I did not say how my saga with APS Pure Power regenerator finish but it never finished. Since the end of the last year the regenerators is sitting in my closet and I have sent the unit’s main board to APS people for the “revision” as I do not feel it was useable. I still feel that the direction that APS are trying to go hugely perspective and I wish they found how to do the Class D regenerators to be stable, and producing right sound.

It looks as the APS has revision of their board that might fix the problems that they had. I do not have a lot of hope but who knows they might did it accidently. The dilemma that I see is that the APS engineers do not work on the specific sonic problems that I pointed them out but they works against one list of improvements. It is valid list and they might do good job with this improvements but they are completely clueless about the sound of the units and the main purpose of this unit. The Chinese guys who as I understand are responsible for ingenerating aspects of the unit do not even acknowledge that problem with the unit. It is very frustrated as the only contact I have with APS is via the Canadian Director but he does not look like have enough pull (or desire) to address the problems with sound as long the unit is being sold well. So, that hope I have so far that the Chinese folks doing their planed modification might accidently to fix the problems that cause of the APS generator to have sonic aggravations.

Paul S wrote:

I wonder how many cities have good FM programming and broadcasting?  Los Angeles was great, back when I lived in Venice, with interesting stuff going on around the clock.  San Diego is quite limited, and I get Bupkis from my place up against the hills.  Well, that's not altogether true...  I do get crappy electricity...

 I do not know if it is “FM and electricity” or juts the septic of my tuners and electricity but I can testify that FM. for whatever reasons, is the very last that dies when electricity turns bad.

When electricity turns bad then here is the list of my devises that got affected, listed the worse affected first and the least affect the last. In all cases all equipment is driver without any power treatment and plugged in the row dedicated mains.

1)      Bidat D/A
2)      Lavry D/A
3)      DAW machine
4)      Placette Preamp
5)      None Melquiades amps
6)      Pacific D/A
7)      Phonostages
8)      Melquiades Powers Amps
9)      A/D converters
10)   Tuners
11)   Reel (buttery powered)

I found that the order of the list is very interning.

What do you know: the APS PurePower regenerator is back. Since last December, when I returned the  PurePower unit #5 because it did not sound right and had some objective defects the APS were working on something and now the PurePower Version 6 is here. The preliminary results are favorable, those like any other this with this regenerator it is not without the issuers. I will share my observations about it in future.

What however is interesting that is that I came across a problem that I did not expected. For the way how I configure my system I need the PurePower unit to drive a Power Strip with 13-14 receptacles. I was looking a good power strip with any peripherals on it and I was not able to find any. I need a compact, black 15-20A strip with no filters, no fuses, no switches, good sockets that not wired but bridged, no surge protections, or no anything else. While I was looking I have seen all possible the Power Strip, even for a few thousands dollars but I did see what I needed. I never thought that a regular power strip might be a problem to find. I even thought it make my own power strip in a way I want it but this proposition sounds too ridicules to me. Come on, I might be so stupid that I would a couple hundred dollars for a no-nonsense power strip. Somebody, please, sell it to me…

Yep, thanks.  I bought it yesterday as well I bought yesterday the new revision of PS Audio Juice Bar II.

 The Juice Bar II looks like a right devise but it need 2-3 of them.

http://www.psaudio.com/products/juicebariimoreinfo.asp

The Wiremold devise is OK but it is the same as Niam devise (I think Niam re-branded it) and I am a little afraid it. The Niam dealers advertised that the Niam’ power strip use have a “luxury” to moderate the sound of their equipment by changing the outlet on the Niam’s power strip. They claim that all outlets sound differently – I am sure it was a “benefit” for them but I recognize it as idiocy.

Anyhow, with a deficiency of anything better I will use the Juice Bar II and the Wiremold but I do not like both of them juts on specks. The Juice Bar II look more attractive but it is kind of too big to have 2-3 of them. Perhaps PS would do modules that would allow binding Juice Bars II together? It would be a good solution.

