Build your
power foundation

AC power is the foundation of our stereo systems. When we spin a disc or stream a song, everything we hear starts out first as AC power. The better your power the better music sounds.

From as far back as 1997, PS Audio has been building the best power foundations made, the AC regenerator known as Power Plants. These big AC power amplifiers take raw unregulated AC voltage from the wall, convert it to clean DC, then regenerate new, regulated, low distortion perfected power to safely drive your equipment.

In the United States, as well in quite a few countries around the world, Power Plants are enjoying special pricing now and through the end of October. If you’re looking for one of the most substantial improvements possible—improvements that are immediate and obvious—then there’s no better time than right now to take a Power Plant home.

If you’re in the US, check out the special here. If outside the US, ring up your local dealer to find out if they’re able to help you build a proper power foundation.

Watch Paul travel through the AC line to discover what’s inside a Power Plant

Inside a regenerator

I’ve done some goofy videos in my life, but I must say this one takes the proverbial cake.

When PS Audio’s director of marketing, Jim Heekin, suggested I hitch a ride on an electron and travel through the AC plug to demonstrate why a power conditioner isn’t as effective as an AC regenerator, I thought perhaps he had been watching too many old Rick Moranis movies or hanging around Colorado’s cannabis stores. But, no, he hadn’t any such excuse.

I’m always up for a crazy idea so I agreed. The next thing I know he’s got me inside a Power Plant!

Spoiler alert. Even though the engineers tried to shrink me down to the size of an electron, it’s all just CGI. Have fun with the video.

Temporary Circumstances

Octave Record’s second release, Temporary Circumstances, is a hit! Gorgeous melodies and amazing recordings are what standout in this terrific new album by Jessica Carson and her band, Clandestine Amigo.

Track 7, Flying Blind, is my new reference track for in-the-room vocals. When Jessica and Giselle start singing, you’d swear they were in the room with you. Never have I heard such presence in music. Recorded and mastered by Gus Skinas, these vocals were captured on a one-of-a-kind custom Tim de Paravicini stereo AKG vacuum tube microphone.

We’ve nearly sold out of this limited edition SACD so if you’re interested in owning this great recording, don’t wait too long. Soon they will be out of print and gone.

Available as an SACD (which can also play on any CD player), a high-resolution download, and next month as a vinyl release.

Don’t miss out. Go here to listen to the samples and order it. Ships worldwide.

Copper Magazine

Larry Schenbeck returns! Have things changed for him? John Seetoo review’s Neil Young and Phil Baker’s book about the rise and fall of the Pono hi-res music player. Tom Methans and Jay Jay French remember Eddie Van Halen. We have interviews with Krell Industries’ Walter Schofield (Part One) and Eikon Audio’s Gayle Sanders (Part Two; these guys have a lot to say). Anne E. Johnson looks at the career of Dame Ethel Smyth and deep cuts from Echo & the Bunnymen. Ken Sander gets big attitude from Little Esther.

Tom Gibbs covers new releases from Roger Waters, Drive-By Truckers and Sufjan Stevens. Wayne Robins goes crate digging…for MP3s? Steven Bryan Bieler has fond musical memories of his dad. Roy Hall visits a dude ranch and WL Woodward revisits Frank Zappa. J.I. Agnew ponders the dynamic range of records. Ray Chelstowski has an inside look at the making of Bob Seger’s Against the Wind (he had some unexpected help). Rudy Radelic offers some suggested demo recordings. Readers Adrian Wu and Stuart Marvin tell us about an Olympian listening experience and a close encounter with the Rolling Stones. Our audio/visual department encounters a hair-raising experience, gets testy with tubes and visits the Badlands.

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Lyrics from melodies

A song fuses words and music. Yet the human brain can instantly separate a song’s lyrics from its melody.

And now scientists think they know how this happens.

A team led by researchers at McGill University reported that song sounds are processed simultaneously by two separate brain areas: one in the left hemisphere and one in the right.

“On the left side you can decode the speech content but not the melodic content, and on the right side you can decode the melodic content but not the speech content,” says Robert Zatorre, a professor at McGill University’s Montreal Neurological Institute.

The finding explains something doctors have observed in stroke patients for decades, says Daniela Sammler, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Cognition and Neurosciences in Leipzig, Germany, who was not involved in the study.

“If you have a stroke in the left hemisphere you are much more likely to have a language impairment than if you have a stroke in the right hemisphere,” Sammler says. Moreover, brain damage to certain areas of the right hemisphere can affect a person’s ability to perceive music.

ht: thanks to Paul Barth for sending me the article