PS Audio M700 Monoblock Amplifier Review

[restorer-john]

I wish that is the case but unfortunately mine isn't that quiet at higher frequencies. Can REW, Omni mic and users please share you noise floor graphs please?

How about just presenting the actual noise floor in uV with a bandwidth and weighting? You know, with a proper millivoltmeter? An electret into a preamp and into an A/D is not a valid 'noise floor'. That HF noise on the FFT is a combination of a whole lot of influences.

 

[Vini darko]

The ICEpower 700AS1 module has a voltage gain of 27.4 dB according to the datasheet, and this amplifier has a total of 30.4 dB of gain. So the "Analog Cell" blue box is only their proprietary +3 dB gain opamp adding their "special sauce" distortion to the sound.

With their new M1200 monos they went further and added a tube gain stage before the ICEpower 1200AS1 module for the same reason.

M700 inside.

View attachment 77130

So an empty box with a off the shelf module and a distortion generator tacked on. It would be interesting to bypass the buffer and see how things improve. Because that's one powerful little module.

 

[peng]

How about just presenting the actual noise floor in uV with a bandwidth and weighting? You know, with a proper millivoltmeter? An electret into a preamp and into an A/D is not a valid 'noise floor'. That HF noise on the FFT is a combination of a whole lot of influences.

It was just the ambient noise my Umik-1 mic heard, from my listening position. I can hear the noise, even when it is in its quietest possible state, like with the HVAC and fridges from 25 ft off, in early morning, so I measured it with the mic and REW to see what kind of spl in dB I was getting. It is not from the electronics, I can have the speakers disconnected and the graph would be the same.

 

[restorer-john]

It is not from the electronics, I can have the speakers disconnected and the graph would be the same.

OK, I'd figured you were blaming the amp/electronics based on the SPL of the noise you measured...

 

[cistercian]

So an empty box with a off the shelf module and a distortion generator tacked on. It would be interesting to bypass the buffer and see how things improve. Because that's one powerful little module.

1000 watt icepower amp+power supply modules are 249 dollars on parts direct. OOS at this time,

If one was so inclined building a quick and easy 1kw mono bloc looks quite inexpensive.

 

[peng]

The rise in response >6kHz seems pretty odd.

Actually that one was measured at 6:43 PM. I only kept the graph if I was sure the outside was quiet too, but may be that one time I missed the birds tweeting/chirping or something lol.. I'll try and do another one late at night when the birds should be quiet. Still, I wonder if even golden ears can hear tell, separate, discern distortions at -75 dB from room ambient noise in that room, with volume at -15, and spl of about 90 dB peak, or 95 dB top, when watching a star war movie?

 

[Panelhead]

PS Audio lost me as a potential client after Paul and Stan Warren split ways. Stan felt that building products that had great performance AND low cost was the proper business model. Helped increase the market pool.
Stan started Superphon and followed that model. Sadly building cheap products in the USA was difficult even 30 years ago. Boutique manufacturing requires either high prices or high volumes. Superphon had neither.
Those two were 180 apart. Paul a real salesman, Stan a great set of ears and ability to design circuits. Paul won.

 

[Jmudrick]

He most likely didn't do anything and just slapped an ICEpower module in an enclosure and called it a day. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but the price should reflect that.

No,, were that the case they may have achieved better measurements were that the goal. Clearly PS Audio products are designed to measure decently then tuned to achieve a sound that Paul and his amp designer find appealing, which is precisely what he says quite often in his videos.

 

[Feanor]

The ICEpower 700AS1 module has a voltage gain of 27.4 dB according to the datasheet, and this amplifier has a total of 30.4 dB of gain. So the "Analog Cell" blue box is only their proprietary +3 dB gain opamp adding their "special sauce" distortion to the sound.

With their new M1200 monos they went further and added a tube gain stage before the ICEpower 1200AS1 module for the same reason.

M700 inside.

