PS Audio Ultimate Outlet--Holy Smokes


I'm running Snell EIII, B+K Pro 5 preamp, Rotel 990BX power amp, $1500 worth of Tara Cables, Rotel RCD 971 CD player. I live in an apartment complex.

I just received an Ultimate Outlet, new, for a really good price on EBay. I know my system really well--I've had it for 15 years. Never used a power conditioner before. I plugged the amp into one outlet on the UO and the pre into the other amp. An amazing difference! I expected the noise floor to drop, and that's about it. But it's as significant as going from cheap cables and interconnects to quality ones. The bass is much cleaner, the voices image more tightly, the soundstage is broader, the highs crisper. What an amazing difference. Who knew that my power was making such a difference in the way my system sounds.

Matt
descartes
i have two ultimate outlets.

i have a different perception of what the ultimate does in my system.

in my case the affect upon the highs is the exact opposite of what descartes reported. i like what they do for the reason that the affect is subtractive in the treble.

i find the overall affect is a slight loss in resolution.
First things first, I am one of THE biggest skeptics when it comes to those “enhancement” accessory products we all get bombarded with (No, I'm not talking about those XXX ones either). However, being the eternal merry-go-round audio upgrade person that I am, I find myself always wanting to try some of them. Rarely do I purchase any of them because they either don’t do what they were advertised to do or their cost doesn’t justify the small incremental change I might have heard. In this instant case, I figured what the heck because I didn’t have to do anything. My friend wanted to try them too, so he ordered a set of five so we could both try them in two different settings with different systems.

The PS Audio Harvesters arrived last week and he plugged them into his system. After several hours of listening he unplugged them to listen again. And,…nadda…no noticeable changes. He keep doing a before and after and stated he may have noticed a slight change but chalked it up to psycho-acoustics because he couldn’t tell when they were plugged in verses when they weren’t.

Fast forward to today. My friend arrives to give me an opportunity to listen to the Harvesters. He also had a Butler amp in tow as well. I told him let’s listen to the Harvesters first to get that ‘little’ trial out of the way and then we can move to the amp. We both were making fun of the Harvesters as I was plugging them in one in at a time around the first flour of my house (no disrespect towards you Paul McG). Something along the lines, “oooh look at the light blink” and “can you hear it now?” I sat down to listen critically and my friend picked up some magazines to read and be indifferent and dismissive towards this trial since they didn’t work over at his place.

IMHO my system is a well-balanced one with good top to bottom tonal quality and a decent soundstage (wide and deep). Not the final word by any stretch of the imagination, but a system I listen to at relatively high volumes without getting fatigued. To my surprise, I noticed a difference right away since I was playing a cd I was very familiar with and had played just before he arrived. My friend had also used the same disc as part of several he had used and was very familiar with the sound of my system.

Needless to say, he put the magazine down and started to critically listen. I switched between having them plugged in and unplugged and each time the change was noticeable and significant.

The Harvesters seemed to fill the sound stage in more by separating the instruments and making the sound stage have more depth and 3D like. I always felt my speakers disappeared in the room but the Harvesters showed they could really disappear. One way to test this observation was I moved out of the center sweet spot and moved laterally to be directly in front of one channel. I listened with and without the Harvesters and could hear the sound stage open up wider and go deeper. It was like a plume of sound moved from the farthest channel towards the middle enlarging the sweet spot.

I don’t know how these things work and perform their task (even after reading PS Audio’s propaganda), but they do work in my system. My friend left them for me to live with for a week and determine if there is a cost benefit factor to warrant keeping them. I am digging out all my familiar music to give them a workout. The final test is to use my secret weapon and number one critic -- my bride. I’ll let her listen to they system with the Harvesters plugged in and unplugged. She is younger and has different peaks and valleys in her listening range than I do. I trust her opinion because she isn’t afflicted with this audio sickness, or is it a hobby.

This certainly proves YMMV because my friend felt they were useless in his system, but in my system they did make a positive change. Go figure!

PS I hope the blue lights don't have an adverse affect on my eyesight due to wanting to stare at them for prolonged periods. Hahahahahaha!
If you liked the outlet and the p-300 then try the Noise Harvesters. I was very skeptical that they would work but they made my system's soundstage more layered and the overall sound more coherent.

I purchased 5 of them for $399.00 from www.Mr-Cable.com at the Vacuum Tube Valley show held here in Los Angeles this past weekend at the the same as the Stereophile Entertainment 2006 show. He was very easy to deal with and is highly recommended.
Matt - I've recently become a PS Audio convert as well. I started out with a P300 Powerplant and was very pleasantly surprised. I've since added an Ultimate Outlet and a UPC200 HB and it mirrors your experience.