PS Audio PowerPlant 12 Review (AC Regenerator)

My issue with this review and many other of his on ASR is it’s always about noise. That’s just one aspect of things.  This unit is advertised to keep as close to perfect wave for power. Feed it some junk and see what comes out. Also burst some hard play passages. What happens.  None of that. No listening comparisons. Just a crappy review. 

Yup!

What I always find curious, and this is a perfect example, is why there is this, at least implied, objection to someone else listening and arriving at a subjective impression; along with whatever other criteria the measurements may or may not satisfy. This is what belies the bias of the naysayers; the predisposition to NOT hear a difference. IOW, here we have the measurements and no listening. To some, the absence of listening impressions invalidates the review for reasons already mentioned. To others, listening is deemed irrelevant and subject to placebo effects; measurements are the last word. However, we still have the measurements. So, the objectivists have their “proof”. Why does it matter to the objectivists that others use different (additional) criteria (listening)?

This objectivist admits he has biases and under sighted testing would probably never hear a difference. Of course the claims made about the product under discussion would need certain test equipment to see if they held up as difference in SQ is not the only claim. Personally I don't care what anyone uses to decide on a purchase, measurements, listening,  pretty glowing tubes etc...  The fellow who performed the tests of the product actually did listen to it. He claimed no difference so now we can move the discussion to the next level. He's deaf, his stereo is junk, doesn't know what to listen for, yada..yada..yada

Paul McGowen posted that the “review” measured the wrong AC outlet. I don’t own a powerplant so I’m not familiar with the different outputs, but Paul said they should print a retraction for the error.

I call it the “idiot with an analyzer” phenomenon but psychologists have identified it as:

“Dunning-Kruger effect, in psychology, a cognitive bias whereby people with limited knowledge or competence in a given intellectual or social domain greatly overestimate their own knowledge or competence in that domain relative to objective criteria or to the performance of their peers or of people in general.”