Power Pictures by PS Audio

The main system has been powered through a PS Audio P5 mains regenerator for about 3 months now.  Essentially this takes the incoming AC mains, transforms this to DC, then re-generates an AC output.  Inside there seem to be a good few chunky components such as transformers, amplifier looking transistors and capacitors in addition to the cooling fans.

Along the way, the voltage is stablised to whatever level you choose to set and distortion of the AC sinewave is drastically reduced.  In the shop at Manchester, incoming distortion is around 2 to 2.5%.  Here at home it seems to be more in the 1.5 to 1.9% range.  Initially the higher distortion was seen during the day, but since the solar panels were installed and on brighter days, daytime incoming distortion seems to be very similar to evenings.  Output distortion tends to around the 0.1%, so a major reduction.

In terms of effect on the system, well, I don't think it has any effect on the emotional capabilities of the system but it does improve some of the more "hifi" aspects.  There's a definite improvement in imaging stability - vagueness about where an instrument might be is reduced, and it stays there.  Also, everything seems to be "freed up" from the speakers - a wider, more open soundstage across the room and front to back too.  There may be a touch more fine detail too, as a result (I presume) of a reduction of background noise.  But its the imaging and soundstage that makes the biggest impact.

The device has a front panel display that shows information about incomings and outgoings.

All outputs switched off

Just the streamer powered up

Running at volume level 55 for streamer, pre-amp and power amps

Its also possible to monitor through a web interface:

Full online screenshot showing labelling of the output sockets.  System is on but idle here and is only consuming 105W

These screenshots below are taken over a fairly short time period - around 15 minutes.  You can see the incoming voltage drift from 245.1V through to 246.7V which is fairly small, but I have seen as little as 235V and as high as 259V in the past.  You can see the incoming distortion is around 1.5 to 1.6% and consistent at 0.1% with output voltage varying by 0.2V.

Volume level 30 shows an additional 30W or so of consumption

Volume level 50 doesn't use much more power

Volume level 60 (the sort of volume I usually use when doing "proper" listening)

And a picture of the new day time power source:

Thanks to brianandtrevors.com for introducing me to this product.