Romy the Cat wrote:

I did not say how my saga with APS Pure Power regenerator finish but it never finished. Since the end of the last year the regenerators is sitting in my closet and I have sent the unit’s main board to APS people for the “revision” as I do not feel it was useable. I still feel that the direction that APS are trying to go hugely perspective and I wish they found how to do the Class D regenerators to be stable, and producing right sound. It looks as the APS has revision of their board that might fix the problems that they had. I do not have a lot of hope but who knows they might did it accidently. The dilemma that I see is that the APS engineers do not work on the specific sonic problems that I pointed them out but they works against one list of improvements. It is valid list and they might do good job with this improvements but they are completely clueless about the sound of the units and the main purpose of this unit. The Chinese guys who as I understand are responsible for ingenerating aspects of the unit do not even acknowledge that problem with the unit. It is very frustrated as the only contact I have with APS is via the Canadian Director but he does not look like have enough pull (or desire) to address the problems with sound as long the unit is being sold well. So, that hope I have so far that the Chinese folks doing their planed modification might accidently to fix the problems that cause of the APS generator to have sonic aggravations.

The unit that returned to APS last December has a number of sonic “issues” (well coved in my comments) and one objectively bad problem that I feel was a fault of assembling and I feel that sonic problems were deriving from it. The regenerator #5 has a huge voltage linkage between neutral and ground. It is not a symmetrical devise but it had 67V between hot and ground and 53V between neutral and ground. It had very far off sound and what I got my current regenerator #6 the very first think I did was checking the propones of AC polarity and absents of voltaged super-linkage. This time the PurePower unit had 120 on Hot and 1.1V on Neutral . The  1.1V is slightly high, I would like to see 100mA-300mA but it is not an end of the worlds and considered that the problem with voltage linkage was resolved.

The unit also sound much softer and with much more polite “Super Structure” then the regenerator #5. In fact it was quite good out of box. (The unit is keep running for the last 3 days). From my past experience I knew well what the PurePower regenerator, so I quickly run over all my all familiar configuration confirming that the this unit #6 has no own “issuers”. The results are following: Bidat D/A,   Lavry D/A, Lavry A/D,  DAW machine,   Placette Preamp, CEC TL0 transport, Sansui TU-1X and REL tuner are very nice on APS power. The Pacific Microsonics Processor and Rohde & Schwarz tuner and the “End of the Live Phonostage” break up sinusoid very unpleasantly. The sound of Pacific and Schwarz get worse with PurePower. The sound of the Phonostage does not get worse even the sinusoid get twisted. Whatever it worth: the Phonostage has input filter, the Schwarz and Pacific do not. I did not even try to use my power amps: the APS folks and I mutually agree that my power amps are a taboo for this regenerator.

I ran the system from the regenerator connected to a power meter. Exactly like before I confirmed that the PurePower unit shell not be loaded more then with 200W for sonic consideration. My regular load was 100W and it looks like was even better then 200W. This unit #6 has an experimental feature that allows manual adjusting the depth of regenerator’s feedback with regard to the specific load. This is VERY good and very smart functionality as with class D amp feedback is something that set the stability of regulation and it effectiveness certainly affected by load. Experimenting with different loads I was able to see how the change of feedback’s depth changes the stability of the wave’s summit. However, I was pretty much in the same corner of feedback attenuator. Perhaps it is because I did not run the unit in the very different load conditions… like 70% or 90% of load. Also, I did not detect a whole lot of sonic changed with change of feedback. I changed the load from 50W to 150W that the regenerator might recognize as the “same load”. I presume that if I change the load from 50W to 900W then the feedback attenuator and observing the wave shape change with load might be more affective.

The most ugliest but partially relevant features that all APS units had still exist in my current regenerator. The PurePower returns back to the source power line a LOT of noise. I was not able to use PurePower on my dedicated lines as it craps it out inhumanly power for the rest components that are not connected via the PurePower regenerator. The cure is to plug the PurePower in house utility line, keeping the dedicated audio lines free from the PurePower’s returned noise. If not to do it then this noise is EVRY much visible on scope and it is very nasty.

