps when the APS unit arrive back to me (after some changes in the unit state) it will be effective (means good sounding) at 70-80% of load as much as it was at 10%... If it happens then I might have a phenomenal solution for my powerlines frustrations.  I will be posting later but so far my tail is still trembling….

The next image is the resistance load replaced with 258W of Super Melquiades. Old 4 power supplies are input chokes and all of them properly implemented with voltage in each half-period returning back to zero. As far as I concern it looks extremely good, without even phase shift between voltages and current.

Interestingly that when I asked Dima look at the measurement then he informed me that the Melquiades load should be even easier for any regenerator then purely resistive load, as Melquiades does not have even sinusoidal draw of current but rather the circles was vertically folding walls - that according to him is the most optimal load ever. Also it was interesting is that looking at the picture he told lots about the performance of my input choke filters, which according to him where “properly implemented and functioning”. It was very educational lecture…

Some you might be concerned by clipping of the current peaks. Do not be. These clippings are because I drive the thing directly from power lines and as you can see the voltage is clipped. Below are two images Voltage vs. Current when I drive my Melquiades by PS Audio regenerators (that outputs a perfect sinusoid). As you can see the Current characteristic and Power Factor are exemplary. Long live to the input chokes….

Okay, now I see I'm ready to experience what the “revised” APS PurePower will do. BTW,just  for references: here are power factor signatures some other my components that us CRC filtration.

I have to admit that my first unsuccessful experiment with APS PurePower regenerator made me anxious like hell. In context of the none-loaded unit I’ve heard some results that I was searching for a long time. The APS claim that they have “fixed” it and claim that now this unit will deliver at full load the same quality as I heard at 10% load. If it be true then it will be not just exciting but the “Fucking Exciting!” as it would conclude my many years quest to resolve electricity problems and will address something about which I hold a large white flag for years.

The unit should arrive on Friday and I am so atypically “frantic” to get it that I even made the special arrangement for deliver in order to get it on Friday. God, is it possible that this damn regenerator will work properly and that I will never have bad electricity again? Ok, let do not temp the fate…

Anyhow, one point I would like to mention, still. The APS reported that they did not “fix” the unit (juts replaced the buttery) and it worked perfectly fine during their tests; they sent me the measuring data and it did look good. If it is so (and who know the truth), then the most probable reason for my negative experience APS proposed that some of the contacts in the unit’s board was not correctly functioning and it inflicted the APS’ processor that run their software. Well, it is not a good thing but, hey - it happens! I have no problems with the fact that it happened, however I have a BIG problem with the fact that the PurePower’s start-up initialization routines did not detected that something was wrong with the unit’s output.

You see, the distortions problem that I experienced screw up sound very severely BUT the unit keep functioning. It is VERY-VERY bad. I did not measure the distortion at that time but looking at the very strongly corrupted wave it was in tens percents and I would very much prefer that the unit shun itself down (or alarm me). If the unit does not do it then what the purpose of it? If tomorrow my Cat decided to jump on the unit or if I move the unit and as a result some kind of internal board will not have a good contact again and then how will I learn about it. Sure, my Sound will go to toilet but how much time should I spend in order to detect that my power regenerator decided to show some attitude? If something is objectively wrong with output then the regenerator should alert about it. I intend to run my distortion analyzer and scope parallel with output, but I am not willing to do it the long run. From this perspective the PS Audio built-in distortion reader is useful, I juts hope the PS Audio regenerator sound also in a useful way…

Well, the distortions reader is completely unnecessary and the regular threshold alarm if the distortions went over, I would say, 3% will perfectly do for me. I personally, being a nerdy freak, would love to see the real-time wave monitoring and in the today’s world it would take $10 to implement….

Well, let wait Friday and see if all my “while I am I anxiously expecting” comments were worthy… What I know is that since I heard what the APS did with electricity that drove my front-end I was hardly listening my “big” playback (the electricity is horrible here for weeks)… So, I am Audio-wise kind of in my “summer mode”…

And so.....

Is the APS now
"up to scratch" ?

jd*

After a few days of playing with DHL the “hide and seek” game I eventually will be getting today the “new” APS PurePower unit. It is not the new unit but the unit that I had, presumably fixed and according to APS this time it should function as they intended. As I told I am very eager to see what will happen.

When I get the unit tonight I am planning to perform the initial QA, re-measure what this regenerator output. If I have time I will make some shots and upload them here. If everything will be without any red flags then I will listening it tomorrow and closer to the end of the week I will able to make Sonnic conclusions and perhabs compile them into some kind of observations. I hope whatever APS did with this unit fixed the problem and did not affect Sound-influential properties in any negative way. I really wish this thing works and despite of some negative experiences with the unit (do not work under load) so far I still have good feeling about the entire endeavor, as it have been proven that this topology of regenerators could be very “good for sound”.

To all of you who expressed interest about my electricity saga generally and about APS in particularly. I have still no result with PurePower regenerator. I got the “fixed” unit but I did not listen it as the unit presented a result that requires further interpretation, investigation and perhaps modification. I am wiling to keep it in a way cryptic and hesitant as it is exactly how I feel at this point. Still considering the sound that I heard form the unit when it drove my front-end I am still working with APS in order to get out of this regenerator what we feel it capable of and what it should do. I think the next stage of “investigation” will take for a while and I will have a testable unit within a month. Anyhow, here is how I feel about my APS regenerator so far: