May PS Audio Newsletter

• Back to the newsletter
• Cable trade-up about to end
• Best in show
• 12 PPP’s
• Bugs
• Let’s not forget red book cd’s!
• Trade up to PerfectWave

Back to the newsletter
First off; I am going back to calling this the PS Newsletter.  Strange as it may seem, I had a bunch of people write me and ask whatever happened to our newsletter!  Well, sometimes calling something different than the obvious backfires on you and so back we go to just plain old vanilla “Newsletter”.

On a personal note Terri and two of our sons ran the Bolder Boulder race on Memorial Day along with some 52,000 other people. What a hoot!  6.2 miles up and down the streets of Boulder. Some people leap frogged the race, others walked it backwards, one guy did the race while cart wheeling, yet another guy dressed up in a suit and played the accordion while jogging. The serious runners completed the race in 28 minutes, while Terri and I took 80 minutes.

Cable trade-up about to end
There are two schools of thoughts in the world of marketing when it comes to early adopters: charge more for the first release of products because the early adopters are willing to pay for the privilege of being first (like Apple did with its iPhone), or the exact opposite: honor the early adopter’s loyalty and trust by making it easier to purchase on the first days of the launch. Most companies are in the first camp; PS has always been in the second.

With the release of both the PerfectWave cable and audio series, we are honoring early adopters with programs that make it easier to get on board now.  Both programs have been a big success.  In fact, we have sold out of many of the PerfectWave power cables and won’t have more of some models until September (like some AC12’s).  This means that if you are going to take us up on our early adopter trade up, you should act now.

How good are these?  Without a moment’s hesitation I am here to tell you they are the best power cables we have ever built and what they do for your system is probably best explained by those who have placed them already.

“I told you before, if they sounded half as good as they looked, they would be great. They don’t sound half as good, they sound TWICE as good as they look!  They are absolutely amazing! I have been auditioning new power cords for the past 10 years now, and nobody has been able to beat my current reference until now.”
 
“They are quieter, lower distortion, more organic/harmonically correct. There is a substantial improvement in all frequencies.  Cymbals are smoother with more “shimmer” to them. You hear the wood body of the string instruments better. Bass is tighter and more articulate, and at the same time more effortless.

I think a good way to describe the sonic improvement I am hearing when added to my line stage would be like going from a single chassis to a duel chassis with larger more regulated power supply. Of course I already have a two chassis statement level line stage. I’m hearing a “closer to the live production” now.”

“I have listened to the Plus, Statement, and Premier SC power cables. I found the Premier to be far superior to the other two. I compared the AC-12 cable with the Premier SC and heard another step up in sound quality. I will point out that the premier had many hours of break-in time and the AC-12 had maybe two hours.

The AC-12 was less congested, clearer, with more natural sound. I have a recording where a percussionist is playing on a wood block with drumsticks. With the AC-12, it sounded like wood on wood but with the Premier it sounded more like a combo of wood and plastic. I think after more time the AC-12 will only get better. With the lower price and trade in allowance, I totally recommend the upgrade.”

Thanks.  So the obvious question is should you upgrade from say, an xStream Statement to a PerfectWave?  Let’s say you have an xStream Statement powering your PPP.  Changing that Statement to an AC10 will breathe new life into the system in non-subtle ways.  In fact, read the comments above about what others heard in their systems.  The improvements are really quite dramatic.

I’ll give you an example.  I spent Sunday rearranging our listening room and changed the remaining xStreams to PerfectWaves in the process.  Without even 10 minutes of break in the system just disappears and I find myself lost in the music more than ever before.
The cable trade up program will only go for a few more weeks and we are already out of a few models.  In many cases what our dealers have in their inventory will soon become your only chance to make this happen.

The trade up gives you a 25% discount off the retail price for any power cable in the PerfectWave series.  All you have to do to take advantage of this is trade-in any aftermarket power cable of any value to receive your discount. 

Interested?  Call your dealer, call us 866.406.8946, head to our website, but whatever you do, don’t wait.

Best in show
I remember the first time I watched the mockumentary “Best in show“directed by Christopher Guest.  I hated it.  One of our ladies at the office told me to watch it and said it was hilarious.  At the time, I had no idea what a mockumentary was and took the movie as serious.  Once I figured out it was poking fun at the subject it became one of my all time favorite movies.   So, I guess the old adage “expectations are everything” sure rings true.

Which brings us to the FSI show in Montreal.  We went with really high expectations of building a great system that would show off the new PerfectWave DAC and Transport and we won!    Our room received the award for Best Sound of the show.  The system was based on the PS Audio PerfectWave Transport and DAC with amps from Trigon and the speakers were Lohengrins.

