PS Audio Power Plant/regenerator thread, P3 / P12 / P15 / P20

You never use the additional feature, you either turn on MWave or you don’t, and why would you ever tweak the AC frequency or Voltage?
I think it was a repackaging, I had one that I bought used that was damaged in shipping and never put out more than 30V, before I just gave up trying to find used and bought a P3.
if you can find one used at a good discount I wouldn’t hessitate to buy it, otherwise just wait for the next P3 sale and buy new, they are usually below the average used price.

P3 is more than enough for just about any desktop right? … likely a lot of 2 CH setups that don’t have current hungry amps?

Yes, my headphone setup is borderline, with both the pacific and the WA33, I can get the little indicator into the warning area is I run T100 tubes in the pacific.
But short of that or wanting to run 2 power hungry amps (say the LAu and WA33) at the same time it’s more than enough for most headphone setups.
It would not be enough for most 2Channel setups, though you might get away with it if you’re using an integrated amp that’s less than 10W or a class D Amp.

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Odd irrelevant question.

The normal state of my P3 is Blue LED, if it’s drawing over 275W, the LED turns Green, and finally Red.
And yes I’ve tested all 3 states.

The first 2 are backwards from the manual description.
Does everyone else’s do this, or is mine special?

I’ve never seen it change color to anything but green.

Then I’ll assume yours behaves as described in the manual Green → Yellow → Red.
I assume when mine was built they either used the wrong LED, or a couple of wires get swapped since it definitely goes Blue → Green → Red.

Mine is blue as well, havent tested beyond that though

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I noticed too that mine also doesnt match the manual lol

Yeah I noticed when I first got mine, I discovered how it progresses through the colors much later.
I assume they were short of a part at some point and subbed it, or perhaps it was a permanent change at some point.

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My P3 light is always blue too. Three of us implies a permanent change to me.

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+3
Although I always turn off the lights, always been blue for me.

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Looks to me like the “fault” is in the manual not the units.

I called PS Audio when my P3 did not match the manual. I was told blue replaced green and the manual is old.

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Guess mine’s an older unit from before that changed

Looking at their current sale kind of has me thinking maybe is the time to buy.

I see a p3 and p12. Im guessing p5 is discontinued? Off hand does anyone know how much more headroom the p5 had over the p3, assuming it was a beefier unit?

I would like to keep it to a p3 which will be fine for a desktop chain. But not sure if its up to a dedicated streamer, lampi, and a hegel integrated.

P5 was replaced by the P3, the P5 was only rated 300W continuous the same as the current P3. Though the P5 had some additional features.
Though I never had a working P5, so I can’t confirm.

P12 is 1200W continuous peaks of 3000 or so.

If you are just running a headphone setup and don’t need multiple power hungry amps on at the same time the P3 ids enough.
The Pacific + WA33 are about as bad as any pairing you could pick power wise, and, they are slightly over 300W at startup, but <275 after a few seconds. I can’t run the T100’s in the Pacific because it then pulls closer to 200W (but it’s not my first choice anyway), and the total with the WA33 is >300.

I could not run the WA33 and the LAu and the LaVoce at the same time, though it was close, I just had to pick which amp I was going to use for the day.

If your worried, buy a Killawatt or similar and verify.

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I thought the P3 would be enough for me but from what you’re saying having a Streamer, DDC, DAC and even only one of the amps turned on at the same time might be a bit too much for it.

I mean, it depends a lot on /which/ amp and DAC and DDC and streamer, my entire chain includes all of those things and pulls like 70W, so your mileage might vary quite a bit.

I think my P5 is 1000 W continuous, but I haven’t checked in a while. Keep in mind that I use mine for a 2ch setup.
Discontinued now. My P5 has a fan though. It would be nice to have something that is fan-less.

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Head-fi folks think it wont be a problem… the streamer is about 50W at max, amp an extra 100W, DDC doesn’t really pull power since it works from an internal battery most of the time and I don’t have information for the DAC but I doubt it’s more than 150