The Puritan PSM156

[Kingrex]

Well … All that I can be bothered to write at this point being that you appear to have zero knowledge of the design goals or implimentation of this product ! The Puritan system in no way interacts with or negates the mains safety to ground as installed in ones domicile by ones electricity utility provider , In the UK Or anywhere else on the planet as far as I can discern, contrary to your scaremongering.

Curiously another UK manufacturer , who produces the same equipment in design principle , provides a somewhat more digestible document than Puritan , which may assist

I don't care what some audio manufacturer told you to do. I am telling you in the USA, the NEC is absolutely clear you will not have a isolated ground system on your property. It has to be tied to the primary ground system your utility power is grounded too. No ifs ands or buts. I know the safty reason why, which you seem to feel don't apply to you or your family or neighbors. I am assuming its a fairly universal rule as the reasons behind it are centers around life safety.

I have told 2 customers of mine with Groundmasters I will not engage in a non code compliant installation. But I will happily bring a dedicated ground wire from the systems grounding electrode to the room. Both of those people said their ground master performed just fine for them connect that way. That is the electrical life safty code compliant way to conect a ground box/system to earth. Do not put a loose rod in the yard.

Even of you don't worry about killing someone, another reason is lightning. For some reasons when lightning strikes ground it has a tendency to walk up the ground in your house and out the the utility ground and back to earth again. It does weird things. Anyhow, a manufacturer of industrial machines was telling their customers to drive a ground rod into earth and to tie the equipment to it. Their machines kept failing. It turn out lightning was hitting ground and going up the extra ground rod, though their equipment and out the utility. I'm pretty sure a lightning strike to earth close to a home will blow right through any safety devices built into the groundmaster and fry your gear.

It works the other way too. If it hits the power line its racing to your panel and trying to exit out the ground to earth. If you have a ground rod out in the yard, some amount of that surge might race down the branch wire, through your gear and out the ground wire to the rod you stuck in the yard. A lot of factors at play, but its a very real possibility.
Enough said. Don't put a loose ground rod in your yard.

 

[Argonaut]

I don't care what some audio manufacturer told you to do. I am telling you in the USA, the NEC is absolutely clear you will not have a isolated ground system on your property. It has to be tied to the primary ground system your utility power is grounded too. No ifs ands or buts. I know the safty reason why, which you seem to feel don't apply to you or your family or neighbors. I am assuming its a fairly universal rule as the reasons behind it are centers around life safety.

I have told 2 customers of mine with Groundmasters I will not engage in a non code compliant installation. But I will happily bring a dedicated ground wire from the systems grounding electrode to the room. Both of those people said their ground master performed just fine for them connect that way. That is the electrical life safty code compliant way to conect a ground box/system to earth. Do not put a loose rod in the yard.

Even of you don't worry about killing someone, another reason is lightning. For some reasons when lightning strikes ground it has a tendency to walk up the ground in your house and out the the utility ground and back to earth again. It does weird things. Anyhow, a manufacturer of industrial machines was telling their customers to drive a ground rod into earth and to tie the equipment to it. Their machines kept failing. It turn out lightning was hitting ground and going up the extra ground rod, though their equipment and out the utility. I'm pretty sure a lightning strike to earth close to a home will blow right through any safety devices built into the groundmaster and fry your gear.

It works the other way too. If it hits the power line its racing to your panel and trying to exit out the ground to earth. If you have a ground rod out in the yard, some amount of that surge might race down the branch wire, through your gear and out the ground wire to the rod you stuck in the yard. A lot of factors at play, but its a very real possibility.
Enough said. Don't put a loose ground rod in your yard.

I don’t own a “Yard”

http://www.puritanaudiolabs.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Ground-Master-PDF.pdf

Puritan Audio Labs GroundMaster CITY and RouteMaster system by Terry London

Imbedded in my review of the Rockna Audio Wavelight DAC (reviewed here), I shared my total amazement when I inserted the Puritan Audio Laboratories GroundMaster device into the Puritan Audio Laboratories PSM-136 power conditioner to ground my system. The effect on the performance of my system...

www.stereotimes.com

 

[Republicoftexas69]

Apples for oranges comparing the Ground-master and the Ground Master City. I would error on the side of electrical codes in the States though, if you ever had to make an insurance claim.

