Devialet amplifier power ratings and AC mains regenerators

[Antoine]

Antoine, wouldn't it be better to do both balanced and A/C mains regen?  If I'm not mistaken, there is a balanced transformer before the mains amplifiers in all the original PS audio devices (P300-P2000).

They stopped outputting 'balanced' power with the introduction of the PPP (Power Plant Premier). I'm no specialist in the matter and I'd like to think that PS Audio keeps evolving it's products instead of devolving them. But I also remember that the reasons, pros and cons have been discussed a lot back in the day, I googled and found this in a PPP review, it's a response from Paul McGowan on the matter:

One major difference between the Power Plant Premier and earlier models is that the Power Plant Premier does not output balanced power. When I questioned Paul about this, he emailed the following unedited explanation:

“The only advantage of delivering balanced power is the potential noise reduction you get in the equipment being driven - but in a sense, that's a bit misleading. Let me explain.

“When you send a balanced AC signal, the incoming transformer is driven in balanced mode. What this allows is for common mode rejection of up to 10dB of any noise on the power cable between the Power Plant and the unit being driven. While this sounds good, the truth is if you use a shielded power cable - there isn't any noise to be lowered and the balanced power is then useless.

“Many people mistakenly think that balanced power lowers noise in the system (it does not), lowers noise in the unit being driven (it does not), and lowers noise in the Power Plant (it does not). All it can do is lower any noises in the power cable between the PPP and the unit being driven.

“Since balanced power isn't really that effective at lowering noise, we found it advantageous to eliminate it in favor of efficiency. One of the reasons the new PPP is 85% efficient - relative to the 48% efficiency of the older Power Plants - is the use of single ended power rather than balanced. Considering the major benefits of driving your whole system with perfected power vs. just some of the system - or, in some cases - having a much more powerful lower impedance Power Plant like the Premier - sonically it makes all the difference in the world.

“So summing up - we traded balanced power for efficiency knowing that the only downside is that one has to use a decent well shielded power cable to feed their equipment. Since you should be doing that anyway, there's really no downside at all.”