OK, everything was fine and I might do into the sonic nuances of the PurePower unit. The PurePower drives a lot of switching nose from output. It has the filters but they help only partially. Adding capacitance to the PurePower’s output minimize the noise. In the past I bough specialty for this task some high-frequency-optimized caps and I put them in the game. The PurePower filter has CLCLC filter with 1uF caps. Adding 6uF kills all noise. However, it also softer bass and eats dynamics. Experimenting further I concluded that approximately .5-1uF extra capacitance does OK and it looks like doe not crap dynamics too much. Then I discovered something even more interesting. The PurePower use some ferrite chokes on the cables between the units sections. However, it uses ferrite bagels on both wires suppressing the HF noise across common mode. The differential noise between the hot and neutral wires is not suppressed. I have a lot of ferrite left over from my Tuner/DAC project.

http://www.goodsoundclub.com/Forums/ShowPost.aspx?postID=7851

 http://www.GoodSoundClub.com/TreeItem.aspx?PostID=7949

…so I put some of them on the individual wires – the result was very-very positive – I did not expected even how effective it would be.  So I went to extreme and load the each inch of the free output cable in the unit with a LOT of ferrite suppressors. In fact there is a lot of empty space in the PurePower unit and am planning to order a twice-trice longer cables (between the generator and output filters) and put there insulting amount of ferrite, both in common and deferential position. With what I did load with ferrite the init was very nice with practically no need to add caps to the output. The ferrite kept the “super texture” but took the edge out of it – very nice and gentile effect. I need more ferrite… where this damns cheap Russian surplus suppliers where one you can barter a railway train of ferrite cores for a bottle of vodka…

I was listening and I kind of like what I heard and I decided to finish up any further experiments and let it to be. I unplugged all cables, suck doe the regenerator, picks it up and dumped it in my closet – where I was intended to sit driving the system via the extension cables. I installed the PurePower and without even connecting any input of output cables I stated the unit from own buttery. Well, it was the last time when I saw it working. The unit started, in 2-3 second it heard a click insider the unit’s chasses and in a few seconds the air of closet begin to fill with the small of coked electronics. What the fuck!!! The unit went down, it was restated but there was no voltage at output – so it looks like the output stage was burned. I have to tell you that I was so disappointed that it hard to explain. I was trying to call to APS folks, it was Saturday and they were not there. It was kind of good as I was so pissed off that I could tell them something that we both were not be happy later. Why this fucking regenerator keeps blowing up? This is 6th unit and 3 of them ended up in flames!!! Is it cursed or it is just faulty designed? I do not know the answers.  If my 2nd  PurePower unit blew up what it started my power amps then the unit #4 and #6 blew up totally without any explanations! From one side the APS people are fine and cooperative dealing with this type of problems but the downtime and the annoyances with shipping and replacements are …. the annoyances. Not to mention that since the last June when I started experimenting with PurePower I did not have even a whole week of a properly functioning APS regenerator in my room. Is it too much to ask?

I truly do not know what to do now. It looks like the PurePower idea might work but it must work persistently in order to be usable. The APS folks admit that under specific conditions the PurePower might blow but they connect it only with exercise in-rush current. In case of my unit #4 and #6 I had no in-rush current, in fact the unit #6 was not even connected (!!!). What I need to do next – to fix it and to pray that it will not blow next time? The APS people claim that their new 2000W regenerator immune to burning out. I do not know if I feel comfortable to believe to it. The reason this damn regenerator is blowing is because there is insufficiently designed protection.  How difficult in case of any problem to shunt the regenerator with 100-150A diode? The diode switches at nanosecond sped that would take a fraction of cycle – and solid state device will not have time to get overheated… Anyhow, I do not know what to do now. I know that I would like to USE the PurePower unit in my system, not to spend my time to write the stupid post at my site about the damn regenerator’s flames. It begins to annoy me… The second summer is coming through and I still stupidly waiting for the PurePower’s freaking miracle….

Romy the Cat wrote:

OK, everything was fine and I might do into the sonic nuances of the PurePower unit. The PurePower drives a lot of switching nose from output. It has the filters but they help only partially. Adding capacitance to the PurePower’s output minimize the noise. In the past I bough specialty for this task some high-frequency-optimized caps and I put them in the game. The PurePower filter has CLCLC filter with 1uF caps. Adding 6uF kills all noise. However, it also softer bass and eats dynamics. Experimenting further I concluded that approximately .5-1uF extra capacitance does OK and it looks like doe not crap dynamics too much. Then I discovered something even more interesting. The PurePower use some ferrite chokes on the cables between the units sections. However, it uses ferrite bagels on both wires suppressing the HF noise across common mode. The differential noise between the hot and neutral wires is not suppressed. I have a lot of ferrite left over from my Tuner/DAC project. http://www.goodsoundclub.com/Forums/ShowPost.aspx?postID=7851  http://www.GoodSoundClub.com/TreeItem.aspx?PostID=7949 …so I put some of them on the individual wires – the result was very-very positive – I did not expected even how effective it would be.  So I went to extreme and load the each inch of the free output cable in the unit with a LOT of ferrite suppressors. In fact there is a lot of empty space in the PurePower unit and am planning to order a twice-trice longer cables (between the generator and output filters) and put there insulting amount of ferrite, both in common and deferential position. With what I did load with ferrite the init was very nice with practically no need to add caps to the output. The ferrite kept the “super texture” but took the edge out of it – very nice and gentile effect. I need more ferrite… where this damns cheap Russian surplus suppliers where one you can barter a railway train of ferrite cores for a bottle of vodka…