@Kingrex you are 100% right.

 

[wil]

And you feel quite comfortable gate crashing a thread , specifically, opened for the discussion about a product which just happens to be a product directly competing with a product that you peddle , demeaning said product as against the one that you are making money from selling … Are you serious , No one in this thread remotely opened up the discussion to the effect “ People are asking what works “ You saw an advertising opportunity plain and simple !!!

I don’t think there has to be a wall around a thread simply because it’s titled “Puritan”, “Shunyata”, “Torus” or whatever. Also, this thread is not a sponsored thread, which would have a more a strict “don’t tread on me” protocol.

I value hearing Rex’s perspective or anyone else’s on any thread. Yes, he sells Torus. Take that into account. He also, in my opinion, is a good source of information re electrical infrastructure as it relates to Audio. But, make your own conclusions.

If every thread related to a product, or anything else, is to be a no-fly zone to alternative views, then WBF is pretty much worthless to me.

 

[Argonaut]

Entirely your prerogative of course to consider his post in that light … tho perhaps others may view the same content through a somewhat different prism .

Perhaps you might like to try something similar over on the following threads and see how that goes !

Lampizator announcement: launch of our all new TOTL HORIZON DAC

Horizon The DAC of the future Lampizator announcement: launch of our all new TOTL HORIZON DAC Just when I thought that our TOTL Pacific DAC would be the end of the road for us, we decided to change the tactics concerning the improvements. Instead of making small incremental improvements of the...

www.whatsbestforum.com

Taiko Audio SGM Extreme : the Crème de la Crème

There is no such thing as a "USB-spec compliant printer cable." All USB cables are either USB compliant or not, a printer is a device that, if implementing USB for I/O and / or power needs to adhere to USB specs like any other USB - capable device. Indeed, "printer cable" is just an expression...

www.whatsbestforum.com

 

[wil]

Entirely your prerogative of course to consider his post in that light … tho perhaps others may view the same content through a somewhat different prism .

Perhaps you might like to try something similar over on the following threads and see how that goes !

Lampizator announcement: launch of our all new TOTL HORIZON DAC

Horizon The DAC of the future Lampizator announcement: launch of our all new TOTL HORIZON DAC Just when I thought that our TOTL Pacific DAC would be the end of the road for us, we decided to change the tactics concerning the improvements. Instead of making small incremental improvements of the...

www.whatsbestforum.com

Taiko Audio SGM Extreme : the Crème de la Crème

There is no such thing as a "USB-spec compliant printer cable." All USB cables are either USB compliant or not, a printer is a device that, if implementing USB for I/O and / or power needs to adhere to USB specs like any other USB - capable device. Indeed, "printer cable" is just an expression...

www.whatsbestforum.com

Agreed, but these are sponsored threads, if I’m not mistaken.

I do think WBF should label sponsored threads a little more emphatically!

 

[Kingrex]

I would not have said anything about Torus if the question was not posed for a comparison of the Puritan vs Shunyata. Power conditioners are still the wild west. People want to know what your getting for your money. When that door was open, I thought, why not include other options.
And it seems it was beneficial for me to include my thoughts as others were able to drop prices and say their Puritan performs at a very high level for an affordable price.

To Wil's point, there are paid vendor threads. I pay thousands a year to be on Whatsbest. If I was running a thread like Lampizator or lucas Audio or Wadax, I would not want others pitching their products in comparison. When I comment on thread like this, anyone is open to respond and say they heard better for less. I am personally near needing a new server. I would love to hear people comparing other servers to Taiko to know the true performance characteristics. But thats not happening on the Taiko thread. Nor should it. And the Taiko group stays pretty put there and don't venture out to compare with Inuos or Aurender or others. So we don't really know. For the quantity of Puritan products, people have all sorts of room to post on what they are successfully attaching. There is still somone on hear wanting to know if they can land a 250 watt amp on it. Instead of chasing after me, maybe people can look at what they are using and provide a little perspective on how far you can push the unit.