Thanks to our distributor, Dimexis as well as our Dave Kakenmaster, for putting on a great show that we can be extremely proud of.

12 PPP’s
When Ryan Conway told me about one of our dealers, Legend Audio Video, with an out-of-this-world system powered by 12 Power Plants I just had to hear about this system and how it sounded myself.  One of the reasons I am even including this in the Newsletter is that we’ve been writing so much about the new audio components that I tend to ignore the most basic of all products in any system, the Power Plant Premier - and here’s someone that has paid a great deal of attention to it.

It’s easy enough for me to simply assume that everyone is geared up with the proper AC foundation and I forget not all of us have taken the time to get our AC right.  No, adding a power conditioner doesn’t qualify.  Sorry.  We too make power conditioners and yes, they can make a surprisingly beneficial improvement to the system, but there’s simply nothing like regulating and regenerating the AC power with a Power Plant.

The dealer, Ivan Messer, wrote us a brief review of his system, which includes 12 (count ‘em) Power Plants.  It’s a multi-channel system and he’s using 1.2kw and 2kw monoblocks on every channel with a dedicated PPP on each of them.  Then he’s dividing up the rest amongst his 24 pieces of source equipment. Here’s Ivan’s review.

“My system has always been dead silent with absolutely fearful dynamics. The adding of these PPP’s has increased the overall soundstage in many respects. Musical instruments and vocals are now in total focus with pinpoint accuracy. The imaging is wider and much deeper than ever before, as amazing as that may sound; it is true. Articulation of the subtlest notes is now more clearly defined. Playing Acoustic Alchemy - Georgia Peach at 85db the strings are absolutely stunning, I can hear fingers slide on the strings. The entire architecture of the sound has been transformed to a much higher plain. Bass, (which was always incredible) is now as delicate as it is devastating.

Big Phat Band’s - Act Your Age is another perfect example of how addictive the PPP’s affect the overall sound. This track absolutely makes you raise the volume, I brought it up to 100db and I can tell you in all sincerity “this is as real as it gets” the horns are within touching distance. The entire jazz ensemble is surrounding you in musical bliss. This track has never sounded better, just stunning!

For my last demo I chose Emerson Lake & Palmer - Tank at 90db, the Moog synthesizer simply boggles the mind, every keystroke so clearly defined against Carl Palmers drums. For the drum solo I brought it up to 100db the entire solo has its own sound stage not simply drums being played.

I have come to the following conclusions; I will never say I am done adding or tweaking my systems. I will most certainly always center mine and any other systems I build around the amazing PPP. It has unquestionable proven beyond doubt, Mac amps & AC regeneration have incredible synergy.”

Bugs
We are finally shipping the PerfectWave series just as spring has sprung.   Two years of hard work, lots of love and attention and these products are just about ready to take up residence in your home.  

They have shipped out to our 25 honored beta testers and we, like expectant parents, wait to see how our “children” do in the real world.  The first feedback is really encouraging.  Beta tester Andy Collen, for example, called and asked us “do you know what you have here?”  Well, like any proud parent, we blushed a bit and said “why no, tell us more!”

“I wanted to let you know, if you haven’t already heard, how enamored I am by this product. I’m presently listening with $15,000 worth of esoteric separates and have had the Berkeley/alpha DAC in-house for audition a few months back. I was hoping that the PWT/PWD would better the other two, but your digital has placed itself above them in a category all its own.

At this point, the only Fair competition for your digital is analog. How in the world did you get 16/44.1 to sound this good?  You have blown me away!  I know you guys will do very well with this product.”

Thanks Andy, that’s certainly encouraging.  Beta testing continues into June and we’ll begin releasing PerfectWaves for those of you who have them on order just as soon as the beta testers and everyone at PS are satisfied they are perfect.  Fortunately, any changes we need to make can be emailed to the group, tested in a day or two, speeding up the beta process dramatically.

In past beta testing programs we were not able to have such a large number of testers because we were primarily testing hardware and any changes required had to be performed back at the factory.  You can imagine the cost of shipping and modifying so many beta products.  Plus, once the beta units had fulfilled their purpose, they were pretty much trashed.

The PW Series is different.  The hardware for the transport and the DAC has been pretty much finished and refined for nearly 6 months.  In fact, we were showing this finished hardware back at the January CES in Vegas.  What wasn’t finished is the software, which is the heart of this system. 

The PW’s represent the first products in the PS line to be fully field-upgradable.  For us, this is a major breakthrough in both performance as well as serviceability.  From this point forward, any upgrades or any problems (bugs) can be fixed with simple software revisions downloaded over the Internet, handled by your dealer or emailed to you. If we come up with a new feature or if we find a problem, we will simply send out new software and every owner of the PW products will benefit.

