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PS Audio PowerPlant 3 Review

Rate this AC Regenerator

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 268 91.8%
  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 11 3.8%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther)

    Votes: 4 1.4%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 9 3.1%

  • Total voters
    292
I only feel that amir isn't to the level he should be on topping amp reliability issues. He's "sly" about it now with little hints about reliability but he should just come out and say that the pa5 was a trash tier product.
I have explained this many times.

I get a ton of gear to review. I unpack the device, put it on the bench, do the testing and publish. I read the comments for a couple of days in the thread and then move on. I have little visibility then to what all customers discover later. Even if a person or two complains about something, I can't just run with that without verification myself. The forum is here for you all to do that. Indeed, we are the de-facto owner forum for Topping. In that sense, I am providing the platform for you all to get the message out if there is systematic problem there.

Now, if a product fails during my testing, you better be sure I point it out. Other than this, I don't consider it part of my job to read every post about every product and deduce issues and then go and shout about it. To be sure, I have done this once or twice before when members specifically contacted me about the issue.

Finally, as noted, no other reviewer does what you are asking me. What follow up has Stereophile done for a product they reviewed that turns out to have faults? I have never seen such a thing.
 
I have explained this many times.

I get a ton of gear to review. I unpack the device, put it on the bench, do the testing and publish. I read the comments for a couple of days in the thread and then move on. I have little visibility then to what all customers discover later. Even if a person or two complains about something, I can't just run with that without verification myself. The forum is here for you all to do that. Indeed, we are the de-facto owner forum for Topping. In that sense, I am providing the platform for you all to get the message out if there is systematic problem there.

Now, if a product fails during my testing, you better be sure I point it out. Other than this, I don't consider it part of my job to read every post about every product and deduce issues and then go and shout about it. To be sure, I have done this once or twice before when members specifically contacted me about the issue.

Finally, as noted, no other reviewer does what you are asking me. What follow up has Stereophile done for a product they reviewed that turns out to have faults? I have never seen such a thing.
Do they ever have faults when Stereo-ads-phile review them? :D Its a glorified PR piece lol
 
Adding on, it is well within my capabilities to set up reliability testing and conduct that for new devices. I just don't have the personal motivation to do it. Solving that required being able to hire someone to sit there and run these tests. That's probably a $50K/year expense to get someone to do that. If you all want me to do it, start a funding effort and I will get on it.
 
On Power Plant, this device is like a high current, high voltage amplifier. It likely has reliability issues of its own just like any other high power device. To the extent you add it to your system, then you have reduced the overall reliability of what you have.

Also, when you spend thousands of dollars buying one of their DACs, if it breaks out of warranty, you have significant exposure with respect to cost. Buy a $200 DAC and that is the maximum liability. The $200 DAC is likely to have far lower power consumption and circuits than what PS Audio sells so it is likely to be much more reliability.

Net, net, I would not go there if i were PS Audio.
 
Do they ever have faults when Stereo-ads-phile review them? :D Its a glorified PR piece lol
:) I do remember reading some devices failing when they were measuring them. Considering how expensive some of these are, it is amazing that they escape said PR damage.
 
I have explained this many times.

I get a ton of gear to review. I unpack the device, put it on the bench, do the testing and publish. I read the comments for a couple of days in the thread and then move on. I have little visibility then to what all customers discover later. Even if a person or two complains about something, I can't just run with that without verification myself. The forum is here for you all to do that. Indeed, we are the de-facto owner forum for Topping. In that sense, I am providing the platform for you all to get the message out if there is systematic problem there.

Now, if a product fails during my testing, you better be sure I point it out. Other than this, I don't consider it part of my job to read every post about every product and deduce issues and then go and shout about it. To be sure, I have done this once or twice before when members specifically contacted me about the issue.

Finally, as noted, no other reviewer does what you are asking me. What follow up has Stereophile done for a product they reviewed that turns out to have faults? I have never seen such a thing.
I hear what you're saying but clearly you know about the reliability issues with the pa5 and in your pa5 ii review you say:

> I am not sure of the motivation for going from PA5 to PA5 II (reliability?)

That is a massive understatement. You could have gone with something only slightly less than "topping pooped their bed with the pa5". Also, it would be awesome if you could have held the manufacturer responsible for this and made more of a deal of them offering a replacement pa5 ii to customers - you clearly have some sway. It can't be all that often that a product that you recommend (I understand you're not recommending their reliability in your recommendations) fails as much as this amplifier. Help your readers be more confident when they pick up things that you recommend by adjusting reviews and such for reliability outliers like this.

I just posted that I got my replacement and people are reaching out to me because they don't know that the offer exists.
 
You could have gone with something only slightly less than "topping pooped their bed with the pa5"

@amirm operates on the basis of objective data.

Anecdotal reports (however frequent) don't constitute objective data of failure rate, because they don't include number of units that have not failed in the sample. Further, failure reports are exaggerated because as soon as there is a place where people can vent their anger, then a much higher proportion of people experiencing problems will post -than those not experiencing problems.

Put it another way - unless the manufacturer publishes field failure rate data including number of units shipped compared to number of units failed - and topping will never do that for the PA5 - then there is insufficient OBJECTIVE data for Amir to make a definitive statement.
 