 

[adyc]

Not long time ago, there is someone in this thread gate crashing into NVS direct TT measurement thread accusing dubious measurement method. The result of this thread is a very valuable industry member quitting WBF. Similar things happen here. Someone is selling competitive products saying Shunyata or Puritans pumping so much noise back into mains which are not true at least in my case spanning fears into competitors products. If he is really fair, he should acknowledge an isolation transformer also have its own problems.

 

[adyc]

Agreed, but these are sponsored threads, if I’m not mistaken.

I do think WBF should label sponsored threads a little more emphatically!

I don’t know about Horizon’s thread. The big Taiko thread was originally started by a very knowledgeable HK audiophile. And I know that Taiko did not sponsor him starting this thread. Any evidence that you can show us it has become a Taiko sponsor thread.

 

[adyc]

To Wil's point, there are paid vendor threads. I pay thousands a year to be on Whatsbest. If I was running a thread like Lampizator or lucas Audio or Wadax, I would not want others pitching their products in comparison. When I comment on thread like this, anyone is open to respond and say they heard better for less. I am personally near needing a new server. I would love to hear people comparing other servers to Taiko to know the true performance characteristics. But thats not happening on the Taiko thread. Nor should it. And the Taiko group stays pretty put there and don't venture out to compare with Inuos or Aurender or others. So we don't really know. For the quantity of Puritan products, people have all sorts of room to post on what they are successfully attaching. There is still somone on hear wanting to know if they can land a 250 watt amp on it. Instead of chasing after me, maybe people can look at what they are using and provide a little perspective on how far you can push the unit.

That again show you lack of information of the people participating in Taiko thread and start throwing accusations around. A high percentage of people in these threads have in one way or the another built their own servers before or bought competitors products had greatly discussed their experiences in forums other WBF. There is no need for them to repeat their experiences or comparisons in Taiko threads. They have found their ultimate servers.

 

[Argonaut]

I don’t know about Horizon’s thread. The big Taiko thread was originally started by a very knowledgeable HK audiophile. And I know that Taiko did not sponsor him starting this thread. Any evidence that you can show us it has become a Taiko sponsor thread.

Quite …As far as I can discern those threads were opened in an open forum and not within a manufacturers paid for ring fenced area , they were simply stickied at a later date given the traffic within them, unless we are advised to the contrary, ergo my challenge such as it is stands!

Anyway this spurious technicality aside , Perhaps I am afflicted with a somewhat different moral compass in that for my part I find it rather shabby behaviour when a dealer of a particular product considers it quite OK to latch on to an extremely tenuous “opening” in order to initially damn with faint praise, a competing manufactures product, only to then go ’All In’ with unsubstantiated tales of the couple of “customers prefer” gambit … No ? Either way it would appear that this thread has been successfully trashed !

 

[tobiasrankin]

Ok to bring this back to the puritan, has anyone compared it to the niagara 5000 or the furman reference 20i ?

 

[caliaripaolo]

There is still somone on hear wanting to know if they can land a 250 watt amp on it. Instead of chasing after me, maybe people can look at what they are using and provide a little perspective on how far you can push the unit.

I have my Soulution 710 power amp connected to the Puritan. The 710 has a Nominal power rating of 2.3KW. As I wrote you, the Puritan is not a Transformer like the Torus is. I suggest you to try the Puritan PSM156 connected to the Torus.

 

[Anyoldears]

Ok to bring this back to the puritan, has anyone compared it to the niagara 5000 or the furman reference 20i ?

I compared the Niagara 3000 to the PSM156. It wasnt even close, the Puritan easily beat it. Dont how different the 5000 is to the 3000, but at the mid level, easy win for Puritan

 

[JasperJ]

Compared to the PS Audio P12 and the Puritan 156 was returned. I was looking for a alternate solution to toroidal hum coming off the P12. I bought into the hype of the 156 so I picked one up. Had a neighbor and a relative do a double blind test and we all liked the P12 better. Comments were more body, fuller, more space, detailed, for the P12. For the 156, lean, wider sound stage, mid bass missing, bit sharp. Had a very hard time returning it because the dealer would not accept three sets of ears opinions. Not trying to hate on it, just my 2¢