Socrates once said that non- examined live not worth to live. Well, I ma trying to look “examinatly” at my recent experience with the PurePower regenerator, trying to get out of it what I feel was interesting. Yes, to behave like the “Challenger” and the tendency to blow up is highly unpleasant inclination of the PurePower unit but before it went to flame there was positive and educational experience.

I discovered that further capacitive filtration hurts sound, I observed long time ego in Melquiades section of my site that any capacitors on primary side is infinite evil for dynamics and bass. The PurePower is it looks like have a right balance of carrier frequency filtration and sound. Sure it the PurePower run the sampling rate not a couple dozen kilohertz but a few hundred kilohertz (like most of audio class D amps) then all problems with 50Hz fundamental would go away as the filter would be too far. In case the PurePower however, the out tilter is set fine for whatever the carrier frequency is as it looks like it do fine sonically. It is a very little on the aggressive side of HF range but my late experiments with more ferrite in common and deferential setting indeed help and the it is possible to deal with it and having no negative impact to bass/dynamics as the caps would do.

So, what I would like to try if the damn PurePower ever will work and do not blow? I would like to have a very powerful external high inductance ferrite filter. I can envision it like this: the PurePower is running, producing the audio-capable sinusoid.  All PurePower load is connected to externals powerstrip plugged into PurePower unit. The cable between the PurePower regenerator and powerstrip however is going across a box with very heavy inductive filtration. I can see large 5”-7” diameter ferrite rings with power wires very tightly winded around it, both wires and individual wires. Let to drive non-interfering inductance up and the filter down – we need juts 60Hz fundamental anyhow… Perhaps something like this have already available commercially and juts might be just adopted for use with PurePower? If not then it would be very simple to build the HF suppressor like this. A set of 6-8 large ferrite rings cost around $30, all the rest is just to wind and to fix the cables around them. If my PurePower unit ever will work again I would certainly do something like this.

Yep, guys, thanks, I hear what you saying and it is true - the possibilities of the power devises in commercial and industrial world are endless. Even among regulators there are dozens and dozens companies that DC-AC inverters. Some of them might be less inclined to fault or even better sound then APS, who knows…

The problem that I see is not the luck of opportunities but luck of a comfortable framework that would allow approach those regenerators. We do not need a “good power” in audio we need a properly sounding power. I am not necessarily know what is difference but nether those people who produce the power devises. Get for instance the PS Audio Power Plant – it is a perfect power sourse but with a lot of sonic problems…  So, the advantage that I see in the Audio-centric power companies that practice the accommodation of different industrial solutions is that they (presumably) optimize the commercial product to best yield from audio perspective.  It is obvious the APS device was started as some kind of UPS unit that APS folks are trying to adapt foe audio use. I am very fine with it and I do not mind to pay more if all dirty work of getting better sound out of the power devise would be done by the company in house and the final products would have a guaranteed default audio performance. This is how it shell be but it is unfortunately not how it is.  What is the alternative: to chance zillion commercial products and to see which one would work out for audio?  I do not think so.  The companies like APS (and others) are sort of brokers between the army of UPS units and consumers who would like to employ the class D regenerators. I just wish the APS have more qualified engineers in stuff and more serious ability to evaluate sonic consequences of this products performance. But what makes the APS different from many other audio companies? The APS units erratically blow; the ExectPower units have 2kHz bandwidth(how stupid could it is)  - I can go on and on.

As in anything else I see the fault in all of it the QA department of audio industry – the reviewing whores who embrace and sell anything letting the companies to produce anything. Pretend that any film as soon it made has default exuberant acceptance by media and nominated for 25 Academy Awards, 15 Oscars and so on….