View attachment 77130

My guess is that the "gain cell" front-end is the culprit for most of the problems with this unit, not the ICEpower module.

Seems to me that makers like to "customize" their generic ICEpower/Ncore/Purifi-based amps with a front-end they devise according to their own ideas -- otherwise how could they justify their inflated prices. PS Audio provides an excellent example.

Low-feedback proponents are tend to argue that feedback produces too much harsh high-order harmonic distortion, (which is true enough in itself), but ignore that more feedback reduces high-order distortion along with distortion overall. In reality I think what they are really after is more 2nd and/or 3rd order distortion which is deemed pleasant to the ear. Injecting these distortions can be achieved with a "custom" front-end; in case of the M700 we can see there is plenty 3rd order distortion. I suspect the this is Gowan's implicit intent and that the result is consistent with his design goals.

 

[Jmudrick]

My guess is that the "gain cell" front-end is the culprit for most of the problems with this unit, not the ICEpower module.

Seems to me that makers like to "customize" their generic ICEpower/Ncore/Purifi-based amps with a front-end they devise according to their own -- otherwise how could they justify their inflated prices. PS Audio provides and excellent example.

Low-feedback proponents are tend to argue that feedback produces too much harsh high-order harmonic distortion, (which is true enough in itself), but ignore that more feedback reduces high-order distortion along with distortion overall. In reality I think what they are really after is more 2nd and/or 3rd order distortion which is deemed pleasant to the ear. Injecting these distrotion can be achieved with a "custom" front-end; in case of the M700 we can see there is plenty 3rd order distortion. I suspect the this is Gowan's implicit intent and that the result is consistent with his design goals.

This is exactly right.

 

[Alexanderc]

Is it my imagination, or is the less expensive stereo version of this amplifier better in almost every way (not peak power)?
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...d-measurements-of-ps-audio-s300-pwr-amp.9302/

 

[YSC]

is this the first PS audio stuffs which is not broken?

 

[F1308]

Unfortunately, they don't understand.

The same guys that think a clean 100W/ch will give them all the power they need, also think they can reproduce the full dynamic range of what CD is capable of in a normal listening environment. News flash: they can't even come close.

If people are going to bang on about needing a bare minimum of 96dB, they should also realize that their amplifiers will need to have a minimum of ~1500W/ch into a sensitive speaker (>91dB@1M/1W) to reproduce that range, even allowing for the quietest parts to disappear into the noise floor of their own (quiet) listening environment.

Basically, the amount of posturing bullsh#t in relation to this is astounding.

So, having a 93 dB sensitive pair of speakers, what are the differences between reproducing any of my old CDs through an AHB2 (SINAD 113) and Behringer A800 (SINAD 77), please ? My room is some 36.7 dB death quiet. Music goes from Palestrina to the very 2020.

 

[CDMC]

Has anyone noticed the casework is very Schiit-like?

Not complaining but in a sub $/£1000 product it's cool, but for $3000 I'd expect something a little better myself if I had the money. I mean, even Naim use quite heavy castings for the front panels of their legacy stereo stuff at similar money and higher...

PS Audio has made it clear they are concerned with one thing, profit. Last year they terminated all of their dealerships because many were selling their products at 30-40% off their list price. PS Audio was also doing the same thing and competing with their dealers. It is PS Audio's model to sell to those who will pay at the list price, unless you can negotiate a better price on the phone (they openly tell people to call in to get the best price). There is no question they are making huge profits off of these amplifiers. Take a look at prices of the A1200s amplifiers which PS Audio sells for $5998 for a monoblock pair with their inexpensive folded metal cases. You can buy the stereo versions of the amps with nicer cases from Nord an Apollon for less than $1,000.00.

