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  Stereo Products > High Current Power Supply HCPS More Info Starting at just $995.00!  The PS Audio Analog High Current Power Supply (HCPS) is an add-on power package for the PCA-2 preamplifier that significantly improves the PCA-2’s performance.Unlike a Power Plant, Ultimate Outlet or Power Director type of power product, the HCPS is a replacement for the internal power supply inside the preamp and is designed specifically for the preamp and future accessories like the external phono stage. We recommend you still use a Power Plant to power the HCPS. The HCPS simply replaces the built-in power supply of the PCA-2 for a stunning improvement in musicality. The HCPS comes complete with its own connecting power cables and will work with any PS Audio PCA-2 preamplifier with no additional equipment necessary. The results are almost hard to believe If you look inside the PCA-2 preamplifier you’ll notice an oversized power supply to begin with. A large toroidal transformer, coupled with generous energy storage and regulation, the PCA-2 has one of the larger built in power supplies of any preamplifier in the world.  Inside the HCPS is a significantly larger transformer and even more energy storage. In fact, the size of the transformer in the HCPS is larger than many small power amplifiers and the energy storage is immense: 75,000 microfarads to be precise. So, what’s the net result? Breathtaking performance from a preamplifier the likes of which are almost hard to describe. Every aspect of the preamp’s musical stage is enhanced, from the pluck of a string to the thunder of the bass: depth, imaging, soundstage width, mid bass richness and the top end is so sweet it’s as if you could reach out and touch the music. So, what’s the deal? The PCA-2 is a great preamplifier without any help from an external power supply. So what happens when you replace the internal supply with a huge external supply? From a technical standpoint, adding such a large transformer and so many filter capacitors has the same effect as running the preamplifier off of a huge bank of batteries. To keep this in perspective, the battery bank necessary to duplicate the HCPS performance would be the size of a P1000 Power Plant. Inside a preamplifier there is a power supply. This power supply converts AC to DC (battery type voltage) and smoothes out the power as best it can. The better it can smooth t  he AC into DC the better the preamplifier will sound. Most designers rely heavily on regulators to smooth out the power. These are active devices much like a small power amplifier. The harder these regulators have to work the worse the sound is.By feeding the power supply of the preamplifier with DC rather than AC, the regulators do almost nothing deleterious to the power and the sound is remarkably improved. Further, the lower the impedance of the supply feeding the preamplifier the better the sound. Using 75,000 microfarads of capacitance coupled to a giant transformer provides unspeakably low impedance to the preamplifier. Why didn’t we do this in the first place? Obviously the best solution would have been to provide this superior power supply to the PCA-2 in the first place. Fair enough. However, there are two problems with this approach: there is not enough room and there are advantages to keeping the supply external.  If you look inside the HCPS you’ll notice that the chassis is basically full of transformer, capacitors and the input High Current Ultimate Outlet. There is simply no room for the preamp! But, if there were room, there’s still a sound reason for keeping it external and in a separate chassis. Ground currents, radiated noise (EMI) and diode charging currents are all kept within the external box and never contaminate the preamplifier. What the preamplifier sees is absolutely clean and pristine DC voltage similar to that of a huge battery: and there’s no need to deal with all the trouble you have with batteries. The HCPS is truly the perfect mate and the perfect solution to the power supply needs of a preamplifier. A bit of history The HCPS is not new technology. Other high-end audio companies have used them and continue to use them. PS Audio, however, invented the technology. Nearly 2  5 years ago the “S” in PS Audio, Stan Warren, made a fortuitous mistake: in his haste to listen to a new preamplifier prototype Stan grabbed the only transformer he had on hand, a power amp transformer rather than a much smaller preamplifier type of transformer. He connected the power amp transformer to the preamp prototype and listened. It was remarkable what Paul and Stan heard that fateful afternoon. It wasn’t until months of hard work later that we uncovered the real reason for this wonderful sound, the larger transformer.Over the ensuing years since that discovery, PS has found even more advantage than using just a larger transformer: we have discovered that feeding an AC power supply with DC voltage is really part of the key. That’s just what the HCPS does: produces pure, clean DC power and feeds it to the preamplifier. The package Inside the HCPS there is a High Current Ultimate Outlet. This feeds an enormous toroidal transformer, wound in a low noise low Gauss manner to keep magnetic fields out of the supply and ou  t of products close to the HCPS. The transformer feeds 75,000 microfarads of low ESR capacitors, each bypassed with a beautiful film capacitor.The power produced by the supply is then routed to high end Neutrik connectors on the back of the HCPS and fed to your PCA-2 preamplifier via the supplied multi-shielded 2 meter cables. There are two of these cables, one for the high voltage required by the preamplifier and the other for the low voltage “housekeeping” supply that runs the PCA-2’s front panel display and internal microprocessor circuitry. There is also an additional auxiliary connector on the back of the HCPS that will allow future PS products to enjoy the benefits of the HCPS as well as the preamplifier. Using the HCPS Using the HCPS is easy. Simply power down the PCA-2 preamplifier. Remove the AC power cable feeding the PCA-2. Take the power cable that formerly powered the PCA-2 and use it to power the HCPS. Then  connect both the supplied power cables to the Neutrik connectors on the back of the HCPS and the back of the PCA-2, click the rear panel master switch and prepare for the greatest excitement you can imagine. The improvement is stunning, breathtaking.A killer product that completes the chain The PCA-2 is a marvelous preamplifier by anyone’s standard. Adding the HCPS to power the PCA-2 raises the performance of the PCA-2 beyond the musical performance of any preamplifier we have ever heard, bar none. Available in both silver and black to match your preamplifier, the Analog HCPS will be the perfect companion piece. It’s time to see your dealer or distributor and rustle up a new HCPS for your preamplifier today. This is worth the wait, worth the price, worth whatever you have to do to mate these two beauties together.
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