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  1. Present at the shootout were SNA members Tuyen, 24Bits and myself and it was conducted in Chanh's excellent man-cave. Apologies for the lack of photos but Chanh kept the red wine flowing, and you know the rest! The contenders were - PSAudio P10 - Price - around $6300. This unit uses PSAudio's patented technology to regenerate power. Power efficiency is now at 85% and the unit is passively cooled. It is microprocessor controlled and has the ability to regulate voltage. The screen provides relevant information including THD of incoming and regenerated power, power consumption etc. It can provide dynamic power for attached appliances totalling 1200 watts. This means that provided the average power draw is 1200 watts or less the P10 will keep up with sudden power demands for transients etc. The power output THD is less than 1% . AG1500 - Price around $1k delivered to Australia. The AG1500 is an online double conversion power supply which regenerates power in a different manner to the P10. The P10 is essentially an amplifier whereas the AG1500 converts AC to DC and then DC to AC. This process should eliminate power impurities however the dynamic headroom is limited by the size of the inverter. In this case it is 1500VA which translates to less headroom than the P10. Airlink 3KVA Balanced Power supply - Price around $1k landed in Australia. This unit is essentially a very big isolating toroidal balanced mains transformer. For a 230V power the unit divides the incoming current into 2 x 115 v out of phase signals. i.e. 2 Live wires are inversely phased centre tapped to earth. When combined the equal and opposite currents are cancelled out i.e. common-mode rejection. The units can be purchased in sizes up to 15KVA and Airlink are open to special requests. At 3KVA rating the unit can be operated up to max capacity but dynamics start to suffer if operated above 50% loading which gives it similar dynamic headroom to the P10. Being a passive device, there isn't anything really likely to go wrong with the unit so reliability shouldn't be an issue like it has been with the P10. The unit tested is bog standard without any additional filtering ( optional extras) but with 20V lower output than input. This is intended to deal with consistently high voltages seen in my area - around 250v RESULTS Testing commenced around 8PM when the power was much cleaner and more stable than during the day. However, quite dramatic improvements were detected against the standard wall power even at this time of night. The average total load was between 500 and 800 watts depending upon which power amplifiers were used. Each unit is discussed below in order of its performance ranking: 1. P10 - With the P10 dynamics improved noticeably, as did resolution, imaging and tonal quality. This is a major upgrade to any sound system that does not have decent mains conditioning in place. We noticed THD levels going from 3-5% on input down to 0.8% which could in part explain the much higher resolution we were experiencing. The soundstage was more expansive and imaging was more 3D like. The P10 was clearly the best performer. 2. Airlink Balanced & Isolating Power Supply - This unit matched the P10 in all areas except ultimate resolution. Like the P10, dynamics improved markedly. The soundstage opened up and imaging was more 3D like and there was an improvement in resolution but not like that of the P10. The overall tonal balance was a bit warmer than the P10. Depending upon your point of view, The Airlink balanced power supply could be seen as being between 80% and 90% of the P10 performance. 3. AG1500 - With this unit, sound improvements were detected when compared to the raw mains power but nowhere near that experienced with the other two. However, even with a relatively light load and volume settings, dynamics suffered noticeably. It seems that the AG1500 should not be used with power amplifiers if you want to preserve the full dynamics of the music. Ultimate Combo: We then fed the output of the Airlink transformer to the P10 and got the best results for the night. There was an incremental improvement in all aspects of the sound with the warmer tonal balance of the Airlink being combined with the high resolution of the P10. Bang for Your Buck: Airlink - With this in place the system sound improves by a significant margin for a reasonable price . Please note however that coming from the UK they would have UK, or Schuko fittings. Tuyen's Opinion Tuyen provided some thoughts by PM and these are repeated here with his permission: "Yep, P10 is winner in terms of reducing THD levels, hence allowing for a more quiet background. More nuances of the music comes through. Gives a greater sense of dynamic range. Didn't restrict dynamics in any noticeable way. The 3kva airlink balanced transformer surprised me some what. It quietened the background (but not to the same level as the p10). It made the music sound fluid/refined and relaxed. No problem with dynamics. Didn't clean up the THD in the line, so compared to the P10, I felt it did not expose that '1-2%' of micro dynamics/detail, that the P10 allowed through. From experience, that relaxed/naturalness could be partly due to the drop down from 240v to 220v as Tasso did mention his unit does drop the output down 20v. The AG1500 while providing an improvement over going straight from wall socket, in terms of slightly more detail, refinement and image separation, it compressed the dynamic range a bit, causing the music to sound flatter/less 3d presence. Did not have as black background as the p10, so those nuances(which can actually be important in the well recorded music we were listening to) don't get fleshed out. Performed the worse out of the 3 on the night. What then became interesting was when we decided to hook the P10 into the airlink, I felt it provided what seemed to be the best of both worlds. The airlink allowed for the P10 to work less hard maybe? Either way it provided a more rounded/natural/fuller/fluid sound compared to running the P10 alone. Don't understand the reason why, as the idea of a regenerator is to remove all effects of the incoming power. But alas, It was what my ears say it was Now, I must look into one of those 240-220 airlinks. The power at my house is usually 250v, so a 20v drop will set it at a healthy 230v. The AG1500 might be good to experiment with just powering things like my laptop, maybe dac and crossover. Power amps maybe go direct from an airlink. In saying that, P10 was the pick of the night. So it should be for the cost of a unit! Great night. Thanks Chanh. Hope you got home safely Tasso? Catch up again soon" Yes, I did get home safely and thank you again to Chanh for hosting the evening .
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