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500 people complain about failures but a million units have been shipped.

3 people complain about failures but only 50 units have been shipped.

Which is the more reliable product based on those numbers?

Only manufacturers have all the data (if they bother to compile it) and they very rarely share.

Amir is wise to avoid getting into the whole reliability thing, since there is no way to quantify it.
 
@amirm operates on the basis of objective data.

Anecdotal reports (however frequent) don't constitute objective data of failure rate, because they don't include number of units that have not failed in the sample. Further, failure reports are exaggerated because as soon as there is a place where people can vent their anger, then a much higher proportion of people experiencing problems will post -than those not experiencing problems.

Put it another way - unless the manufacturer publishes field failure rate data including number of units shipped compared to number of units failed - and topping will never do that for the PA5 - then there is insufficient OBJECTIVE data for Amir to make a definitive statement.
They cancelled production and came out with a new one and are offering replacements and it has multiple big threads.

Just because you can't tell what shade of grey something is doesn't mean you can't tell if it's black or white. This is not a slippery slope to deal with extreme outliers.
 
500 people complain about failures but a million units have been shipped.

3 people complain about failures but only 50 units have been shipped.

Which is the more reliable product based on those numbers?

Only manufacturers have all the data (if they bother to compile it) and they very rarely share.

Amir is wise to avoid getting into the whole reliability thing, since there is no way to quantify it.
Just because you can't quantify every product doesn't mean you can't easily see outliers. This was an easy to spot outlier and it's been brought to his attention for years now. He has a relationship with the manufacturer as well (even if it's as little as they send him review samples) so he could ask them about it.

Again, this is an obvious known (based on pa5 ii review commenting on it) reliability outlier on a product he recommended based on performance. If it weren't both of those, then it wouldn't matter.
 
Just because you can't quantify every product doesn't mean you can't easily see outliers. This was an easy to spot outlier and it's been brought to his attention for years now. He has a relationship with the manufacturer as well (even if it's as little as they send him review samples) so he could ask them about it.

Again, this is an obvious known (based on pa5 ii review commenting on it) reliability outlier on a product he recommended based on performance. If it weren't both of those, then it wouldn't matter.
And still you are handwaving and have no definitive objective data to present.
 
And still you are handwaving and have no definitive objective data to present.
How would you propose I would come up with data that would make you happy?

I'm kind of confused how topping replacing them with the new version isn't sufficient for you to believe there's an outlier problem rate. It seems you want your head buried in the sand.
 
How would you propose I would come up with data that would make you happy?

I'm kind of confused how topping replacing them with the new version isn't sufficient for you to believe there's an outlier problem rate. It seems you want your head buried in the sand.

As I've said - only topping has the objective data on field failure rate. You can't.

And I do believe they had a high failure rate, and I've publicly stated that this, together with their response to the problems mean Topping no longer will sell anything to me.

But how high - compared to all the competitors - I have no idea (and nor do you). Even if I did, belief is not enough for @amirm, who has set this place up as an objective science based forum, to make a definitive statement.

Again, "the plural of anecdote is not data"

I'll leave it there - we are going round in circles.
 
How would you propose I would come up with data that would make you happy?

I'm kind of confused how topping replacing them with the new version isn't sufficient for you to believe there's an outlier problem rate. It seems you want your head buried in the sand.

This may have escaped you, but the Chinese Hi-Fi industry seems to thrive on releasing new versions of existing products. That there's a PA5 II isn't unusual.
 
I've been reading this again for luls, and I started wondering:

Obvious voltage limitations aside, and assuming you could add a simple AC step-up converter, what if you actually used an amplifier fed by a reasonably good signal generator set to 50Hz?

You'd basically have a stellar mains filter (the PSU), and the amp itself with the clean input signal acting as "re"generator. All that's left is stepping it up to 230V.

Let's say you use a slightly modified oldschool beefy AB amp, the usual variety with overdimensioned transformer and etc.. 2x200W @1% THD and -90dB noise floor would surely be much better than this, and much cheaper too.

Still ultimately futile and pointless, but what a fun thought experiment. :p :D
 
I've been reading this again for luls, and I started wondering:

Obvious voltage limitations aside, and assuming you could add a simple AC step-up converter, what if you actually used an amplifier fed by a reasonably good signal generator set to 50Hz?

You'd basically have a stellar mains filter (the PSU), and the amp itself with the clean input signal acting as "re"generator. All that's left is stepping it up to 230V.

Let's say you use a slightly modified oldschool beefy AB amp, the usual variety with overdimensioned transformer and etc.. 2x200W @1% THD and -90dB noise floor would surely be much better than this, and much cheaper too.

Still ultimately futile and pointless, but what a fun thought experiment. :p :D
That's basically how most of the early ones worked. They have poor efficiency and thus get hot and have a high failure rate.

The current ones work differently, and get less warm.
They operate by taking the mains input, filter it (and remove spikes) and put that mains output in series with a small amp that adds/subtracts that what is 'missing' or 'too high' in the incoming mains compared to a synchronized reference sine-wave.
 
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