Of course for everyone at PS the idea of field upgradeability and finding and fixing “bugs” with software upgrades is really stimulating and a welcome change from the expense and frustration of having to ship products back and forth.  So far, we haven’t found many, but the beta testing period is young.

While writing to a few customers about this great feature of the PW series I started wondering where the term “bug” comes from.  I did a little research and found out and I figured a few of you might be interested in what I found.

The story goes that in 1947, while working on Harvard’s Mark II computer - one of the very first in the world and made with tubes and relays - a glitch in the program was fixed by removing a dead moth trapped in one of the computer’s relays.  The operators who found the moth kept the insect taped inside a notebook with the notation “First actual case of bug being found.”   The term “bug” and “debug” was attributed to these researchers at Harvard.

While the term “debug” probably does belong to them, it turns out that “bug” was more correctly attributed to our old friend and inventor, Thomas Edison who we feature in our video Coal to Coltrane.  “It has been just so in all of my inventions. The first step is an intuition, and comes with a burst, then difficulties arise - this thing gives out and it is then that ‘Bugs’ - as such little faults and difficulties are called - show themselves and months of intense watching, study and labor are requisite before commercial success or failure is certainly reached.”

It’s good to know someone as bright as Thomas Edison had his “bugs” to deal with as well. 

Fortunately for us, we’re able to identify and fix any bugs we find within minutes.  I think old Thomas would be jealous.

Let’s not forget red book cd’s!
In our last newsletter I waxed enthusiastically about playing high-resolution audio discs on the PWT and while this is interesting to a lot of you, I discovered through your comments that what most of you really are interested in is good old fashioned red book CD’s.  Why? Well, because 99% of all our libraries are still on CD’s and it’ll be a long time before this changes. 

Yes, the PWT is ready when you are to play high-resolution audio up to 192kHz and 24 bits, but in the meantime, is it what you hoped for as a CD player?  I believe so, yes.  In fact, CD’s played on the PWT are simply breathtaking in a way you probably never expected.  Let’s look at an overview for better clarity.

About a year and half before the CD was released, IBM launched the personal computer (PC).  In the 26 years following the launch of the CD and PC, computers have leaped forward in ways many of us could never have imagined; while the CD hasn’t changed much at all.  Indeed there have been valiant attempts along the way, such as SACD and DVDA, but the truth is most of our libraries are still CD based - because it is still the industry standard - and even stranger still, the original recordings are hi-def and have been so for a long, long time.

It seems ironic that most of the recordings over the last decade have been at high sample and bit rates, yet to make the sounds listenable on CD players, the final mix is retrofitted to compact disc specs by stripping it of billions of bits’ worth of musical detail and dynamics. It’s like filming a movie in high def and then broadcasting it only to black-and-white TV sets.  But that’s what we have to deal with right now.

So one of the goals we had for the PWT was to wring out every last drop of resolution and harmonic content from CD’s, while at the same time making the PWT future proof so you could play high-res discs when your library expanded.  Most CD players and CD transports do a pretty lousy job of preserving what musical info is on the CD and this is a fact you’ll come to discover only AFTER you hear a player that doesn’t exhibit these shortcomings.

I write these words because I do tend to get so excited about the high-res formats that I forget to let people know just how extraordinary CD reproduction is on the PWT.  Perhaps the greatest number of exclamations people share with us has to do with the amazing CD performance of the PWT.  Harmonics, sub harmonics, overtones and dynamic contrasts all shine through in amazing ways when you play a CD on the PWT.

I simply cannot wait to hear what you think after you’ve had a chance to audition the PWT.  And now is a great time because early adopters can still benefit.

Upgrading to PerfectWave
If you’re thinking about upgrading your CD player or DAC, the PerfectWave series should be high on your list.  Whether you’re looking to enjoy high-resolution audio on the PWT or the PWD, or just wring every last drop out of what you have invested in your CD collection, the PerfectWave series gets you what you’re looking for.

Early adopters are rewarded with PS Audio as we have a trade up program available here in the US.  The program’s pretty simple and will not last much longer.  It’s a simple program.  Basically, we will buy your old DAC or your old CD player (or transport) for its full retail value (up to $1000) when you purchase a PWT or PWD.  The retail value will be determined by the original retail pricing of your old equipment, not what you paid for it.

How do you participate?  Call your dealer, call us, or visit the website www.psaudio.com .

Till June
Hopefully you can make the time to get out and enjoy some of this wonderful spring weather.  Next month we’ll have plenty more news and fun stuff to talk about.

Paul McGowan

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