 

[Anyoldears]

Compared to the PS Audio P12 and the Puritan 156 was returned. I was looking for a alternate solution to toroidal hum coming off the P12. I bought into the hype of the 156 so I picked one up. Had a neighbor and a relative do a double blind test and we all liked the P12 better. Comments were more body, fuller, more space, detailed, for the P12. For the 156, lean, wider sound stage, mid bass missing, bit sharp. Had a very hard time returning it because the dealer would not accept three sets of ears opinions. Not trying to hate on it, just my 2¢

How long did you run the PSM156 for, probably need 100 hours like most things to settle down?

 

[JasperJ]

How long did you run the PSM156 for, probably need 100 hours like most things to settle down?

30 days. I really did want to like it too. My amp has some hum and as I said the P12 has hum off it... did not solve any hums or make things dead silent like all the reviews claim. Dealer said that is the way it is supposed to sound? Was suggested my system was not resolving enough to benefit from it... why not make it for a wider audience then? I am not a PS Audio fan, but the Regens are hard to beat IMO... or at least have not found something that does not have something sounds wise from the music that sounds better. Would love to fine something with out a transformer in it that sounds as good or better than P12!

 

[Anyoldears]

30 days. I really did want to like it too. My amp has some hum and as I said the P12 has hum off it... did not solve any hums or make things dead silent like all the reviews claim. Dealer said that is the way it is supposed to sound? Was suggested my system was not resolving enough to benefit from it... why not make it for a wider audience then? I am not a PS Audio fan, but the Regens are hard to beat IMO... or at least have not found something that does not have something sounds wise from the music that sounds better. Would love to fine something with out a transformer in it that sounds as good or better than P12!

OK fair enough. Surprised, but at least you gave it a fair go!

 

[Argonaut]

30 days. I really did want to like it too. My amp has some hum and as I said the P12 has hum off it... did not solve any hums or make things dead silent like all the reviews claim. Dealer said that is the way it is supposed to sound? Was suggested my system was not resolving enough to benefit from it... why not make it for a wider audience then? I am not a PS Audio fan, but the Regens are hard to beat IMO... or at least have not found something that does not have something sounds wise from the music that sounds better. Would love to fine something with out a transformer in it that sounds as good or better than P12!

But is not the role and point of the Puritan to clean up your incoming mains , and not to solve what sounds like a deficient mains transformer built into your incumbent amplifier ? How would the Puritan achieve this ?

 

[Sunra]

Compared to the PS Audio P12 and the Puritan 156 was returned. I was looking for a alternate solution to toroidal hum coming off the P12. I bought into the hype of the 156 so I picked one up. Had a neighbor and a relative do a double blind test and we all liked the P12 better. Comments were more body, fuller, more space, detailed, for the P12. For the 156, lean, wider sound stage, mid bass missing, bit sharp. Had a very hard time returning it because the dealer would not accept three sets of ears opinions. Not trying to hate on it, just my 2¢

Regarding your hum issue have you considered the possibility of DC voltage on your incoming AC line. DC voltage is notorious for causing DC hum in toroidal transformers. I recently added a Puritan PSM 156 to my primary system, and the jury is still out on its sonic benefits. Odd thing regarding Puritan when I investigated the possibility of a trial unit with Brian of Pro Audio to determine its effectiveness in my system he couldn't recommend a local dealer (Chicago area) to accommodate the request. Sales of the device seem to be driven by online banter IMO rather than in home demos. I ended up purchasing a used unit to demo, figuring I could flip it should it not offer meaningful improvement. Out of the box the PSM156 seems to offer a value based solution, but likely there are better options at a cost. My used unit did not survive the journey as the nylon fasteners securing the circuit board failed. The circuit board bounced around inside the unit on its journey resulting in several capacitors being dislodged from their mounting as well. I sent it in to ProAudio Ltd for repair, and Brian indicated it was a known issue likely caused by rough handling. I also have a PS Audio P15 in a different system, and have yet to compare the two. I am none too keen on the complexity of the P15, mainly long term reliability concerns, preferring a meaningful passive approach.