https://www.apollonaudio.com/apollon-audio-as1200-class-d-ice-power-based-amplifier/

https://www.nordacoustics.co.uk/product-page/nord-two-ice1200as2-in-black

On a larger scale, Emotiva cranks out the 300asc module versions for $299 a piece with similar case quality to PS Audio. Given the small differences in pricing among the Icemodules, there is no doubt they could produce and sell the 700as or even 1200as monoblocks for less than $400 a piece.

https://emotiva.com/collections/amps/products/pa-1

The bottom line is that Paul is a master of marketing and his customers are very loyal and willing to pay a lot of money to purchase his story. Like most gurus, he presents information with a distant basis in fact, manipulates it to his story that while there is some truth in the base fact, there is much more to it, that only someone like him that has decades of experience can fully understand and that is what the customer is paying for. When confronted with poor measurements, his customer's responses are to defend all the money they have spent, attack the messenger, and claim that the data is being manipulated or cannot be measured.

 

[Panelhead]

I did not know they went Direct Marketing. These Mono’s would be 1500.00 - 1800.00 wholesale.
Doubt many dealers complained about the change.

 

[CDMC]

I did not know they went Direct Marketing. These Mono’s would be 1500.00 - 1800.00 wholesale.
Doubt many dealers complained about the change.

https://www.underwoodhifi.com/products/ps-audio

https://www.audioaficionado.org/showthread.php?t=46442

And Paul’s spin on it:
https://forum.psaudio.com/t/is-ps-audio-going-direct-sale-only/12247/11

It is true that over the next 4 months we will be moving to a direct-only model in the United States.

The world is changing in retail, and rather dramatically. While there are still some excellent dealers offering more than just an ability to order products—like advice, technical support, setup, etc.—an increasing number of sales in the United States are handled by online or catalog merchants (the Amazon Effect). While this “Home Depot” model of price-first and service and support second works well in some industries, we don’t think it serves our community as well as they deserve.

Our customers demand better. The only way we can ensure the same high level of advice, help, easy trial at home, and generous trade-in allowance for all our products is by moving to a direct model over the remaining months in 2019. What that means for our customers will be consistently better service, better advice, same-day-shipping, our industry leading trade-in program where we pay full retail for your used equipment, a whole raft of new initiatives and programs we’ve yet to roll out, and some exciting new products making their way into the world soon.

I am excited. Stay tuned.

 

[Rick Sykora]

If this is the expected performance, it is very disappointing. I think Amir was generous with the panther.

To charge $3000 for an amplifier that performs substantially worse than a $400 Outlaw 2220 is outlandish.

 

[Racheski]

Did you understand at all what I asked?

Yes. Did you understand what I asked?

 

[F1308]

It is true that over the next 4 months we will be moving to a direct-only model in the United States.

I guess it was the way to go since long, long ago...
Once internet came and the guy at the shop sells thousands of different products without even knowing anything about them , bar the price, there is no reason for them to exist.
I have never, ever in my whole life, received any good assistance while buying electronics...
I remember a gift for my wife, a world first digital camera from Minolta equipped with an outstanding SOTA periscope lense, 28-110 if my memory does not deceive me, and the men at the store were telling me to avoid it because it was a fix camera on the basis of it not moving, not going in and out... They simply had no idea about the product I finally bought !!!! I had to explain them !!!! The costumer briefing the seller...

 

[CDMC]

I guess it was the way to go since long, long ago...
Once internet came and the guy at the shop sells thousands of different products without even knowing anything about them , bar the price, there is no reason for them to exist.
I have never, ever in my whole life, received any good assistance while buying electronics...
I remember a gift for my wife, a world first digital camera from Minolta equipped with an outstanding SOTA periscope lense, 28-110 if my memory does not deceive me, and the men at the store were telling me to avoid it because it was a fix camera on the basis of if not moving, not going in and out... They simply had no idea about the product I finally bought !!!! I had to explain them !!!! The costumer briefing the seller...

There are some professional, educated, honest salespeople, but they are the minority. More often than not, I have received better quality advice from internet direct and online sellers than traditional storefronts.